Day 18: Bank Holiday

Today I woke up at 9 so I could accomplish things. I then decided it would probably be in my best interest to keep sleeping until 10:30 just in case that would make any improvements in my recent ailments. So then I woke up again a little before 10:30 and had a bowl of weird cereal before setting out for the day.

My first stop was Wentworth so I could go to my bank and withdraw money I need for groceries and to make my promised payment to the gym. This plan was quickly foiled as I approached NAB which had bars down over the doors with a note posted on them reading "Closed Monday 3 August. Bank Holiday." Oh, great. I decided to just go to the store anyway because I was in desperate need of groceries. Halfway there I realize I need to add and drop some more classes and this would be my only chance during the day as they close at 12:30. So no grocery shopping, but I got my classes changed and then took care of some business Tulane is demanding of me. I also sent emails to some of my psych professors back home who I knew would be particularly irked by the crazy personality & differential teacher I have. After that I decided I needed to grab lunch as I was in an almost solid block of class from 1-8 today. I couldn't find a stinkin' ATM at the food place even though there were signs all over the place for them until 5min before class started so I got a berry smoothie for lunch. It was berry yummy.

Then I sat through an hour of my superdoodlecrazy professor going on about her love affair with Freud. I plan to change my classes one more time as soon as I hear back from Tulane and that will be to drop this psych class. Thanks to the uni's archaic method of scheduling I am set to break a personal record of changing my schedule 5 times after classes have started. Whilst in class, I asked this boy next to me where he was from. He said Sydney and I continued to ask him what he thought about all this she was saying. He said he reckoned it was kinda baloney. He asked me if I was from the states and then said, "Freud has quite a following over there." I corrected him quickly and was at tinge offended. Someone a few seats down from me asked an obnoxious question that I had sarcastically been thinking about in my mind. I was thrilled and leaned over to high five him and tell him I thought that was very cool of him.

Following that class I had to run to Australian Theatre and Film class. It was pretty uneventful, we went through a history of Australian film and watched a few clips. I was appalled by the movie, um, can't quite think of it. Its quite famous.. Mad Men? Bad Dogs? I have to look it up... its Mad Max. Yes, Mad Max is quite appalling. We don't have tutorials for the class until next week so I had a couple of hours to go grocery shopping.

Grocery shopping here is really an adventure. They sell things like canned gluten loaf and nut loaf (pictured: Nutmeat and RediBurger). A certain family member of mine will be quite pleased to know that they also sell Weight Watchers products. I searched diligently for spray butter, none to be found. The cereal names are quite comical: Frosted Flakes = Frosties, Rice Krispies = Rice Bubbles, Raisin Bran = Sultana Bran, and they have Mini Wheats that aren't frosted. Ew. I was trying to find a big box of Frosties but couldn't manage to do so and I ended up buying a box of Crunchy Nut Flakes. They also don't have grape jelly, so I got black currant jam as its the most similar in color. Wheat pasta is apparently a delicacy, I ended up buying a bag of white because its like $3 cheaper. I also bought things like chicken nuggets, pizza rolls, and a can of pears. Then I lugged all my groceries home in my totes; I could really go for a massage. I wasn't deathly sore today though for the first time since last Wednesday when I went to that weights class at the gym.

I returned home after shopping and made myself a PB&J and a salad for dinner as our microwave has been broken for about a week now. Then I went to my career development workshop for my internship. It was really fun, we just did things like personality tests and learned about Australian workplace culture which is about the same as American, so its all common sense.

On the way home from the workshop I had my ipod in and Shawn McDonald's song Take My Hand came on. In this song he acknowledges that he can't do this life on his own and has to rely on the Lord. Listening to that song and walking down City Road I felt an immense peace wash over me. Its so comforting to know that in a world that values independence and taking care of yourself, I don't have to rely on myself; I have the God of the universe taking care of me. And in all the places that I fall short, he doesn't. The world tries to put so much pressure on us, but in him there is no pressure, just love.

I got back to my apartment and decided I was hungry for a second dinner. Against my better judgement, I drug Violetta to an Italian place across the road and had an amazing hunk of lasagna. Then I went and hung out with some friends for a bit in their apartment below mine. I really want to go see some professional sports while I'm here like rugby or football and luckily I found a friend tonight who's getting tickets to a game.. on my birthday! So hopefully that will pan out. Good Monday.