After class I had 30 min to run home, change, and get to the gym for spin class at 5:30. I managed to get there at 5:29 and made it to the bottom floor only to find that there were no more available bikes. Grrr. So I did the stupid elyptical and some machines. Oh and the guy at the desk who tells me I'm such a model charged me $3 for a towel and said I couldn't work out without one. This put me in a bad mood.
Eventually, however, I ended up going out with some friends that I met at a get together the night before; in particular this one Aussie boy named Michael. We went to Scruffy Murphys which is kind of the American bar with the sketchy basement club. Its been mentioned in a previous post. Anyway, I had the best stinkin' time there. They played hip-hop in the sketch basement all night, including I'm On A Boat! Michael danced with me the whole night, keeping creeps away, and didn't try anything. Its a funny thing, at home you have your favorite songs and then one's you don't care for too much. When the ones that you don't like come on, it kills your dancing high that you had from the last good song(s). Here, when you can't get American music on a daily basis, you love EVERY American song that comes on. Thus, the amazing this-is-my-jam dancing high lasts all night. Needless to say, I was in the zone.
Wednesday I didn't have class, so I slept in until Powerhouse. They provide some snacks that served as my breakfast/lunch including microwave spring rolls, a cheese & fruit platter, AND a totally killer cheese fry variation. As you all know, cheese fries are one of my life's passions/main guilty pleasure. I feel even more guilty eating them in the light of day. But anyway, these are like wedge fries with cream cheese and jezebel sauce on top. Or as they call it, sour cream and sweet chili sauce. Simply amazing. Really fattening, but I just try not to think about that while eating them. Powerhouse was great again. The worship was great, the message was great (given by a student, right up my alley), and the people were beyond great. I really think this is the friendliest bunch of people I have ever met. I hung around talking to everyone after and ended up going home with a lunch date, a brunch date, and a coffee date all with very nice girls.
Wednesday night was Ted and his twin brother Tim's birthday. We took the city rail to Bondi and went to Eastern. The trains were double decker and I was such a nerdy tourist snapping pictures of us on them and in all the dodgy tunnels we had to walk through to get down to the platforms. When we got to the club there were lots of dudes getting hauled out by body guards. Their faces were rather rearranged. Apparently they were beating the tar out of each other. One of them spit in a guard's face right in front of me then took off down the street running. In five seconds the guard had this guy on the ground, sitting on him while putting him in an intense headlock. Sweet. Another club promoter guy came up to us girls and pulled us out of the line to get in the door. He then proceeded to give us these access cards for discounts at some places around town and then let us in ahead of everyone because we're American.
Eastern was cool; the second level played American music and the fourth level had a very cool lounge in it, earning my stamp of approval. The twins had a very happy birthday indeed charging quite the wopping tab to their parent's credit card. It feels kinda wrong when the person who's birthday it is buys you drinks, but who am I to complain on their birthday? Hilarity ensued on the dancefloor.
Thursday I was in class all day. And this was also the day I got the email. Mark Berin, great guy he is, down at the Tulane Office of Study Abroad (OSA) decided to respond to the fax I was required to send him with all my class schedule information. He informed me I couldn't take Outdoor Education or Australian Theater and Film, that I needed to talk to my department about the social work class, and that my internship may not count unless I also get it approved by the psych department. I WAS LIVID. I silently cursed the OSA to the high heavens while in the library and later in very loud tones back at my apartment. I get this email the day BEFORE the last day to add classes. So out of nowhere I have to find two more classes to take and who knows if Mark will deem them good enough to receive credit. I decided in my raging anger that I'm not dealing with this nonsense right now. Most of my friends were going to the Snowball that night, which was some thing w/a lot of bands playing that did not appeal to me. I ended up going to an underground comedy club with a bunch of guys which turned out to be tons of fun. I've never really been to live comedy before, but it was definitely worth it. It was held on the second floor of this awesome divey local bar that's in an old house. It was pretty much in a large, but cozy living room that had several tables and some couches set up in it; absolutely adorable. It was the closest thing to a night in New Orleans that I've had so far. Several acts went on that night; I laughed the hardest at this one guy who cracked himself up with this joke about getting pirates and trees mixed up and you couldn't follow it at all. Something about that just killed me. Another comedian, a big sweaty guy in a suit, made really depressing jokes about his wife which I thought were terrible. My favorite of the night was the only girl who went on. She was your typical dumpy female comedian, but was surprisingly funny.
After that I went back to my apartment and was planning on crashing but somehow the twins etc ended up coming over. We stayed up all night with the intention of doing something, but never actually leaving the apartment except around 3am when we went to Istanbul's and got pizza. Curse you late night eating!!
This morning I woke up around 10:40 content to roll over and go back to sleep, and then I remembered I had until noon to change my schedule. And then I cursed the OSA again and began to panic a bit. I showered and trudged down to the Jane Foss Russell building, aka my new hang out since I've been there to change my schedule no less than 600 times by now. I figured out my original simple plan was foiled and headed to a computer lab to dig through the unit of study databases without a clue as to what I was going to do and plenty of curses aimed at the OSA on my tongue. I tried to get in this American History class that was called Lincoln to Clinton, but they only offered it first semester. Cripes, that would've been such a fun little cop-out right? I also tried looking at some art classes and whatever other nonsense popped into my head. Then, I thought back to Violetta mentioning one day that she was in a class called Buddhist Philosophy that was stupid-easy. Check. And then the Australian history class I originally signed up for, but dropped because it conflicted with the theater class came to mind. Check. So there you have it. My new and (probably) final schedule: Psychology for Social Work, my internship, Buddhist Philosophy, Outdoor Education, and The History of Australia: Colonies to Nations. You may notice I didn't drop Outdoor Ed. That's right, I am NOT letting Mark Berin and the OSA take away that sweet class and its field trip to the Blue Mountains. Take that you sorry jerks! But that also means I'm taking above the normal class load, equivalent to 18 hours or something. Oh well, I want my stinkin' trip to the Blue Mountains and since the credits don't transfer back to Tulane I suppose I can fail it without consequence. Good enough.I was still super livid after making these changes because now I'm two weeks behind in these new classes.
I went to buy the readers for the classes and saw the rugby shirt of my dreams. I've been drooling over the beautiful rugby shirts people have been wearing here and longing for one of my own. Its long sleeved blue and yellow stripes with Sydney University written on the left breast pocket area thing. It will be mine before the week is over. Then I went back to my apartment and sulked on my couch and talked to Helen about weird stories we wrote back in elementary school during those creative writing exercises. I figured I would go slink off to my bed for a nap when Lindsey came back from the travel agency with some sweet brochures. I got really excited about that and the fact that my new timetable is decent. This excitement allowed me to forgo my nap and clean my room instead. Golly was that ever needed.
Later I took Helen to the travel agency with me. I REALLY want to go to Frasier Island for my birthday in two weeks, but no one else is gung-ho about forking over the cash for that one and I'm not sure I'm up for doing my birthday alone. Grandaddy did his birthday alone in Australia once though and seemed to have a pretty good time. Maybe I'll try it? We're also thinking definitely New Zealand for Spring Break and either Fiji or Cairns for study break. Cairns will probably win because of the Great Barrier Reef, but I really want to go to Fiji too... Shoot.
I got invited to not one but two birthday parties tonight. Just my luck when the only thing in the whole world that I want to do is get in my jammies and read. Well, that and dream about New Zealand..
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