Resi Ball!!! And other signs my time is winding down.

*Sigh* My time is winding down, even though I still have about a month left, a week and half of that is after I say goodbye to everyone! It’s making me sad, but I’m enjoying everything even more now. It’s all so crazy, I can’t put anything into words. We talked some about that in my bus. communication class, even though we have a huge vocabulary sometimes putting those thoughts in your head into words is seemingly impossible. I can’t even totally understand and comprehend my thoughts, how the heck am I supposed to express them in words!? I reckon that’s a fabulous thing though. I’m working hard on making the most of my little time left here. Between classes, a little homework, studying, planning trips, seeing the city, talking with people, and going out, I’ve kept pretty busy. This week although I have kept busy, it sort of feels like I’ve done absolutely nothing at the same time. My concept of time the whole time I’ve been here has a been a little skewed I guess. So, now I’ll try to find some structure with this and get on with it. A warning though, I’m not sure I can find too much structure right now as I’ve been a bit scatter brained lately.

I’ll start where I left off. Saturday night was pretty boring and relaxed since nobody was here, but I took my finance test online. That was more difficult than expected. I spent some time talking to a few of my friends, and hung out at Nick’s for awhile and watched a movie. Then last Sunday I went into Melbourne for a few hours to go to the Queen Victoria Market. I’d walked around it for maybe half an hour with Hayley, but didn’t really get to check it out and needed to. Nobody was around here last weekend and I had nothing better to be doing. So I took the train in by about 12:30 and got back to Geelong by 4pm to catch the bus back to uni. I found some cool stuff at the market, but mostly just super cheap souvenir stuff, like a $4 shirt! I wasn’t sure about some things because they seemed a bit cheaply made, but it was still good. I enjoyed the Salamanca market in Tasmania soooo much more because it seemed more like a local market you know. This one seemed more like cheaply made stuff or cheap souvenirs. At Salamanca it seemed like cheap stuff, but quality and homemade you know. They also had more food vendors that were better, and more and better street performers as well. Queen Vic was still pretty good though, and I needed to buy some souvenir stuff since I haven’t really yet. It’s always a bit invigorating going into the city as well, it just has a certain energy I guess. Plus I feel like such a big city girl who can do anything, all independent and such, which is a nice feeling. It’s like when you’re a kid, Look at me mom no hands!, that kind of confidence feels good. It was also really nice because I got to read my book for the hour train ride there and home and the 30 minute bus ride home. Then I read a bunch more of it to finish it that evening! It was wonderful, I love days spent reading, and this was an absolutely spectacular book, The Rescue by Nicholas Sparks. So that was nice. When I got home everyone was back so it wasn’t so lonely anymore! It’s still different that so many people go home on the weekends, because they all go out Wed, Thurs and Sun nights rather than the weekends like home.

