School Begins

Again...

The dang pictures just always want to be on the top & refuse to move. You should still read my blog post underneath! Most of the time, my pictures don't have anything to do with what I actually write about! :)

View of my desk & my picture collection. Definitely makes me smile!

My nasty bulletin board that I dolled up with some colorful postcards from Julie Matthews & letters I've received before I left and in the mail.

My "bookshelf" containing very few books at the moment...

View into my room. Right now, that fan and screen on the window is my FAVORITE part about my room :) It is EXTREMELY stuffy in here and outside in this intense Aussie summer weather

My little sink area. This makes my life easy considering I don't have to haul everything down to the communal bathroom all the time.

My closet, which is actually pretty large!

Cassie, Kim, and Julie enjoying our lunch at Manly Beach. I opted for the " chicken kebab", which is easily my new favorite food

Not such an attractive picture, but hey! I met some aboriginals!!

My friend, Daniel, enjoying his insanely expensive bite-size piece of chocolate. Instead of going to the crowded bar, we went across the street to this chocolate shoppe in "The Rocks" on Saturday night. Definitely a wise decision!

Hello everyone! 

First of all... I'd just like to give a shout out to theSaxophone-Man living directly underneath me. He/She is just going to town on his saxophone solo... and for that... I'd like to salute him. I'm honestly dying a little bit. This is way TOO FUNNY!

Cindy Halfman (a Butler friend who studied abroad here at Macquarie a year ago) told me about her asian neighbor who sang Celine Dion out on her balcony, so I really shouldn't be surprised about Kenny-G showing up at my dorm this semester...

Well, that was hilarious... back to Australia stuff!

Today marks my second day of school here at "Uni" (Australians are too lazy to say the entire word--University)! It is wild to think my friends from back at home are quickly approaching Spring Break while I am just now getting my class calendar and syllabus. This semester I will be taking 4 courses: Australian Contemporary Arts, Marketing Fundamentals, World Music, and Introduction to Information Systems and Technologies. <-- Agh, about that last one. It just sounds nasty. 

I am proud (and slightly embarrassed) to say that I have inherited my father's skills of falling asleep at the strangest places at (sometimes) the wrong time--no offense Dad. Sooooo... I dozed off during my first class of the entire semester (Australian Contemporary Arts)!! I couldn't believe it. I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before. I am just convinced that it was the 200-person class in the badly lit room that made me do the "head bob" throughout the entire hour lecture.  I should start drinking coffee... or popping some caffeine pills like Jessie Spano in "Saved By The Bell". 

I received my first letters today in the mail! Thank you Mom & Tommy Engstrom for the lovely cards! It definitely made my day :) They are posted on my "letter bulletin board". 

I have also taken up my Mom's (aka Oprah's) suggestion of starting an "Appreciation Diary". Every night I write at least 3 things that I was grateful for during that day. I started last night, and it definitely helped me think positively and remember how lucky and fortunate I am to get the chance to study abroad in such a beautiful country. It takes me a little while to adjust to change, so hopefully this little diary will help me get through my "waves" of homesickness. :)

My friends here are wonderful. I met some of the best people at surf camp who I definitely click well with. Australians LOVE to drink, and although I like to have a good time every now and then, I definitely have no desire to "keep up" with their typical drinking schedule-- which consists of drinking whenever humanly possible. While others get "smashed" on weekday nights, I've seen a couple movies at the Macquarie Mall right down the road, and enjoyed an ice cream sandwich instead! Maybe it's the same amount of money as a few beers... but it definitely tastes better and I don't feel completely disgusting the next day! I don't mean to diss anyone that I've met here, but some of them are just used to a life that I don't care to have. Oh shwell! Such is life :)

This weekend should be fun! I have no classes on Fridays, so I will be hitting up "Manly Beach" with some girls. Manly Beach is about an hour away, and you need a bus and a ferry to get there, but it's worth it! On Saturday, I'm going to the Manly Beach Aquarium because this girl, Tam, that I met wants to pay +$200 to swim with the sharks in the tank ................................................... humm... WHAT? I'm just going to take pictures! Then, later that night I'm going to see the movie "Casablanca" at a park up the road from Macquarie. It should be a lot of fun! 

This past Sunday, I went to Manly Beach and had a great time. The weather was beautiful and the water was perrr-fect. I did not even get sunburnt! Impressive, eh? HOWEVER, I did get caught in an ocean rip with my friend, Julie. We were just enjoying the big waves when all of a sudden we couldn't stand and it was extremely difficult to swim towards the shore! I even asked her, "Julie, are we caught in a rip right now!?" and she just laughed and say, "Oh, no way... ocean rips drag you out to sea!" Well, no more than 10 seconds later, a lifeguard on a surfboard comes up to us, asks how we're doing, and then informs us that we're in a rip. hahahahahaha. It really wasn't too dramatic, but it makes me sound like a total b@d@$$ that I survived a rip in Australia, so I had to tell you all. 

I promise not to let that happen again, Mom. :)

Again, the dang pictures are at the top of the page, so if you made it this far in my long blog post... CONGRATS!!! 

Love you all & miss you always,

Carly