Australia Part 4

Once again there has been some delay in the posting, but I think that is a good thing for me since it means that I have been busy experiencing Australia. Don’t quite remember all of the tiny details of the past couple weeks, but a run-through should give you a hint of what I have been doing.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been hanging out with a couple of kids who play ultimate back in the states; Josh from Arizona and Jimmy from Penn State. These are truly awesome guys and they live next door to me in the on-campus housing so it’s pretty convenient. I have gone down to Bondi Beach a couple of times now. The first time, I enjoyed some amazing fish and chips from a little shop across the street from the beach followed by a couple of 30 cent soft serve cones from McDonalds. On the way to Bondi, I saw the Sydney Harbor Bridge for the first time since I have been it, and it was amazing. I actually got to drive over it today on the way back from Canberra, but more about that later.

School is nothing to write home about even though I pretty much am writing home about it… hmm. I just submitted part of a paper to my religion and film teacher to attempt to get it approved for the 2,500 word essay due on the 15th of the month. It is about the religious influences in the movie Fight Club, like the four noble truths of Buddhism, yin and yang, Taoism, and the Holy Trinity. I had a lot of fun writing the first couple of paragraphs, so hopefully it gets accepted. No too much going on in the other classes, except for a media campaign in media relations class. My group is trying to raise the level of teacher preparation for accommodating deaf children grades K-6 in a theoretical sense.

Ultimate Frisbee is going a lot better than expected. Although I declined to officially be on the Sydney Uni Uni Games Team, I still practice with them during the week and even joined them on a warm up tournament this weekend. I went to Canberra with the team whish is about three hours southwest from Sydney. We just played a round robin kind of style with three other teams. We won our games 15-4, 15-3, and 15-1. Technically meaning we won the tournament with a huge prize of 20 pieces of chocolate. Our team also won the spirit award which gained us another 20 pieced of chocolate. We were all pretty happy with the win because we had between 7-9 people throughout the day, so it was pretty tiring but very satisfying to win those games like that. For the total of the three games I caught two scores, and had team leading totals of eight d’s, and fourteen assists. Also, I only had one turn, so I was stoked on the weekend. Next weekend I got asked to play on a mixed club team at NSW regionals. There are going to be sixteen teams there and eight go to nationals and we are going in to the tournament ranked 3rd or 4th so it like we will go to nationals, which is pretty exciting.

I have seen Dark Knight twice, Pineapple Express, and Tropic Thunder since I have been here. I was happy with all of them but they couldn’t really compare with Ledger’s Joker even though James Franco gave it a good effort in Pineapple Express.

I hope everyone is doing well. I don’t know how long it will be until I post next because including this weekend I am gone 4 out of 5 weekends with five assignments due this month, so it’ll be a busy one. Thanks for checking my blog out, and please give me updates on your lives are going, either on facebook or email, because I miss everyone and want to know how you are doing!

Cheers,
Richard

Australia, Part 3

Ok. So I was trying to post every weekend, but I got a little side-tracked last weekend. For all 5 of you who read it religiously Sunday night before you drift off to sleep thinking about me, I apologize. I have been doing quite well though. I am two for two in completing my homework assignments (on time!) and I haven’t missed a class as of half way in to my third week of classes. I am not just saying this because my parents read this, it’s true. Classes are going fairly well except for my Cross Cultural Perspectives in Cinema class which has a little old lady who likes she could have been a villain in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. She has this creepy penetrating stare that makes me feel uncomfortable. But I push on and proceed in the world of academia as any strong-willed person finds themselves doing. However, I have not been a hermit the whole time since school started.

This past weekend I joined some kids from Australearn (The program that I enrolled to Australia with) on a self-guided tour of the Sydney Olympic Park, which was quite a sight to see. We unfortunately arrived too late to go into the stadium where they held the opening ceremony and some events, but we did check out lost of other venues like the volleyball / badminton/ table tennis gymnasium, the baseball stadium, and the aquatic center. People are supposed to pay $3 to get into the aquatic center since there were events going on, but due to the confusion of the aquatic staff, we were “confused” for athletes and entered through the exit for free. It was an amazing place to see, and we even sat down to watch a few events of a random swim meet.

Tuesday night, I went with a few people to the casino in Sydney called Sun City. We originally intended to watch the USA vs. Angola basketball game because the day time manager said that the sports bar ad satellite TV so the game would be no problem, but to our dismay the night manager informed us that this was not the case. So, being savvy Americans, we decided to grab a cold glass of beer and watch some Equestrian! It was quite an impressive showing from the women riders of Germany. However my self-diagnosed ADD kicked in and I decided to see what kind of damage I could do against the $5 video blackjack machine. The beer was starting to kick in and calm the nerves of gambling so I felt nice and relaxed. I played intelligently; hitting, standing, and doubling down on the right times. All in all, I won $55 on a mix of blackjack and roulette. I put $5 on odd, won, and collected my ten dollars in total. I had a good night.

It has been a great first month in Sydney, and I look forward for the weeks to come. I am truly blessed to have this opportunity and hope everyone at home is doing well.

Cheers,
Richard

Australia Part 2

So the first week of classes is over, as is my second week in Sydney. I am attempting to find some sort of a routine or organization with school and living in a foreign country, but I am wondering if that is even the best thing. Maybe I should just fly by the seat of m pants and see what happens. My classes seem like they will be interesting. I have three film classes and a media relations classes. The film classes all have a screening every week so I am on campus for quite a bit of time, but it’s ok because the campus is beautiful. I did have a bit of anxiety finding my classes because it’s a new campus and I didn’t find my classes before this week. I felt like a freshman again asking people where to go and finding kids who were in my class, but also had no idea where the room was. I eventually found them all. A couple highlights of my classes are I only have one final since they all want research papers instead. So once those are all turned in I can relax a little bit. For my religion and film class, I am writing a review on Fight Club’s religious parallels with Buddhism and its ongoing search for something to fill that void, when in the end the answer is nothingness.

The weather has been quite a different one than expected. It’s rained about half the time I have been, which has definitely prohibited the traveling around the city. I guess it is understandable since it is the middle of winter here, but I am excited for spring and some good weather. I have been over to Darling Harbor, but haven’t quite made it over to Sydney Harbor to the bridge or opera house, but I have plenty of time to do that. I have walked around the city a little bit with some other kids from my program. We saw where the Real World Sydney was filmed on the way to the harbor, so that was kind of cool. I haven’t done too much traveling around, but I look forward to in the weeks to come.

I have been trying to find a way to exercise around here because the food isn’t the healthiest place in the world. I can see how this beats America as the fattest country in the world even though the city doesn’t quite display this. So I joined the Sydney Uni Ultimate Frisbee Association (Suufa), and I have been practicing with them on Wednesdays. I also got asked to play with the club team (Fakulti) on Thursdays. So I am thankfully keeping myself running around outside because the pushups were just not cutting it. The Suufa is a co-ed team this semester and they are going to the Australia Uni Games in Melbourne in September. I made the squad, but told them I couldn’t go because it was a bit too expensive to play. I joined the team for some karaoke on Thursday night, and I can’t wait to see those pictures.

My roommates are still awesome, and there has been very little drama in the two weeks of living here. I am having a blast spending time with people from my program and meeting some amazing Australians that know how to have fun. I hope everyone back home is doing well. I miss you, and see you at Thanksgiving. More to follow…

Cheers, Richard