Hmm, so on to the week I reckon. Mondays I don’t have class, so I was going to use it this week to be productive and get a head start on things. That obviously didn’t happen. I have lots to do still. I was totally exhausted on Monday for some reason, it was like the weight of the whole semester just hit me or something. It’s been absolutely amazing, but quite wearing! The whole semester has been a big day you know, there’s always something happening or something to be doing, seeing, experiencing. So it is more incredible than anything, but it just hit me that I’ve been so challenged for four months and just kept on going the whole time, so I’m a bit worn out in general! It’s all good, but I just ended up taking a nap and lounging around all day basically. After caf that night Brandon and Donald came over to ask me some questions about Sydney so they could plan a trip. We got off topic right from the start and ended up talking til 1:30am again! I love it, those random and unexpected conversations about nothing and everything are great. And again, it’s just fabulous to be able to invest some time in people and vice versa. So then that made me tired Tuesday having to get up early for class. It was a bit of a strange day for some reason. Still didn’t get much done. Class was pretty good actually, the last ones, a little sad surprisingly. I know I’ve complained about classes some, that at times it can be frustrating not knowing what to expect and dealing with culture differences, but overall I have enjoyed my courses. The teachers at least somewhat interesting and funny people. I have learned some things, too! Especially in my business comm. class, it applies so much to everyday stuff. Most of it was common sense or stuff I’d heard, but sometimes she’d say something that really resonated with me and made me think about our communication on the whole and how much it plays a role in our lives. It’s interesting actually. Anyway, so Tuesday was another somewhat boring ordinary, unproductive day. Then came Wednesday, more of the same. Sort of. The main difference was I talked to Carly on the phone for three whole hours!!! I think I can say with certainty that was the longest phone conversation of my life. It was so wonderful though. I’ve missed talking with her the past four months and now we share something that others can’t always understand. So it was good to swap stories of our experiences and such, and listen to some of her crazy imaginative thoughts! I tried to book a tour with Loretta and her sister to New Zealand, but it was fully booked. So I was at a loss as to what to do, I know it’s my fault for waiting too long, I didn’t even think about it. But I think I have another tour I can go on, hopefully. That night I hung out with my housemates the entire night, playing poker and sitting around, it was a good time. There are some crazy people in my unit which means there’s never a dull moment. It’s good fun. It seems like this whole week I haven’t had a whole lot to do, but I always manage to keep myself occupied. I have no idea where all the time goes. So Thursday was my last class ever in Australia, sad day. We had Australia Today although we didn’t do much. I hung out with Marc for the rest of the afternoon. We had some cinnamon toast (he’d never had it! So I got him hooked, just like I did my Aussies) and pudding and enjoyed a game of hockey. Well, he enjoyed watching the game, I guess I enjoyed hearing him talk and talk about it all. He loves it, it’s amusing to see such enthusiasm from him! It was about time for caf then so we all went down and did not enjoy that, caf all week was pretty terrible for some reason. Anyway, I was meant to go out that night since Loretta’s best friend from home was here, but ended up not. Nobody else was really going out and I knew I wanted to be up to par for the ball on Friday. I hung out with all of them before they went out though and that was a pretty good time. I actually ended up staying up pretty late talking with a bunch of my housemates, but at least I was chilling in my pj’s. It’s so nice to have such a nice big living room so we can all sit around chatting together, that’s always a good time. Friday I had so much to do even though I had no class! I had to do my last assignment and got that in just in time. I had my haircut in the afternoon, I’ve been meaning to get one and it was perfect to get it for the ball. They gave me the “aussie haircut” that everyone seems to like here. I told her I wanted it basically like it was, just shorter, and still with layers. They layer (and thin) the crap out of my hair though! It’s crazy because even with all my hair, it looks like I have no hair now, it’s all gone. I really like it a lot, it just looks so different! Then I went into STA travel to try and book another New Zealand tour and think I’ll be able to do that, but I still have to wait a couple days. That took awhile, but it was alright since the guys helping me were pretty good looking, ha! Oh, and I had to head in to the supermarket since I had no food besides chocolate. Then finally I had to get ready for the Resi Ball!!!

