I haven’t had time to sit down and write a proper blog since Tuesday; I shouldn’t get behind like this. Let’s jump in shall we? So on Wednesday I finally made it to a class: personality and differential psychology. The lecture halls are huge, which is weird to a Tulanian; I’m getting a taste of big state school I guess. My professor for this class is, well I don’t really know how else to say this, batfreakinnuts. She’s on the breaking edge of psychology, from like 1905. Basically she adores Freud. In the states we’ve been taught to recognize he’s in no way scientific, is really perverted, and all of his theories have no way to be tested empirically. In our last lecture for this class we looked at dream interpretation. Yes, dream interpretation, in a science class. We basically learned how to use free association techniques to analyze dreams and unlock a person’s unconscious desires. Fact: She backed up Freud’s theory that dreams help keep us in a satisfying sleep because our unconscious wishes are being manifested in them by quoting some study in which people with lesioned “dream centers” in their brains reported not sleeping very well. I could write a paragraph about why that’s ridiculous, but instead, I’ll tell you about the next crazy thing she did. She drew a picture of a ship with sails and a giant prow on it (can you see where this was going?) and proceeded to interpret this for us. It was apparently something a boy raised solely by his mother dreamt about. The analysis was that ship was his mother, the sails were her breasts, and the giant prow was the penis the boy imagined his mom to have (since he didn’t have a father). Yea, so I generally sit in this class and snicker at all the crazy things this lady says. I’m hoping to drop the class soon.
My other classes have been great. Outdoor education is taught by Dr. Wayne Cotton who looks like an NFL quarterback with an Aussie accent. I have a small student crush on him already. I found out that I got the internship I wanted at the Brain and Mind Research Institute, yay! Also, campus is beautiful and I love the fact that there are students always sprawled out in the green spaces between classes. This is one of my pass times at Tulane so naturally I’m so thrilled its popular here. Before my social work I snoozed in the grass for a bit and enjoyed looking up at the gorgeous blue sky. I think the sky is bluer here, and bigger somehow. The sun is definitely brighter here, and I think we can blame that on the giant hole in the ozone over Australia.
I got invited that afternoon to go to a service Hillsong holds on campus for their college student group, and it was AWESOME. I was tickled to death to be at a service with other students! And they were so nice!! Also, they have connect groups that meet throughout the week which are like Bible studies, so I’m going to try to go to one next week. Excitement abounds.
I went out with Keelan Wednesday night to Darling Harbor. It was a really nice night and he’s very sweet, but I was hoping he wouldn’t try to contact me again. Honestly, as much as I would not like to admit it, my hearts really in another place. Um bummer, he just texted me. He’s going out of town this weekend though, which lets me off the hook, ha.
Thursday was pretty standard, I flitted around campus like the nerdy tourist I am getting excited about everything. On the way to my last class, I was walking with some friends when we spotted kids with a board that read “do you believe in miracles” and you were supposed to go put a tally under yes, no, or unsure. They also had clip boards and lollipops. Obviously a Christian student group if I ever saw one. So I beelined over there and took a survey that asked me how I feel about Jesus and what I don’t like about Christians, then I struck up conversation with a girl sitting at the table. She’s from Washington, lives in my building at the village, and tells me this group is the Aussie equivalent of Campus Crusade. I think some fireworks went off in the distance at that moment. She invited to a service they were having right after I got out of my next class. I went to that and it was nice, but the people weren’t nearly as friendly as the Hillsong kids. I think its because they’re much more shy, but still, not many people were making a huge effort to converse with me and the conversations I struck up withered quickly. So it puts me in this weird decision making zone: Do I go to Campus Crusade stuff because I LOVE Cru and what they’re about or do I go to Hillsong where the people are much nicer even though they glamorize church a little much for my liking? I’m leaning toward Hillsong at this point because I just felt more at home there. However, I found out that the Cru has Monday morning prayer at none other than 9am! Just like home. I’m definitely going to that.
