red bull, vodka and cucumbers don't mix

so tired.

it has been a very interesting, sleepless week.

monday i had my first tennis match! it was actually pretty fun. my team members (2 aussie guys) are really nice. 2 of the 3 team members show up each week and play a doubles match and then each of the 2 teammates plays a singles match. i nearly peed my pants when i realized it was going to be me and 3 guys playing, but it went way better than i expected. i lost my singles match 6-4, but we went to deuce on every single game and had some really good points. i also had some pretty amazing shots, if i do say so myself :) i think the boys were pretty surprised.

tuesday was allie's big birthday party. to make a long story short, we were bussed to cloudland, one of the nicest lounges in brisbane. a friend of mine, monnie, got in a bit of a shouting match with the bartender over a spilled $17 cocktail and got kicked out by security. unfortunately, i was sober and standing closest to her, so i was the lucky one who got to make sure she got home safely. i was at the club for less than 12 minutes. i guess i was lucky that i hadn't ordered an $18 margarita yet. in her drunken stupor, monnie convinced timmy and me (timmy was such a gentleman... decided to escort us home and make sure we both got back) to walk from the valley to the city and take a bus, as cabs were $40 to get back to uni. having never been to the valley, i assumed monnie knew what she was talking about when she said it was just a "short walk" into the city. an hour and 35 minutes and a trip to hungry jack's later, we finally made it to the bus stop. about ten steps into our walk, i had to take off my heels and walk barefoot. yup, i walked barefoot through a big city for an hour and a half. the cuts on my feet are still healing. it was definitely disappointing as i was looking forward to a great night out, but timmy ended up coming over and we were joined by the remaining bromance members, kate and dee when they arrived home. i was planning on an early bedtime, but everyone ended up staying until almost 4 am. miraculously, i somehow made it to my 9 am the next morning. i was pretty impressed with myself.

the rest of the week went pretty well, although extremely hot! it hit 95 this week... twice. they call this winter? HA! supposedly this is the hottest winter brisbane's ever seen. oh, global warming. i've spent many an hour this week sitting in my underwear, plopped directly in front of my fan. my room is on the sunny side of the building during the day, so i wouldn't be surprised if it was well over 100 degrees in here during the late afternoon. i've basically been one big, melty, dehydrated mess this week. if only i didn't have this whole class thing cramping my style, i could've spent the most perfect week at the beach!

i'm not sure if it was the heat, or lack of sleep on tuesday or the fact that i spent an hour in the health center waiting room filled with swine flu patients on monday, but i've been feeling a bit under the weather recently. headachy, sore, outrageously tired, ugh. so of course the ball did not go down quite as i had planned.

yesterday afternoon's lunch was atrocious. since i was chatting and excited about the ball, i ended up only eating cucumbers with a little bit of hummus without realizing it until later. on top of that, trying to dry/straighten my hair at 3 pm in a room that's 100 degrees resulted in losing about 5 pounds in sweat. let it be known that drinking vodka red bulls at 5 pm on a cucumber filled, dehydrated stomach is pretty much just a terrible idea all around. jack came over at around 5 and we hung out until the busses left at 6:45. at maybe 6:38 we started taking some pictures in the hall with people. unfortunately, my door got closed and locked us out, leaving our ids, cameras, phones and keys in my room. i had to call security and have them book it to the office to get me a spare key. we had to run to catch the bus, but luckily we got there just in time.

the ball was held in a beautiful venue. we stood outside drinking champagne and talking for a couple hours before dinner was served. by the time dinner was over, i felt so gross that i was basically just ready to go to bed :( luckily shanna knows how to have quite a good time, so she danced with jack and entertained him for most of the night. poor guy. i definitely wasn't a very fun date.

busses took us back to union around 11 to change for the after party, held at a bar in the city. i was planning on staying behind and having jack go with shanna, but at the very last minute i decided to go. it was pretty chill. they have a rooftop bar and you can see the skyscrapers around you. we sort of just sat there talking, so it wasn't very exciting, but i was glad i went. i was less glad when a guy decided it would be cool to just start groping my butt. guys in australia are pretty disrespectful and forward. i've already had my boob blatantly grabbed and squeezed and now my butt grabbed in bars. i once saw one guy walking ahead of me in a bar who just walked up to girl after girl after girl and grabbed their chests. it's disgusting. it felt pretty good to elbow butt-guy in his giant man-boob :) that's what he gets for grabbing my butt... and having bigger boobs than i do.

