March 12

I’m sitting on campus in between classes and thought I’d catch up on my ‘blogging’. It’s been a busy week. I have been to all my classes now and I’m feeling a little overwhelmed with all the reading I have to do. I only have one class that requires a textbook; the others just have huge reading packets. I think marketing is going to be a fairly easy class for me. And I enjoy going to it because I made friends with a very nice piece of Aussie eye candy. My Indigenous Sport class has its first field trip next week and we’re going to an inner city school with Aboriginal kids. I’ve found it more difficult than I thought to understand the instructors here because they have such strong accents. I can’t imagine being in another country that isn’t a version of English. My other classes seem kinda difficult. The teacher in the Social Construction of Difference class admitted to being an insomniac on the first day of class so his lectures are all over the place… great. But let’s be honest, I’m not here to study (just kidding, Dad).

This past weekend Jenna and I went to the Blue Mountains with a group of 12 others from all over the world. We represented the US, France, Holland, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Spain, and Italy. I thought that was pretty cool. We took a train there Sat morning, stayed in a hostel that night and came back Sunday night. That was my first experience in a hostel. It wasn’t that bad but I can understand why it was only $25 bucks. We spent the days hiking the mountain. We trekked through the rainforest, saw some waterfalls, and took pictures of the amazzzzing views. It was quite beautiful. Maddy, you would have loved it. I thought about you on the hike :) So at the end of the first day of hiking, we were trying to get back in order to catch the last bus. And we realized the bus left in 20 mins and we were on a trail that took 30 mins to get back. So all 12 of us start sprinting up the mountain. My legs have never burned so much in my life. I felt like we were in an army boot camp running through the jungle and up this mountain. We get there to find out that we were all wrong and had 45 minutes to spare before the bus came. It was pretty funny. But I was disappointed about one thing and that is: the mountains weren’t blue.

As for my roommate situation, the African woman is gone and I had the room to myself for a few days which was nice. And Liz, one of the girls who live upstairs, moved into my room to cut her costs. She and I have been going out together some so it’s nice to have a travel buddy. She’s from Georgia and has a strong southern accent. She’s studied in Brisbane during college and now is back here to work. We get along pretty well so that’s good at least.

Tonight, I’m planning on going to the rock climbing center and joining the club. I hear they go on really cool trips to mountain climb. I’ve graduated from the doorway stage and now I’m tackling mountains.

Time for class.