Thursday night we wandered into the Well just as they were beginning a karaoke contest and whoever got up and sang automatically got a free beer. I signed up. Oh, and the grand prize was an ipod.. a legit nice ipod. I’ll leave out all the gory details and hit the highlights. It’s run on a playstation console and it scores you according to how many correct notes you hit, supposedly. Round one, I whoop everyone. But then this boy tries it on medium and the judge lady doubles his points putting him ahead of me, which creates a round two. He still ends up ahead of me by the end of round 2. Then comes round 3, the big sha-bang, winner take all. I ended up pulling it out in the end, they guy choked, I earn way more points, game over! But this girl came out of nowhere for a somewhat close second, and I guess they felt bad, so they were like, ok now we’ll determine the winner by round of applause. They end up not being able to tell who got more applause so they make us sing one more song that they pick. Its Pink’s “Get This Party Started.” Great. I don’t think she knew it that well so we rock paper scissored to see who went first. I lost. Great. So I sang it, and did pretty well. But she got to listen and learn the song while I sang it so she went and ends up beating me and WINNING THE IPOD. Even though I was ahead of her the ENTIRE time and still had more TOTAL points. I was LIVID, crushed really. Yes, absolutely crushed as I watched her get that shiny new ipod that I stayed in the stupid Well 4 hours fighting for.
We left the bar and I’m feeling quite dejected, so I got a novel idea, “Let’s go out!” One of my other friends from team Dingo, Elissa, asked me to go to Zanibar w/her earlier so I figured we would just meet up with her there. We got there and I can’t find her and its kinda lame so I asked one of our other friends who supposedly knows night life pretty well what’s good on Thursdays. (I found her as I was walking back down King with two guys on either side of her practically carrying her home, oops.) Long story short we end up at a bus stop headed to The Gaff on Oxford. Haha, get ready for this next part. I was reading the bus schedule figuring out when one would show up and I’m really cold so I ask Helen and Belal, who I will now refer to as Benji, haa, if one of them would sit by me on the bench and warm me up. This boy in a white jacket who I didn’t really notice before at the bus stop creepily says, “I will.” Um, weirdo. I ignored him and sat on the bench. Helen ends up striking up a conversation with this kid, whose name is Dave. Turns out he’s a really cool Aussie that offered me some of his chicken flavored potato chips, which were quite good, but gave me terrible breath. After chatting with Dave for about 10 min, I convinced him to come with us to the Gaff. Awesome, right? I’m really glad he came, apart from being cool he navigated, and I would’ve totally gotten lost otherwise.
We got to the Gaff, and oh turns out its also dead too. Although its really cool. The basement is like this techno cave. A few weirdos are out on the dance floor, including this girl with drum sticks who was beating them against each other in time with the techno beat. Hahaha I’m cracking up right now thinking about her. I drank a beer and decided tonight would be the night I would learn how to dance to techno. So I take Dave and Benji out on the floor with me and proceed to attempt techno dancing whilst being stone cold sober. Let me just tell you, it was awesome. But just as I got the hang of it, the bouncers cleared everybody out of the bar. Closing time, ew. The rest of the night we kinda bounced around and ended up at this hotel bar where I proceeded to take over the juke box and played all manner of things people who weren’t in my group found pretty annoying such as Lady GaGa, Miley Cyrus, Usher, etc. Yea, it was awesome. But then when we tried to get home, the bus service was crap and we didn’t have any cash left so we ended up walking home. Yes, from Oxford street. That’s pretty much up there with that one Thursday I walked home from F&M’s. Epic. And I ended up losing my voice, completely, on the walk home. In summary, I lost and ipod, my voice, and picked up a dude at a bus stop. Why is my life so stinkin’ awesome??
Today I went to another free bbq (see photo), my 5th I think. Oh and I’m having free bbq for dinner tonight. I’m also going to King’s Cross tonight; I’ll let you know how that goes. I did laundry today, it cost me $15. $5 to buy the card to be able to do laundry and then $5 a load. In the washer only. I brought my clothes home wet and they’re drying on the balcony as we speak. Darn you high cost of living.
Oh, and I have a question: why the heck are Thursdays, aka the most best/my fave night of the week, dead here? People like to go out like on Mondays, its just weird.
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