Memories of back home..

A few pics I have been emailed which make me smile! I thought I would blog here as my photo site is getting pretty full!

Mum, Petie and I with our shots at my going away - what a cool mum!

I can still drink my mum under the table!

Leaving home one last time...

More bunnies!

Just a small post to show how cute the baby bunnies are around here... there are lots right now! Right now Hick Hayles is giving me a tattoo on my arm of something which symbolizes a Hick apparently - a cow in a circle... see what I mean about the maturity... on both of our parts!

How cute - there were 4 but one ran back to its hiding spot!

Going for a record! (with edits for dad..)

I could just blog all night!! So other exciting news... Well we had a bit of a res soccer game last Saturday - it was an "exhibition match" before we start this Saturday. It is a bit scary though as it is REAL outdoor soccer and well I do not have expertise in that! But should be fun! I will make sure I take my camera with me for some great action photos! So apart from that a few of us went to our first hip hop class in Monday.. Talk about my lack of coordination!! I am terrible! Will take a lot to get back into a dance off! Apart from that we have just been going out - went to a Hawaiian night last Friday at a club called The Red Jacket so Ill get some pictures of Shana and be sure to post them for you soon! We have also had a few girls nights where it usually ends up to be us Aussies, they are always a good laugh! Especially when we discovered twinkies after one night out at a club called Plan B which may have involved moving on to a female strip club.. but you will have to hunt Shana and Alisha down for that one as Bec and I may be too scarred to tell.. plus we still have halo's above our heads! but when you find Shana and Alisha ask them about what happens when you give money to a stripper... :) If it is any consolation we drank Fosters while there!! How Australian.. sadly Fosters is the only beer imported to Australia so they think it is our main beer over here! I just want a Carlton!!! Oh and also not only have we been learning Canadian but we have been teaching the Canadians some cool Aussie stuff - the most important.. VEGEMITE! Karl doesnt mind it, how cool is he! Hmm so it has just come to my attention that my awesome DAD, mum and nanna are not the only parents to read my blog so id just like to give a big hello to the Canadian girls parents and thank them for reading my blog and also thanks for having such cool kids to hand out with! Ok now for more pictures!

The Aussie girls enjoying our night out at Plan B - Alisha (Newcastle), Bec (Adelaide), Shana (Adelaide) and myself!

Bec and Alisha discover Twinkies! We didn't even wait to get out of 7-11 before opening the packet and we thought this deserved to be documented!

Karls first taste of Vegemite

For all the guys back home!!

Hey guys! Guess what?! Gab just let me steal her computer for the night! So it is now 12.30am and I am updating all my photos and blog as promised! I may even get back to all those emails!! I dont have class till 2.30 tomorrow and only have it for 45mins!! Score eh!! hehehe Well once again I have so much to write and I have left it so long so here is a bit of a run down and then I will get some photos up!! So first fo all the boring parts - Uni is awesome and my 'professors' are pretty awesome and now I FINALLY have 4 subjects, I have two geography subjects - Wildlife Management and GIS for the Natural Environment and two earth and ocean science subjects - Understanding the World's Oceans and Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes and Natural Hazards.. which I LOVE! I now want to major in Earthquakes and move to California and monitor the San Andreas Fault!! Imagine me doing that! hehe Sadly when I return home I will be forced to do one semester of 3 electives then the second semester I will have to do 1 core unit before I can pass my degree but that's ok I was just gonna work and get my arse out of debt anyways! Plus Columbia right girls?!!

Hmm what else to report.. oh what I have learnt since in Canada... the Canadian girls are GREAT value and this is what we have been up to the last few weeks:
Last week we had a transvestite night for our residence where we had tug-o-war and sundae ice creams on a lovely Sunday night! I had a bit of a beer gut going on and some of the boys had hotter arses than us girls but the next bit is classic.. Canadian Kate I told you I was posting this so here you go... All us girls were all borrowing the boys clothes and Kate, Shana and I were all in Karl's flannelette shirts and pants etc and Kate is in my room and then all of a sudden comes out with "I'm going to go put some make up on because I still want to be a cute boy" hehehehe and man Kate was a cute boy so here are some photos so you can see for yourself!!!

Some of the crew from Level 2 Ring Road hall - We look like a pretty sexy bunch hey! Our resident advisor is in the green!

Shana (S.A), Kate aka "pretty boy" (Canada), Lene (Denmark), Nina (UK), Jess (Melbourne) and Mazz (UK) - the sexy guys in our res hehe and oh I can't forget Ethan (Torqay) in the front - he makes one hell of a woman! Can you believe they were all his own clothes too! Just joking :)

Jess and Karl provide some free Sunday night entertainment!! (Nina and Maz in the background)

The sexy Swedish girls or should I say guys! Its Maria and Negin doing a great job of being blokes!

Next is line dancing - YES I have been taught how to line dance thanks to Gab and Hick Hayles! So here are a couple photos of us girls decked out in our gear!! We are known to perform.. and tonight (after quiet hours had begun, it never happens though - no noise after 9pm on a weekday!!) we had a special chance to be tapped by Aussie Shana on her video camera so watch out we are going to be famous!!! Also coming up soon is a Rodeo at the residence dinner hall so we are getting ready to bust a move or two!!

Hick Hayls, Gab and myself line dancing to Man I feel Like a Woman by Shania Twain!

The line dancing legends posing for a photo shoot - Hayley, myself and Gab

Ok I will blog more on a new post soon so they do not turn into essays!

Another post already!

