Days in Sydney

I’ve been in Sydney for about a week now; it’s crazy how time flies by!

There’s so much to see and do here and it’s awesome I’ve been surrounded by friends. It’s kind of sad though that everyone is leaving. So hard to leave Marieke and my other friends in Towns, then Inga left this afternoon and my friend Kristen is leaving tonight!

Watching them leave I guess makes me ready to leave too, because it wouldn’t be as much fun in Australia without this people.

Can’t believe I only have 12 days left in Oz!

No man’s land.

I hate the feeling you have when you are ready to do something but you can’t do it until a certain time.

For example I have a presentation to give at 11am, make up for the one I missed because of my accident, and I am so ready to give it now! I just want to get it over with because until I give it, I can’t start studying for my final tomorrow.

But now I have nothing really to do for 50 minutes and it is so boring! I’m in no-man’s land just waiting and wasting time that could be better spent.

Only 2 1/2 days left in Townsville! Too bad my exam tomorrow is at 5pm, because that means I have to spend all day studying because if I decide to do something else and I do poorly on my exam (60% of my grade, eeek!) then I will definitely regret it!

Bright news is I got an D+ (Distinction Plus!) on my Cinema paper! Woo hoo! It’s strange to have it be one of the few times in my life I will ever be happy for that grade!

Townsville actually has some culture!

Marieke and I went to the Riverside pool today to do some studying and there was actually a Filipino festival going on with filipino food and music! This is the first time I’ve experienced some type of culture in Townsville and was very exciting. I had my camera but left my memory card in my computer, so no pictures 🙁

We didn’t stay long there because we went to study, which was kind of hard to do on a Sunday afternoon lounging at the pool and where it was too hot to sit in the sun and too cold to sit in the shade.

We did get some reading done, then went to a car wash and washed Marieke’s car which hadn’t been washed in over 2 months and after 2 loong roadtrips was filthy. Even now it could still use another rinse!

Then later I went over to hang out with my Norwegian friend and watch Disney’s Hercules. Can’t believe I’m leaving Towns in 5 days!!

So going to miss my people here! :/

A day better than expected

Today I had my first exam at 8.15am and I woke up at 5.30am–after going to bed around 1am– because I was feeling paranoid I would oversleep.

The test went pretty okay and I even got to write an essay on a question I was hoping would be on the exam! Afterwards I met up in the computer lab with Marieke who was working on her final draft of her bachelor thesis. Once she finished that, we decided we wanted to get some lunch then go to the beach. We ran into my friend Cecelia who also wanted to join and we even managed to get my other two roommates (though flatmate might be a better term seeing as I do NOT share a room with anyone) Karolina and Vinod to come.

The sky was a clear blue and it warm but not too hot. (Reminded me of California actually!) The stingers have all migrated, so the stinger nets were taken down and we could enjoy just swimming in the ocean wherever we wanted. The tide was really low compared to the past months and the water was colder as well so I didn’t spend that much time swimming. It was really nice just to lie on the beach and watch skydivers floating in the air before they came to a landing on the beach right next to us (I would love to skydive over the ocean and land on the beach!!)

Then we got delicious gelato from Juliette’s cafe on the strand (Ferrero Rocher ice cream is beyond amazing!) and then we drove up Castle Hill to get a view of the entire town and surrounding area. It was very pretty to go see again (I had done a hike up when my friend Kristen visited me) and because today was Saturday there were two brides having wedding pictures taken. It was funny because one of the couples we had seen on the strand earlier when they had their marriage ceremony!

Then we came home and I made a stirfry (vegan!) with rice for Karolina and me because she ALWAYS is cooking or baking for me and it was time for me to do it! Then Karolina, Marieke and I watched “Moulin Rouge” which was directed/ written by Baz Lurhman (australian) who also did the same for the movie “Australia” and “Romeo & Juliet” with Claire Danes and Leonardo Di Caprio. Moulin Rouge was even filmed in Sydney which is pretty cool and must have been nice for Nicole Kidman to be close to family and friends. (Good random movie choice seeing as I havent really seen any Oz films since I’ve been here!)

So overall, a much better day than I thought it would be!

Presentation rescheduled

So my teacher finally got back to me today and told me my presentation has been rescheduled to next Wed! So glad she got a hold of me (FINALLY) though I wish I could get my presentation over with already.

Now I have two days to study for my english exam. 3 hours, 3 essays, woo hoo! I really need to review all my notes and study for this! I will probably try to reread some of the books we talked about just so I have some refresher ideas. Oh, and I was able to get special consideration for the exam in light of my injuries and will be able to have more breaks in the exam in case i cannot sit for 3 hours straight! Marieke bought me a rubber coccyx cushion today so that should help but it still hurts to sit for a long period of time.

My plan tomorrow is to not move and study studys study so i can rest my knee because I think I’ve been walking too much and want to relax.

Met the landlords of our house for the first time today and long story, but also the very belligerent lady that lives in the house behind ours. If I have more time will explain later, but basically she is flipped out about the tiniest noises ever. Seriously, if she is mad Marieke talks on her phone outside at 10pm, then she shouldn’t be screaming her head off which apparently she does all the time.

Tribulation at Cape Trib

I’ve been so busy lately and have updated in a while! I have so much to post, but for now I just will talk about recent news.

I went up to Cairns and Cape Tribulation this past week with my friend Marieke as a pre-exam study break. However, on our horseback ride in Cape Trib I fell off my horse while cantering and landed straight on my tailbone (straining my back) and really hurting my knee.

I wasn’t able to go to the hospital about it until Sunday because Cape Trib is a protected rainforest with limited people up there and there are no doctors or hospitals nearby. Luckily, I didn’t break or fracture anything, but it really hurts to sit or walk (I’m limping around like a 90 year old with arthritis– I know what it feels like to be old and it sucks!)

So now I am hobbling around with crutches and trying to stay off my knee much as possible. I’m also trying to get ahold of my teacher because I was supposed to give a presentation on Monday but it hurt too much to travel on Sunday so I missed it. I’ve sent a few emails to her but have yet to hear a response so if I don’t get one by tomorrow morning I’m going to talk to someone else in the school about it.

I’m also only up in Townsville for 9 more days so I’m beginning to study for my two exams and figuring out how exactly I’m bringing back all the things I need to bring home (I hope it fits into my two suitcases). Still also working on changing my flight back from LAX to IAD because the dates I wanted to change it too are NOT available, so I’m not quite sure what to do.

So much for a “restful” pre-exam break! Incidentally, Cape Tribulation was thus named by Captain James Cook because he was shipwrecked on the reef up there for a day or two!