So I have just over a month left here. If I hadn’t changed my flights, I would have less than a month. This terrifies me! The reason I haven’t been writing here nearly as much is because I’ve been out just Living here. Enjoying every second because I know this can’t last forever. It’s all about that moment where you realize that yes, you miss home. And yes, it’ll be great to see everyone again. But at that at the same time, you really just don’t want to leave. Because you have no idea when you’re going to get to see these amazing places and people again.
And the fact that I have to go back to a normal life after this. I’ve gotten rather used to living on my own, not answering to anyone except myself, although Jenn and I are usually together and I have a lot of friends around, but there’s no one within 8000 miles who has any real authority and can tell me what to do. I definitely call people from home when I need advice and that sort of thing but it’s very different. I’ll probably enjoy things like not having to cook every meal for myself, but I know that I’ll probably miss doing that too, at least sometimes when the Hoch has particularly bad food. I like living just off the road where all the bars and clubs are, it means all my friends stop by when they’re a bit tipsy and I make them chocolate chip pancakes. Like my friend Birnie and his friend just did, silly underage boys going out drinking. And I like being friends with the bouncers down the road and coaching water polo and doing circus. I’m really going to miss this place.
Since I last wrote, I’ve gone to Thailand and had one of, if not the most, amazing time that I have ever had in my entire life. I met awesome people and did things I never even dreamed I would be doing, like getting picked up and held in an elephants trunk and spinning flaming poi on a beach while everyone around me is drinking out of buckets and dancing like crazy.
I played uni games, which is really more about the parties than the games. It’s less a competition of who can play which sport better and more of who can play which sport better hungover. There’s a theme every night and we Rocked every one of them. Besides the opening ceremony, there was only one night that I didn’t go out for 5 straight nights. The first theme was I can’t believe you’re wearing that. I wore rainbow spandex with a plaid shirt while rocking a mohawk. The second night was rumble in the jungle. There was Ridiculous amounts of animal print involved and I shared many elements of my outfit with my (male) friends, there was even one who was wearing the Exact same thing as me. We got a picture together. It was adorable. The next night I didn’t go out but after that it was emergency services so pretty much all the polo players went as lifeguards. Although I was wearing a hard hat and reflective vest at one point and I still have a fireman’s hat in my room. The final night was superheroes so Jodie and I went as the powerpuff girls, kind of. I wore green, she wore pink. Close enough right? But I had a great time and many crazy outfits were seen and stories were made. I stood on Dom’s shoulders in the UniBar (yes, that’s a bar on the university campus), I danced until ungodly hours only to wake up and play water polo all the next day, people pulled stunts, gangam style was learned, pancakes were made, hydrogels were rambled about at 4 am with a friend who does almost the Exact same research that I do (he was drunk at the time but we had a really good conversation anyway), and buckets were gotten for friends. One of the funniest parts was when arrangements were made so that games weren’t as intense because everyone was so tired or it was a bad match up and everyone knew what was going to happen before the game even started. There was one game where someone jumped out of the pull and tried to score a goal by kicking the ball off the deck. It was hilarious but they tried to make rules to keep that from happening. Lame. (It happened anyway haha). It was a Crazy week but it was also an amazing week. I broke up with Kyle on that Friday night but was surprisingly okay and had plenty of awesome people looking out for me. They helped me have a good night until I was ready to go home and made sure I was okay when that happened (Dom is amazing 🙂 ). Oh, and we came in 7 out of 11. haha 🙂
Since then I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of normal life. Motivating myself to do homework and the like. It’s isn’t very easy but I’m trying. I’ve also been bowling, played late night glow frisbee, played cards against humanity a few times, gone to an awesome engineering cocktail night, visited the country and patted some horses, started planning a road trip for the extra two weeks that I’m spending here, taken pictures with about a million statues up North Terrace and on Uni campus and down Rundle Mall. I’ve done circus and been invited to perform with them (hopefully they get a gig they usually get that hasn’t been confirmed yet, because that’s the only performance I can make!), I’ve started learning how to coach water polo (I’m not very good at it but I’m learning), and basically done a million crazy awesome things. Tomorrow I get to go swimming with dolphins! I’m so excited! And next weekend I’m going to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef and about a week after that I’m going to New Zealand and after that I’ll be road tripping down the Great Ocean Road. Doesn’t leave a whole lot of time for study, but I’ve got to do it! Almost there, Last week of classes!
Pictures! Still having issues making them big and pretty. Sorry!
