Week Six: The work begins...

G'day! :)

Sombrero!

This week has been busy. And not in the good way, drinking-beer-every-night, surfing-every-day (without a hint of a hangover) like the Visit Australia ads would have you believe. In actual fact - and I'm very sorry to burst the antipodean dream bubbles of anyone considering a year abroad - the universities here actually set you work. Bummer. Therefore, in my busy-busy week, the days of surfing have been replaced by the library, and the nights of beer have been substituted for, well, Mulan... But in my opinion that is ALWAYS a good thing. The consequence of this has been very little of note to blog about (as well as having "I'll make a man out of you" in my head for the past 18 hours straight).


On Monday I headed to the library (sigh) to begin planning my presentation for my sustainability module (eurgh). Due to a wonderful combination of unluckiness and idiotic tutorial leaders, I have ended up giving a presentation on Australian Politics. British politics - well, maybe I could bull my way through a presentation, throw in some jokes about Charles Kennedy and hope there were no massive politics geeks in the audience. But Aussie politics? Really? The girl who was unfortunate enough to be landed with me as a partner is great, definitely pulling her weight (and mine), but it wasn't a great start when she had to correct my spelling of the Labour Party. There is no 'U' in Aussie Labor, apparently. Pffff.


On Tuesday I went for a very early morning swim (note - by very early morning, mean pre-10am. I am a student, afterall). I went to my lectures, and in-between I went to the library and finished off my notes for the Marine Science module I'm doing. The best module, by far. I like fish.


Wednesday was spent working on the presentation again. It is beginning to look half decent, so I may POSSIBLY be able to get through this. My partner isn't so hot on the science, and I am basically politically retarded (at least in Australia), so we're splitting the slides. She can rant about aussie politics, as long as I can blab on for long enough about Phil Jones and the climategate scandal. OH YEAH - I MANAGED TO WEAVE UEA INTO MY PRESENTATION. I am awesome. I might chuck a photo of the LCR on there, just for lols.

Wednesday night we headed to Kirsty's flat for pre-drinks, where we discovered that sombreros are FUN. We grabbed a lift off Nikki's friend into town, with Kirsty safely tucked up in the boot. We got to the Brewery WAY too early... It was a fun night, but we ended up leaving by half one. We are lame.

 

The girls

Arriving in style!

On Thursday I made it to my tutorial for Aboriginal studies, then headed to the weekly free BBQ at the NUSA building, because, well... FREE FOOD. UEA union take note. I went for a quick swim and then home to do some work, before dinner at Church St (yeyy, more free food!). We also watched Despicable Me :) ("It's so fluffy I'm gonna dieeeee!")

My day on Friday depends on who is reading this.
If it is my parents/grandparents/other positions of authority - I DEFINITELY went to my 9am lecture. Then I delivered food to orphans and rescued an injured koala.
If you do not fulfill the above criteria - I slept til lunchtime then bummed around until dinnertime at Church Street.


Saturday was the day of our group trip to Blackbutt (haha, 'butt') Nature Reserve. It was a pretty epic trek, involving several buses and first-day-on-the-job bus drivers, but we got there by lunchtime, in time for a BBQ (again, wheeey). We walked around the enclosures and saw lots and lots of birdies including some gorgeous peacocks, some ENORMOUS sleeping wombats, a few wallabies, some roos and emus and A TINY TINY TINY BABY KOALA. It was tiny. After we had spazzed out (and taken far too many photos), we headed home mid-afternoon and spent the evening chilling at Church Street, eating and watching Mulan. (YEAHHH). We caught the last bus home with our food babies and vowed never to eat again. (HA, likely).

 

TINY TINY TINY BABY KOALA!

Pretty birdie :)

Emu

Roo crew

I slept in (accidentally) on Sunday and in the afternoon, headed into town for coffee with Kirsty, Liz and a lovely Aussie girl we met in O-week called Alyssa. We went to Liquid Gold, this little cafe overlooking the beach (and its enormous waves thanks to the mini-gale blowing outside). It was pretty chilled, we just sat for a few hours and had a natter, but it was a lovely way to end the week. :)


We've booked a weekend in Hawks Nest, about an hour north of Newcastle, in a few weeks time. The beaches are supposed to be gorgeous, with lots of dolphins and whales (and sharks...), and the hotel has unlimited bike and surfboard hire (which is great, ignoring the whole LOTS OF SHARKS thing. It's fine. I bet they're veggie sharks. Fish are Friends, not Food.)


The weather has gone a bit poo again, but it should be turning to spring in a few weeks time, so hopefully by the time we head to Hawks Nest it will be starting to warm up :) I haven't got much planned for the next few weeks, other than the occasional mini-meltdown due to workloads and massive hatred of my sustainability module. Hopefully my blog entries won't all be this dull... They'll get good soon, I promise. (Hopefully).

Gorgeous peacocks tail

I love owls :)