Friday

Friday I woke up early to finish this paper as it was due at 4. I worked on the paper a bit in my apartment then headed up to the library to work there and also meet Ashley to get a few directions on how they wanted sources done. I worked till about 3 on the paper reaching my word count and a satisfied level of completeness and revision and went to go turn it in around 3:30. Whooooo...done!
On my way back from turning it in I went and paid for my field trips for my Marine Environment class as the Aquarium trip was the next day. Also went by the book store to check if the 2nd reader was in for my class...no dice.
Walked home afterward. It was a beautiful day. As I got back to the beach I walked along the wall near the beach. Right behind me seemed to be the entire Randwick rugby club dressed in their rugby clothes. Not sure why, but they were just walking along the beach. Publicity stunt? I also saw some of the crew down by the beach. I found out later they were burying some ppl and shaped them into a mermaid being eaten by a shark.
I got back home and attempted to take a nap but was interrupted by Ashley and Aubrey coming in to see if I would cook them Fajitas that night. I obliged and told them what I would need. They and Charlie went shopping while I lounged around. Large crew came and we had massive amounts of really good guac and fajitas.
Being too early to do any sort of going out or whatnot, we played a few games to entertain ourselves. Classically had a few rounds of Mafia followed by a game of charades. Apparently we had some misunderstanding when it came to the nature of the game. Our teams topics were aimed at being challenging but funny if done right. The other team went for impossible. Half of their topics we hadn't heard of and others were things like 1776. You try acting out a year. I got that and just started going for clues. Not being able to do numbers I finally got my team to understand it was a number and actually got the clue with some long list of years and a lot of forward and back motion.
We wound up going to Aubrey's for the night. There we saw Aliza who had a terrible sunburn. She went out for an hour thinking she would get some sunscreen afterward and was burnt badly by the time she even got to the store. After chilling there for a while, we wound up going out to the cliffs to walk and just kinda sit and enjoy the surroundings. Fun, relaxing and a little on the mountain climber side. When we went back in, the girls promised us cookies as we sat out on the porch, but none were made.....bastards! Eh, se la vie. Still a good night.

The small novel.

This week was really the work week. That weekend I spent all saturday and Sunday working on the two 2000 worders due on Monday. I finished them, barely edited them and was done. Successful handing in on Monday. Monday night was spent doing the weekly reading/response for Media. Tuesday was spent somewhat doing the readings for God Life, but most were put off until the next morning. At this point we've memorized the playlist for the Scuffy's band as they play the same songs every week, but no complaints because they are great party songs or ones that everyone knows the words to, although I tend to disagree with their redition of Walk 500 miles. More fun pictures. I swear people must steal my camera while we are there because I come back with like 50+ pictures and wonder when I took them all.
Wednesday morning was the finishing of the God Life response and running to class with it.
Thursday was the fun day. Ashley and I headed downtown bright and early to the NSW state library. Our teacher for Sport Law had told us that this library was great for gathering primary sources for our papers due on Friday...so we adventured.
This was the MOST intense library I have ever gone to. We walked in past the little security-like desk and they stopped us and told us we couldn't bring in our backpacks. Odd, but OK. We had to deposit them in these electronic, but free lockers down the hall. So we got our laptops, books and notebooks that we needed and left the bags there. We walked back in only to get stopped again. Ashely had brought books from the USNW library, so she had to fill out a form for every book she brought in, almost like a little manifest. Strange, but sure, don't wanna get confused, I understand. So we grab a table and get set up. Ashley goes to start looking for resources and I start looking at some sorces I had already gotten on my computer. I went to join her and found out that we have to register to even search for books. uhhh..ok, sure. filled out a form on a computer, went over to another desk, presented a photo ID, and they gave us a card with some registration number on it. Cool, off to find some books! .....nooooot quite. So you can look through a catalogue on the computer, but apparently you don't go find the books. You fill out a form for every book you want and give it to the guy at this desk. THEY go find it for you and bring it to a drop off point you're supposed to check in 10min or so to see if it's there. Luckily we were sitting right next to the drop point so that was easy. So we got our books, wrote, researched etc. I didn't bother trying to figure out how to setup the wireless as I'm sure it would take 15 more steps to "register" or something. We went out around 1 or 2 to go get some lunch. Found a little cafe on a corner that had some really good sandwhiches and such. I felt very metropolitan sitting at a corner cafe looking up at skyscrapers.
We got a bit more done at the library and then headed back for the night as she was pretty much done and I was pretty tired of working.
Almost done! Fun!

R, double O, S-T-E-R-S...ROOSTERS!