jack, oskar and i left the bar around 2, made a stop at hungry jack's (dinner was delicious, but a tiny piece of salmon+2 pieces of asparagus+a piece of chocolate isn't a great way to end a night filled with champagne), and then walked to the bus. i think i ended up falling asleep around 5 this morning. at 8:30 i woke up to the lovely sounds of my neighbor's techno music. part 3 of the ball occurred today from 10-2, so people were up relatively early. union residents dress up in crazy costumes, get on the bus and head to a bar to continue drinking and partake in what's known as "recovery." i decided to indulge in my own form of recovery (read: bed), sans fairy wings and rainbow tights.

hopefully i'll get an early bedtime tonight as i pretty much feel like death. i'm just hoping it's dehydration and not swine flu. i will be severely pissed if i get swiney because the health center made me sit next to a boy coughing all over me... for an hour... just to pick up a piece of paper with my graves' lab results on it.

the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy with homework. i can't believe it's almost september! how did that happen? i have group projects/papers due in all of my classes before midsemester break and a group presentation next week, so that means lots of pointless meetings and extra research. i also have lab this week and 2 online tests due before break, so my to-do list is a bit daunting. however, i am still loving it here and have decided that the 5th time just may be the charm.

peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. --unknown

your journey has molded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what you needed it to be... it took each and every situation to bring you to the now. and now is right on time. --unknown

me and monnie

oskar, me, kate, jack

me, timmy, umar, rob

me and oskar

my lovely date, jack. hopefully he wasn't too bored :)

smile like the sun

it has been SUCH a long week! it felt like it was supposed to be friday by monday afternoon... and then continued to feel like friday on tuesday, wednesday and thursday. however, not having bio1020 was absolutely fabulous :) even though it was only one class, the amount of stress that's been lifted in my life is tantamount to if i had just dropped 19 classes. 3 classes seems far more manageable right now.

on friday we went back out to the gold coast for some surf lessons! to say it was a transportational nightmare would be a grave understatement. it took us 7 different segments on busses, cars, ferries and trains and 7 hours roundtrip. shanna, a brissy native, drove 3 other girls out. it took them an hour. unfortunately she only had room in her car for four, so the bromance and i trekked out via public transport.

we started by waking up at 6:30 to hit up breakfast before we left. from there, we had to sprint across campus to catch the ferry in time. from the ferry stop, we walked for about 15 minutes to get to the train station... and of course ended up having to sprint to catch the train. the layout of the central train station is quite bizarre, as you have to go up... and down... and back up... and back down heaps of staircases to get to the platforms. after sprinting up the world's steepest staircase and accidentally elbowing a woman in the boob, we made it onto the train right as the doors were closing. the train ride takes about an hour and fifteen minutes, so luckily i had time for my heart rate to slow down and the sweating to subside. once we got to the train station, timmy had to refill his "go card" (like a debit card for public transport), so we waited for him to reload it... and subsequently missed the bus. we had to wait 29 minutes and 55 seconds for the next one to arrive as we literally got to the stop right as it pulled away. we entertained ourselves by playing some soccer... and i tried teaching them how to spin a ball on their finger. we finally got on a bus, got off at our stop, then had to wait for shanna come to pick us up with the car to drive us to the beach!

the day was sunny and warm, without a single cloud in the sky. however, my dreams of dropping out of school and becoming a professional surfer were quickly dashed--i suck. i think the highlight was the wave that simultaneously annihilated me, ripped my top off, and smacked my board right into my forehead. we had a lot of fun though and oskar and i are determined to be super good by the end of the semester! it was pretty cold in the water, so we each lasted about 20 minutes before we were sprawled back out on the sand working on our acquisition of skin cancer. the sunscreen i bought gave me a nasty rash the last time i used it, so i made the mistake of going sunscreen-less. i now look like a tomato, but it was so worth it. hopefully it'll have turned into a tan by the time the ball comes on friday! we had lunch at a little cafe by the beach... turkey, avocado, brie, cranberry jam, and cucumber sandwiches + mini cupcakes... mmm, so good.