Friday night was the Resi Ball sponsored by Deakin College, they have one each semester sponsored by each college. It was so fabulous. It was sort of like Prom, but better! I just wore my little black dress, but most girls had on little dresses similar, only a few had on full on formal dresses. Jess came over to finish getting ready with me and she helped me with my hair. I was just going to wear it down since I’d gotten it cut, but Jess came with her hair half up and it looked so cute I wanted mine that way too! So with her help I got it looking really cute just half up. So we got all dolled up and that’s always fun. We met up with Donald and Brandon to head down to catch the bus to the ball. We actually had to wait on them because they couldn’t figure out their ties, they’re such girls! We all looked so spiffy! The busses were a little later than anticipated so we stood around being pretty cold waiting. The ball was in Torquay at a place called The Rose, it’s about 20 minutes away. We didn’t get there til about 8 because we had to take the second round of busses, there were at least three of them, too. So it took forever to get our first drink once we got inside. They had beer, wine and champagne for free for us, so I just drank the wine mostly and one glass of champagne. It was really good actually. I tried the wine mixed with orange juice and mixed with raspberry, both very good. They had a do there who played some good music so we could dance all night long. It was such a fabulous time because pretty much all of res was there! I got to be with almost every single one of my friends here at the same time. Most of my housemates went and most of the Americans all went, so it was great fun. The night got a little less appealing when it was getting close to time to leave the ball and then heading over to Home House for the after party. I had to take care of a few different people who were pretty far gone. The great thing was, other people would come and take over so I didn’t have to go home! It wasn’t fun since I was worried about them but didn’t want to leave. Once we got into Home House and I found Jess, who had my purse, I was better and ready for some more fun. We danced there for a couple hours before heading home. Jess had a friend come pick us up so we didn’t have to pay for a taxi which was great. I fell asleep pretty quick then, and didn’t hear anyone else when they came back later. I wasn’t able to sleep in very long though, so I was so so so tired on Saturday. There was a drinking ban on res starting at 9am Saturday since that started Study Week, and then two weeks of exams. So they called it recovery day down at the Pond’s. Some people took that to mean more drinking. There were also a lot of people who just stayed in bed all day. I was up all morning though, so I went about noon with Loretta and Jared. It was also International Send Off day. So we all had white shirts for people to sign and that was fun. There weren’t too many people there and after we got people to sign we were just sitting there so we decided to find some food. Jared took us to Bubba’s, the pizza place close by. Then we had to stop by Cole’s to get some ice cream before heading back to res to eat. We sat around talking about the ball and recounting the night before deciding we were all too tired and our brains weren’t working right and we all needed a nap. I didn’t take one, I don’t know why I just can’t seem to do that here no matter how tired I am. I did end up going to bed before 11 last night though, and sleeping pretty late this morning. I didn’t do much of anything last night besides hang around here. Some of my housemates went home for study week, and others stayed in bed all day, so it was fairly quiet except for a few of us. That was good though, I was pretty exhausted. I did get to talk to Matt yesterday and that was great because I hadn’t in quite awhile. So yeah, that was the ball. It was very exciting, wonderful to get all dressed up fancy and feel so pretty. Everyone looked stunning there, it was fun to see everyone looking their best, at least at the beginning of the night! And it was a bonza night indeed, a real ripper!

Now it’s Sunday and Dad gets here tonight and I’m excited!! I’m not sure what all we’re doing this week but it should be great! I definitely need to do quite a bit of studying though. I’m a little stressed about exams, even though I only have three. It’s really only two that worry me, the two that are 70% of my grade. Yikes that’s a lot of pressure to do well. I should be fine, IF I get enough studying in. Granted, I only have to pass the finals to pass the class. I’ve done really well on the other two assignments in both classes. Actually, I just got my grade for that multiple choice test and I got a 13/15 and that’s just because I ran out of time and had to fill in a random answer on the last two! So that was good. Anyway, I just have to study because they told us basically exactly the topics we need to study for each question on the exam. My bus comm final is only 30% and should be fairly easy, which is a good thing that one’s first. It feels weird to be done with classes and have to really actually study. I can’t believe time is almost gone here. I’ve fallen in love with this country and the people. Everything is just getting perfect lately, when it’s about over. Everything here is normal now, it’s hard to think of all those differences and such now because I forget what’s normal here and what’s normal at home. It will definitely take time to adjust back to home. It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster all semester and so much has happened and changed. It’s a bit crazy. And so wonderful. Anyway, I guess I should leave all that talk for later. I have three weeks left with these people, then a couple more to explore this part of the world. I never want to leave this place, and I absolutely can’t wait to get home - both at the same time. I hope home is treating all of you well and you’re able to enjoy summer. It’s honestly felt a lot like autumn here lately, really gorgeous days and just cold evenings, and it’s supposed to be winter. So, let me know how you are. Take a deep breath and realise what all you’ve been given and how awesome this world is. I’ll leave you with some quotes.

“I can change. I can live out of my imagination instead of my memory. I can tie myself to my limitless potential instead of my limiting past.” ~Stephen Covey

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.” ~Napoleon Hill

Love always, Liss