So on Friday of this week, had a bit of a special day. Took a small break from I guess what I was supposed to be doing (work) and had a bit of fun. The two instructors for my sport law class had scored some free tickets to a Sydney Roosters game through some of their contacts. Roosters are the Rugby League team (as opposed to the swans that are the AFL and the wallabies that are Rugby Union...try to keep up).
As most of the people I know aren't in my sport law class, it was a bit of a solo adventure but it was good. We met David and Tony (instructors) at the Olympic Hotel right next to the stadium where we all had a few beers before heading in. Got to know a few others in my class as well as some people studying abroad at a different exchange program (Tony taught over there once a week).
The night itself was rainy and a bit cold, but no worries. We went to the game and everything was wet, but we sat under the large awning so we didn't get soaked. The game was really low scoring, final score was 10-0, but no one scored till the second half. The highlight of the night was probably cold beer, warm chips and a picture with the mascot.
After the game ended we all disbanded and the Coogee residents tried to hail a cab back but MY GOD, ever cab was full. After about 30 min of trying to get a cab we decided to head to the bus stop. Adventures galore! So navigating to the nearest stop turned into a challenge. We headed over to where the bus road was but couldn't head down the road (no sidewalk), but almost did before we were stopped (totally could have walked down it). Instead we walked on the other side of the fence, but we eventually hit a dead end on the fence that either made us walk back through the stadium to get to it...oooor, we could hop the fence and head down that bus lane. Now, not the most climbing friendly fence in the world. I went second....
Picture if you will...wade standing on top of a small metal fence (more black metal bars, not chain linked) balancing precariously. The dismount was something you might imagine the 9yr old Chinese acrobatic team to do, just less graceful. That and I my landing was perfectly stuck right into a muddy puddle! I gave it a 10.
We got on the bus eventually after way to long walking, wandering, hoping fences and generally getting wet and made it safely home.

So we rushed down in the rain to take a picture with this rooster. We may or may not have punted some small children out of the way to get our picture. ....whoops. But it was fun. Don't remember any of these guys names though.

Work week starts...

This week was pretty average. Classes, scruffy's, steak night, last minute assignment work, etc.
However, this week there were a couple of noticeable differences. On Monday I signed up for the GRE! joy... I'm taking it on the 15th. I figured I could just take it sooner just because I know I won't study any more than if i took it a week later.
So on my to do list I have about 8000 words to type. Two weekly 1000 word assignements (as per usual) to comment on readings. One 2000 word take home test due on Monday for God, Life class. One 2000 word essay due Monday for my Media class on an examination of how I and others use media in everyday life and what trends I saw in logs I collected (thank you Mike and Cullen). And lastly I have a 2000 word essay due next Friday that tries to explain how the working class influenced the sporting culture of Australia for my Sport Law class. Oh the joy!!
Naturally, most of these won't get done until the weekend, but I'm trying to knock out some of the research and groundwork for them now.
This is the reason I got tired of writing blogs because typing after a while gets incredibly old, even when it is for fun!

A little picture of me and the girls at scruffy's. Sorry, janessa kinda got cut out. Arm length pictures are often inaccurate.

Hold on guys

Sorry about the lack of posts on here, everyone. I'm currently in the middle of my work week and frankly haven't had the energy to type more than what I have to. I'm 3 for 5 on papers done this week and should finish them by Friday. Then I'm taking the GRE on monday! woo...

Moral of the story...gimme till monday and I'll start re-posting.
Hope you all are doing well. Trying to make the rounds by phone or IM.

Cheers, mates!
Wade

Brunch-Off, round 2

Charlie's turn! We all rolled out of bed at our own time. Charlie said that he would have it hot and ready at 11:30am. It wound up being more like 12-12:30, but I didn't mind. He wound up making eggs, sausage, inordinate amounts of pancakes and oranges. Many many many people came. I'd say at least 12. The official vote on who won the brunch-off was inconclusive more hoping that they might try again. ;)
After brunch there were a few games, mafia included (these guys really like this game) and some general chilling. The rest of the afternoon I don't really remember at this point. But I do remember it was a good day!

Brunch-Off! & more AFL

This morning had been long awaited this week. Charlie and Ben had challenged each other to a brunch-off. Each was to cook meals that morning and we (the rest of the bystanders) were to judge and proclaim a winner. Charlie actually didn't participate this morning. Don't remember the reason, but basically said he would do it tomorrow. Fine for us, that meant we got 2 b-fast made for us in a row.
Ben made amazing food. It basically involved heavenly pancakes, French toast, a fruit salad (pear, kiwi and banana), and some Australian cake looking thing with strawberries. He cooked. We set off the fire alarm 6 times...the sign of a good meal (very temperamental fire alarms) and we all just talked and talked smack between the two chefs. In food coma, we sat down to play a nice vicious game of Mafia. I started out as all powerful narrator, but soon had no creativity and the title passed to drew (who decided to kill people with some sort of starfish-mutant breakfast invovling fiasco...we don't know).
It was a beautiful day. So later after brunch, we headed out to the beach to just kinda play around. Couple guys tossed around the football, others lie on the beach reading their books (they had esentially made lounge chairs carved outta the sand...interesting technique), I just lay their playing with cards and just thinking...it was nice. We lie out there for a hour or two eventually starting up a game of ERS. I had talked to Kim and Alex in the mean time and they were doing the Bondi-Coogee walk. I was hoping they might meet up with us before the game, but they went off to dinner after we headed in.
We did meet up (Kim, Alex, Aliza and others) to go to the IES free trip to an AFL game. Merlin, you're the man. He scored us pretty good tickets to the AFL game of Sydney versus Brisbane Lions at the Sydney Cricket grounds. Merlin, Mike and I traded off bying rounds for ourselves at the game. Merlin was actually pretty histerical that night for many reasons. The Swans DESTROYED the lions in the game. Their score was DOUBLE the lions. Something like 54 to 117 or soemthign crazy like that. Kinda shameful almost.
Most people headed back afterward. A couple of us were up for going out, but since the group diminished so much and we weren't necessarily dressed to impress, we wound up just going to a bar near Three Wise Monkeys (spanish bar of some sort) and just talking for a while.




We did however pass a guy on the street playing guitar while BALANCING another guitar on his head. Strange? yes.