the trip back was even more eventful. we walked for about 35 minutes to the bus station. it should have taken maybe 10, but of course we got lost and ended up trapped in the loading docks of some store. once we were in the generally right vicinity, rob's bladder decided it needed to make a stop, so he ducked into the little boys room. the rest of us walked a few extra steps to check out the bus timetable... and realized that the bus we needed was parked right in front of us. we couldn't just leave rob, so we let it go... and had to wait 30 minutes for another one. we spent the half hour wandering around nearby in search of margaritas. no luck. we finally got on the bus and arrived at the train station. as we were getting off the bus, we could see the train pulling into the station. so we booked it up the stairs, only to realize that dianne, for some reason or another, has yet to buy a gocard, so she physically had to go to the window to buy a ticket instead of just swiping a card. and, of course, we had to wait for her so the train pulled away as we stood on the platform, sadly watching it go. 3o minutes and an emergency ice cream stop later, we were on the train headed home. we got off at the wrong station and ended up having to walk for 30 more minutes to get to the bus station.

man. so goes the story of my life here in brisbane!

saturday i had class in the morning. we heard a guy from the queensland brain institute talk about the brain structure of bees and how it can be applied to robots. at least, we were supposed to. he had an extremely heavy indian accent, spoke faster than i do, and trailed off at the end of each sentence. i think i was asleep within 12 minutes. when i woke up from my little nap, i realized that 2/3 of the class were also asleep. which equals about 400 kids.

the remaining 6 hours and 14 minutes of this weekend will be devoted to cranking out my religion paper, due tomorrow at 9 am. definitely should have done more yesterday!

i can't wait for the weekend (and my paper) to be over and for the week to start! on tuesday, there's a big birthday party for a girl named allie. she rented a bus that's going to take us into the valley to hit up a club for the night. friday is the big union ball, which is going to be amazing. girls are going all out... booking spray tans, hair appointments, manis/pedis... i, on the other hand, am currently debating whether i can get away with wearing flip flops. haha.

you make me smile like the sun, fall out of bed, sing like a bird, dizzy in my head. spin like a record, crazy on a sunday night. you make me dance like a fool, forget how to breathe, shine like gold, buzz like a bee. oh, you make me smile. --uncle kracker

me and the bromance before public transportation got the best of us

i love having a waterproof camera!

the beach :)

goodbye bio1020!

hello! sorry i haven't updated all too recently, life continues to be crazy.

this weekend was pretty chill... went to the gold coast with dianne, which was wonderful. it was so nice to finally see the ocean. it's been way too long... i was in severe withdrawal after fiji! we took a ferry, train and bus to get there/back, so it was quite a traveling adventure. 6 hours roundtrip, in fact. i had a big paper due this morning, so i ended up just staying in and working on it the rest of the weekend. i finished it a whole 17 hours before it was due... which is actually a personal record. i don't think i've finished a paper that early since... possibly 4th grade. haha.

i hung out a lot this weekend with 3 guys from the netherlands. they're so funny :) they could totally pass as triplets... they all study computer science back home, are studying geology here, go running together, go out together. it's adorable. i've started referring to them as "the bromance." it was nice to branch out a little more this weekend, for sure.

it's only monday, but my week's already hectic. my first tennis match was tonight but it was raining! by some miracle, i managed to make a tennis team (b1... not too bad seeing as how i haven't legitimately played a match since i was at cc!... it goes a, b1, b2, c), but i'm actually sort of relieved it got canceled as i have far too much to do.

i've got both my chem1020/bio1040 labs this week and getting ready for them is extremely time consuming. it seems as though the chem1020 lab manual has been written in a foreign language... ah! labs wouldn't be too bad if they were supplementary to the class, but unfortunately they're basically their own entire class.

even though i was invited to the last one (and you usually only get invited to one/semester at most), i was invited to another formal dinner, so i've got that on wednesday. i'll finally get to eat good food... although i have to wear a dress... AGAIN! man, it's turning out i needed to bring about 45 cocktail dresses over.

the BEST news of today (which made up for the world's worst blood draw this am... the lady took it out of the side of my wrist! plus i had to wait in the waiting room filled with tons of swine flu patients coughing all over me) is i'm dropping bio1020 and only taking 3 classes this semester! it is just too much to be doing 3 labs at once, so i'm pushing it back to next semester. it does mean that i have to take a summer class or 5 classes one of the semesters i'm here, but apparently there are classes that are field based that only run over midsemester break, so i'm down with that! having been to cc, the thought of smushing one class into a couple weeks isn't nearly so daunting as it might be to others. see? the college sampler plan works in my favor yet again. this means that i only have class for 6 hours on tuesdays and 5 hours on thursdays! still quite a lot, but such an improvement.