So I'm in the computer lab with 2 of the aussie girls and I am trying to find a new course to enroll in by tomorrow! My only dilemma is right now its 7am back home and I cant call my uni till after 9! So now I just gotta sit and wait and pass the time till I can call and see if I am allowed to enroll in a class that has nothing to do with environmental Science in Australia.. but sounds like a fun class to me!! - Earthquakes, natural disasters and plate tectonics!!! So I thought I would blog how awesome my res floor is!! Remember me complaining about not having a lovely homely room... well yesterday Gab one of the first year Canadians on my floor gave me a cool desk lamp for my room as well as a throw pillow for my bed AND a painting she painted of the Eiffel Tower so while I am on res my room will look more homely! Andy my Scottish friend gave me a Scottish flag to hang up on my window and I also have my plants I have grown from last week!! But that's not the coolest part!! Kate (Kate honey I told Canadian Kate that she was my Kate replacement while in Canada..!! Its ok though cause I can have a Canadian and an Aussie Kate and besides my argument is you replaced me before I had even left with a new Kim at work - with the same birthday too mind you!!) another Canadian on my floor drove Gab, Karl and I down to the shops and Gab and I got Siamese Fighter Fish so now I have a family member in my room! He is bright red and the craze has become so big that even the RA's are going out to get one (fish are the only pets allowed in res)!! As a tribute to Steve Irwin I called my fish Stevie Stingray while Gab called hers Jacques! So my room has received many visitors since yesterday (including the RA's) with everyone coming to see Stevie and the famous plant which sprouted in 3 days and is now over 10cm tall!!!! - So famous in fact that Karl had to bring his plant over to mine cause it has been 7 days and his had yet to sprout!! All us internationals getting fighter fish have made sure we have teamed up with Canadians who are here for the 4 years to take good care of our fish when we leave! Well that's it for now, I don't have photos with me so I wont post any yet but Ill have to add new photos of my awesome room now plus Stevie and how beautiful he is... Yes I sound like I'm 15 I know but I was excited and you want me to blog so I gotta talk about something!!

At White Spot with Canadians Hick Hayley, Sarah, Dannielle, Gab, Kate, Karl and then the crazy Scottsman Andy while the Aussie girls are in front - myself, Bec and Shana!

Res life..

A small post about where I am living.. So I'm staying in res on a floor with mainly internationals and some Canadians. We have the newest building.. about 2 years old someone said! Really nice spacious rooms and lots of space to put my non existent belonging! - I was a bit sad to see parents moving their kids in with surround sound systems, TV's, fridges, computers, nice quilt covers.. you name it!! But I feel better knowing all internationals have little in their rooms! The campus is really nice with literally hundreds of rabbit everywhere - not just at dusk and dawn like back home but all the time. You just walk by and they don't even care and these ones are cute pet looking ones too! We have three sections to the res I am in with A wing, B wing and C wing. Most are in A and a few in C and then me.. in B! I obviously got the unsocial wing as only my neighbor and I speak but luckily its all connected so I'm just as close to A and C and I am to some of the B-wingers! Food is not bad and there is a nice vegetarian place to go too when I have had enough of res food! Luckily I only have my classes in the one building so its not too confusing to find classes for me! Its a nice campus and a lot bigger than what I am use to at Deakin. Many parks and running tracks surrounding the uni although don't walk alone cause there have been cougar sightings apparently!! (The feline kind not the woman kind - I have recently been informed what the Canadians refer to as a cougar...) Well its now 11am on a Saturday and yes I'm actually up and been productive (laundry) then it's off for lunch with the Canadians so Ill write more when I can.

Above - A, B and C wing from left to right (you can see a few rabbits in this photo!)

Below - My lovely room

I'm alive!

It is hard to explain how much I am loving Victoria (the Canadian one hehe) - Just like explaining the view when you haven't seen it for yourself! I have met some unbelievable people and already am finding it hard to say goodbye even though I have 4 months left!!! I am living in res on the "international" floor although we have quiet a few Canadians who are happy to show us around and pick on us Aussies for our sayings (*cough cough* Hayley *cough cough*)! - Especially me, apparently I sound like the most bogan Aussie.. this seems funny when they don't know the term bogan and needed us to teach it to them... but now they are quite happy to use it! Hayley (also known as Hick Hayley... more to come on the line dancing Hayley..) looked up the term and apparently it means "Someone who lacks education and grammer.. otherwise known as WHITE TRASH" THANKS GIRLS!! But yes it is very funny and makes me enjoy my time even more! So we have been teaching them Australian while they have been teaching us Canadian.. "I am like getting quite good now eh!" We already have regular patterns such as me getting up at 7 each day to go for a power walk down by the bay and marina with Karl - A Canadian on my floor. We also have regular meeting times for tea (in their case dinner - they are a bit confused why we drink tea at the same time every night!). We start res soccer soon and our whole floor has a team so were quite the social bunch!!! We also joined the gym and signed up for weekly hip-hop classes so watch out when we hit the dance floor back home guys! We are quite the family! Although its weird been on res with people just outta high school - most are 17 or 18 and of course legal drinking age is 19 here so its like living with a bunch of 16 year olds back home who have just discovered some freedom and alcohol! - Not our floor though, ours is much much better and more mature like! And to be honest - which most of my friends back home will agree with me, most of the first years here are sadly more mature than me! hehe Uni has just gone back and classes seem ok so far.. bit of dramas with Canadian teachers not wanting non-Canadian students in their classes (including myself) so I have come across my first main hurdle - trying to organize a new unit to take which fits in my my degree back home!! Back when I stand back and look at it in the scheme of things things couldn't be better. Its hard trying to write negative things when there is so much more than makes up for it. I could see myself here for a lot longer than what I am and the people have made it like that! Its hard knowing what to write in these posts as there is too much that I want to tell but this is just a post to let everyone know IM STILL ALIVE!! I'm sure more will come but right now the computer lab is closing!!