i don't have class this friday and nobody else ever has class on friday, so a group of us are headed back to surfer's paradise for the day for SURF LESSONS! so excited. shanna is a big surfer, so she's giving us free lessons and we're all going to rent some boards. unfortunately, the reason i don't have class on friday is because i have class at 9 am on saturday morning (so unbelievably lame, i know), but pish posh. i've got a lot of big assignments due next week, so i have to be sure to get all of my homework done early in the week since my weekend is shot.

not this weekend but the next weekend we've got the big union college ball. we take a bus to a golf club and have dinner, drinks and dancing and stay out all night! a guy from my religion class, jack, is coming as my date, so it should be a party. haha i'm excited to hang out with someone who doesn't live at union! my classes are all so big that it's hard to meet people, so i've been pretty confined to people living with me so far... which would be fine except they're all leaving at the end of the semester!

i'm headed into the city SOMEtime this week for lunch with carolyn annnndd... you guessed it: dress shopping for the ball. it just never ends. carolyn has a lot of upcoming travels that i'm excited to hear all about... including a trip to fiji! there were tickets on sale for $350 USD, but sadly i am unable to take advantage of them. i may ask carolyn to take me as her carry-on. i am determined to get back asap!! it is my ultimate happy place... so close, and yet so far...

off to do more lab prep. why people choose to go into chemistry as a career is completely beyond me.

also, i promised to include race pics, so here they are (there aren't many)... oh and i added more pics from this weekend/the gold coast (including a picture of "condom kingdom," a store we ran across near surfer's paradise) to my old album so i'm adding that link too:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2035476&id=30001879&l=80d97fd4e1

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034902&id=30001879&l=934765d5ae

you made my frown turn upside down and now my worries are gone. i'll be out of my mind and you'll be out of ideas pretty soon, so let's spend the afternoon in a cold hot air balloon. leave your jacket behind, lean up and touch the treetops over town. --owl city

blood, sperm and cutting hearts. all in a day's work.

i can't believe the weekend is over already. it seems to have flown by, which is extremely sad.

thursday i had my first big day with multiple labs. it actually still wasn't as long as it normally would be, as tutorials don't start until next week, so i had from 9:00-9:50 off. yay! my labs were rather intense. i started off dissecting a LIVE toad. ugh. supposedly they can't feel anything, but their muscles still twitch. thankfully we were warned in advance, but that didn't make it any less nauseating when my toad's leg started smacking my hand. i suppose i deserved it, as i was in the process of cutting out its heart. i ended up getting extremely woozy around that point and strongly considered switching to a different major. luckily i didn't have the toad that hadn't been completely put under. it did far more than randomly twitch when its tummy started getting cut open. oh geez. feeling light headed again. next paragraph.

my second lab (another bio lab) involved watching bulls' sperm and sheep blood. man. unfortunately, this class was way harder... i was constantly referring to the book, which slowed me waayy down. i was the last one out of the lab, and i barely made it out in time. quite a discouragement since that was the "intro" lab. if only i remembered wtf an endoplasmic reticulum looked like.

all three of my labs are like an entire other class... complete with their own tests, homework assignments, presentations and research projects. social life: DEFINITELY came to a screeching halt already. next to go: sleep. last step: sanity.

thursday night i had my tennis "grading" session, which basically consisted of me getting my tush whipped by a middle age lady in purple nylon pants and hot pink sweatbands around every possible extremity. needless to say, not my best day yet.

yesterday though, i got to see carolyn, a girl who graduated from edina the year ahead of me. she's living in australia for the year, working and traveling, and will be in brisbane for the next few months. although i'm not homesick yet, it was definitely nice to see a familiar face.

yesterday afternoon, rob (my next-door neighbor from holland), dianne and i went to the "beach." the closest "beach" to us happens to be a short ferry ride away, in the middle of the city. brisbane transported a bunch of sand and palm trees to a random stretch in the city, dumped in some water, and made their own beach! it's pretty cool actually, as there's a wicked river view. we ended up freezing (yup, still winter here) and going to a pub to have a beer. there was a little craft market set up nearby, so we walked around and found some pretty interesting things. such as a giant leather dog that doubled as a purse. dianne and i managed to find some ridiculous feather head pieces for the races on wednesday. i will definitely upload pics. it looked okay in the stall, but when i got home i realized it looks like big bird is trying to eat my face.

today's a day of homework and laundry. i suppose everyday can't be a party. shame. wednesday we don't have class so we can go to the races :) should be fun!

she is fine, most of the time. she takes her days with a smile. breathe, just breathe. let the life that you live be all that you need. --ryan star

i'm learning... (v. oz)

...to walk on the left side of the sidewalk. always. i'm not too bad at checking the correct direction for cars thanks to fiji/tanzania, but i run into about 5 people daily before i remember. the aussies say they can always tell who the americans are by looking to see what side of the sidewalk they're on.

...that guys in teeny shorts are so unappealing. especially when paired with ugg boots. if your shorts are short than mine, bud, we've got a problem.

...that people here go out ridiculously early because everything shuts down early. i miss the land of 24 hour grocery stores and parties that start after we've hit the double digits. 7 pm parties are not unusual. and grocery stores close at 6.

...sodexo's food was really not that bad. i always complained about high school/colorado college food, but it was a dream compared to here. the meat is unidentifiable so i've decided to go vegetarian. unfortunately, "vegetarian" consists of potatoes. and potatoes. and more potatoes. usually in some sort of sauce. dianne and i made a pact to go a whole 24 hours without consuming any sort of potato product. we still haven't succeeded. they sneak them into unexpected places... like eggs. and salads. what?

...that apparently it's cool to carry a mini duffel bag to class instead of a backpack. i refuse to conform to this one.

...not to be surprised when somebody opens their mouth and an accent you've never heard pops out.

...that girls are obsessed with how they look but still manage to throw together some pretty random outfits. and by random, i think i mean to say "ridiculous." you're 200+ pounds and want to wear a 2 inch dress with a hat and leg warmers? that's cool! you want to show up to an 8 am class with curled hair in a dress and 4 inch stilettos? also strongly encouraged.

...it's okay to say "i'm taking the city bus to kmart." you aren't necessarily pegged as homeless and/or white trash here.

...clothing sizes are much, much different here. a 6 is super itty bitty. therefore you will feel unbelievably pudgetastic trying on clothes. save the shopping for the states.

...ferries are the coolest mode of transportation ever. always take a ferry over a bus if you can.

...that people will ask you "are you going out tonight?" on a sunday. and monday. and tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday. and saturday.

...uni students get up at 4:30 am, don dresses, heels, and huge hats, and start drinking at 5 am to watch horses race. true story. and we get a day off of class to partake. sweeet!

...huge schools are a little overwhelming. fun, but a bit crazy.

...people are less into "uni" pride than students are in the states. a girl hanging out in my room was amazed that i had so much "uni" apparel/accessories (i did tell her i had more than the average student). perhaps it's because it's so big, but people seem to be more into their colleges or the city than UQ itself.

...that earplugs are the only way to sleep through the night. blaring techno music (my neighbor's genre of choice) + noisy birds that wake up at 4:30 = not okay.

...not to look quite so appalled when professors take every opportunity they can to bash the US. "we all know how fat america is..." "unlike in america, where they can murder people for murdering people..."

...that aussie change adds up quickly. there's a $2 coin and a $1 coin. i've gotten into the habit at home of chucking all change into a cup since i find it pretty much useless. i started doing that here... just checked my tupperware o' change and it's already got $40 in it!

...sunscreen is a must. you can get burned in the time it takes you to walk from one side of campus to the other. apparently queensland has the highest skin cancer rate of anywhere in the world. i'd believe it.

...the procedures for quarantine. apparently over half the cases of the flu going around are testing positive for swine flu, so they've stopped testing and are just assuming it's swine flu. yippee! if you get it, there's even a special table for you in the back of the caf, away from everyone else... i'm currently listening to a neighbor hacking up her lungs. here's hoping it's a hangover.

...that although oz seems quite small, it's rather difficult to get all the traveling you want to do in. cairns, gold coast, sunshine coast, sydney, melbourne, adelaide, new zealand... man! it's nice that there are so many international students here. since they're only here for a semester, they're super gung-ho about traveling. the aussies don't really care about life outside of brisbane. i'm keeping my fingers crossed for a trip back to fiji for spring break :) ...

i'm sure there are a million other things, but seeing as how i have 9 hours of class tomorrow starting at 8 am (on the agenda: dissecting a toad and analyzing the semen of bulls/observing how sperm swim... should be an interesting day) and tennis try-outs, time to shove in my earplugs and drown out the techno :)

good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. if they do, grab a shoe and smack 'em 'til they're black and blue --wasn't planning on including a quote, but a boy just ran down my hall singing this. oh australia.

some picaroonies! (pictures)

joey with its mommy... isn't this an insane pic?
me and a koala! it made me miss cuddling with picabo :(
feeding a wallaby
crommie bunker "into the wild" party. trees was a common costume
don't know who this is, but he kept me warm when i was freezing! (keep in mind it's winter here!)
me and the girls getting ready to go out. bird, trees, leopard
my school
brisbane (aka the city) at night

it's a jungle

man, it has been a crazy week! i'm updating my blog simply as a way of staying awake... i can definitely feel my eyes falling down though...

wednesday we had market day and i signed up for scuba club and what i think is like serious IM tennis... whoo! tennis is just once a week usually, but you can also go to a practice and fun day once a week if you like. i have to get graded sometime this upcoming week so i can get put on a team... i started having flashbacks of edina tennis tryouts, so i need to just hurry up and get that over with! SO excited to go diving... i just have to remind myself that brisbane diving might be a little different than private island fiji diving. in other words, i might not see sting rays, sharks, 4 ft long fish, and turtles on every single dive :)

classes this week were exhausting. i'm not even sure how i'm going to cope once i add 3 labs and 3 tutorials next week on top of 10 lectures! my media class seems sweet. we got an email from the prof the other day asking us to please make sure we're on time so we can watch twilight. done, done, done! my science classes on the other hand seem unbelievably hard. most of the other students are coming straight out of a semester of all science or are coming out of high school science, so i have a lot of remembering to do. on top of all my class, labs and tutorials, i also need to have extra tutorials to make up for everything i've forgotten. it will be a long semester. i think my social life may come to a screeching halt come monday. to make things worse, ALL of my friends here have fridays off so they can go travel and party all weekend. dang.

two of my professors seem really cool--very accessible and friendly. the other two specifically told us not to email them or bother them unless we had an absolute emergency. the prof who's teaching 1100 kids this semester told us to email him whenever we need to and that he'd always stay for as long as we needed him after class if we wanted to ask him questions. he encouraged us all to get in touch with him as often as we needed to. plus he gives out candy if we participate in lecture. too bad i still hate chem. all of my science classes are taught by multiple professors--one of them we'll have 6 profs throughout the semester, plus our tutorial leader, plus our lab instructor. makes it kind of confusing to know who you're supposed to ask questions. one of our profs told us to refer to the book if we have questions. he's really helpful.

usually in the states, the material you cover in class and the material you cover in the books go hand in hand. not here. what the profs teach is completely different than what's in the book. you are in charge of teaching yourself the entire book and then they give you some extra random information in lecture that they might later decide to test you on. when can i take coral reefs and the anatomy of marine mammals???

i've met a lot of cool kids this week, including some of the people in my hall. i met a guy from the netherlands and a girl from zimbabwe! living here is sort of like traveling vicariously through others. you get to experience parts of the entire world without leaving your hallway.

last night (friday) there was a huge party at cromwell (another college). the theme was "into the wild," which everyone got super into. it reached halloween epic proportions! dianne and i decided to go as trees, so we spent part of yesterday afternoon on a little nature walk, armed with a pair of scissors. we cut some flowers and leaves and then stuck them to ourselves :) everyone here goes out super early... the party started at SEVEN! we ended up not going until later and by the time we arrived, a huge line had formed to get in. we had to wait around maybe 35+ minutes before we got in. there were cops circling the nearby neighborhoods making sure kids weren't drinking on the streets. they were also super well prepared in case a kid drank too much... right inside the entrance there was an ambulance and a bunch of emt workers sitting there, just in case. intense. there were also cops roaming the party all night... it was crazy, but so much fun.

this morning dianne and i somehow managed to wake up early and took the ferry into the city. from there we took a 40 minute bus ride to a koala sanctuary! they have over 130 koalas, plus kangaroos, wallabies, crocs, birds, dingos, snakes, bats and probably some other animals i'm forgetting. we got to hold a koala and take our pic with it and feed kangaroos.

definitely the best 24 hour period yet!

this week is going to be pretty hectic with everything starting, but i've still got things to look forward to. tomorrow a couple girls and myself are going to the tennis open house to play some games and check out the clubhouse. tuesday we have a union college formal dinner (yikes, still need to find something to wear) and wednesday there's a volunteer expo (because i'm going to have so much spare time!)

i've added more pics to my album, so feel free to check them out!

it's time to take a chance on some place i've never, ever seen 'cause i've got nothing to lose. too much to see it all. there's miles in front of me. street signs, never mind. i'm gunna do just what i please 'cause i've got nothing to prove. i'm gunna be somewhere far away. --little big town

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2034902&id=30001879&l=934765d5ae