sorry I didn't have time for pictures. I'll try and get them up whenever I can! See y'all in a 22 days!
-Chris
Monday, March 22, 2010
Farting
The camp food was delicious and filling. It was also camp food. Every time I farted anywhere withing 10 meters of Tali she would ask who farted within 30 seconds then get mad at people for farting. I didn't own up to it because they were--as I am half-selke--fucking terrible. Impressive and worth congratulations around my male friends...worth excommunication from the dining area amoung our group.
The camp food caught up with everyone else eventually though.
People kept complaining about people farting (50 percent of the time it was me) until they realized everyone (or at least all the boys) were letting them rip whenever and wherever they wanted. At the dinner table, in the tents, while hiking.
Now it was a competition. We got so much closer and (as a group of about 15) had a hour long discussion about bodily functions in the tent after dinner one night. It is these type of things that really bring a group together.
New idea for pre-trip retreats: Everyone camps in one giant tent after Burrito night.
Ben, Kat, and Caitlin responding to either a Joke by Spencer or my flatulence.
The camp food caught up with everyone else eventually though.
People kept complaining about people farting (50 percent of the time it was me) until they realized everyone (or at least all the boys) were letting them rip whenever and wherever they wanted. At the dinner table, in the tents, while hiking.
Now it was a competition. We got so much closer and (as a group of about 15) had a hour long discussion about bodily functions in the tent after dinner one night. It is these type of things that really bring a group together.
New idea for pre-trip retreats: Everyone camps in one giant tent after Burrito night.
Ben, Kat, and Caitlin responding to either a Joke by Spencer or my flatulence.
3/17/10 continued:
OH MY GOD. Today was so fucking amazing. After dinner, which was plentiful and delicious, (curry chicken w/ rice. better than the indian take-out AND dine-in we had in sydney. It was made on a camp stove. Ulla our cook is amazing) We went on a hunt for bugs again, this time for glow-worms. We took the same path we've been using for every field study, the wishing tree track. (named fot the giant strangler fig you can walk though because the tree it strangled has decomposed completely).
We stopped to look at a huntsman spider (Claire was not a fan) and saw some GIANT snails along the way. Went through the huge wishing tree (over 30 m tall and hollow almost all the way up) and down a path that went to the creek running @ the bottom of the hillside. There was a suspension bridge along with way, and since I was lagging behind I turned off my headlamp and did it in the pitch-black (and I mean PITCH-BLACK). Could cover/ no stars and in the middle of a dense, sub-tropical rainforest). It was awesome. I bounced up and down with each step and it was so fun. I told Claire to do the same when she came after me, but i turned on my light when she was 1/2 of the way across because she had started to hyperventilate.
Then I got up to a vine that KT and Annie were swinging on (u-shaped but about 6-8 cm thick) so I did THAT in the pitch-dark and that was fucking freaky/AMAZING. I was swinging back and fourth until Claire came down (about 2 min) and I waited until she was fairly close before I let out a loud cackle of "MWAH HAHAHAHAHAHA" and scared the shit out of her.
When we got down to the bottom of the creek we could see little green lights everywhere along the rocky protrusions from the track above. It was like a night sky full of green constellations. Our entire trip into the woods was a Nocturnal Disneyland.
We learned about how the worms live in mucus hammocks that they make, and catch prey in the mucus w/ their lights. The extra mucus looked like hanging icicles. So beautiful. Travis got some great shots of them but I can't put his photos up because i can't download anything on this computer.
Everyone headed back but Emily, Kelsey, Anna, myself, Rob, and Susan (our entomologist). We made out way back very slowly, stopping at all the bio-luminescing things, giant snails (baseball-sized), and critters. When Emily and I got to the suspension bridge we turned off out lights and we could see the stars up above us, and the green bio-luminescing constellations below.
THEN on our way back Susan saw a reflection off of her headlamp on a tree and pointed it out to Kelsey and myself. We thought she was insane. She kept describing where it was (on a tree 25 m away) we couldn't see anything on the tree. We walked off the trail to the tree and after a couple of minutes we spotted a gecko in the side of the tree. Impossible to see apart from the "eye reflection" (which I still couldn't see) and a very faint white line on its underbelly.
Rob caught up and got the spotlight on it and we moved around to see it from the front, but we lost it in its camouflage. we eventually saw it, though we still couldn't see the tail (it was a leaf-tailed gecko). Rob scampered up 8 m on the tree holing on to nothing but vines and grabbed the gecko. An amazing feat as he is aged-looking (65+?) and there were no branched low enough to grab on to.
We passed it around and IT WAS SO AMAZING. It loved me the most. It stayed still in everyone else's hands, but he licked me twice and then scaled my chest up to my neck.
What a night. When we got back i finally broke down and showered, (as my foot-funk was reaching biohazard levels) and I put on my old spice deodorant because it is cool enough to use it here without it melting.
Inside the wishing tree
Jack
Jack
Travis
Jack
We stopped to look at a huntsman spider (Claire was not a fan) and saw some GIANT snails along the way. Went through the huge wishing tree (over 30 m tall and hollow almost all the way up) and down a path that went to the creek running @ the bottom of the hillside. There was a suspension bridge along with way, and since I was lagging behind I turned off my headlamp and did it in the pitch-black (and I mean PITCH-BLACK). Could cover/ no stars and in the middle of a dense, sub-tropical rainforest). It was awesome. I bounced up and down with each step and it was so fun. I told Claire to do the same when she came after me, but i turned on my light when she was 1/2 of the way across because she had started to hyperventilate.
Then I got up to a vine that KT and Annie were swinging on (u-shaped but about 6-8 cm thick) so I did THAT in the pitch-dark and that was fucking freaky/AMAZING. I was swinging back and fourth until Claire came down (about 2 min) and I waited until she was fairly close before I let out a loud cackle of "MWAH HAHAHAHAHAHA" and scared the shit out of her.
When we got down to the bottom of the creek we could see little green lights everywhere along the rocky protrusions from the track above. It was like a night sky full of green constellations. Our entire trip into the woods was a Nocturnal Disneyland.
We learned about how the worms live in mucus hammocks that they make, and catch prey in the mucus w/ their lights. The extra mucus looked like hanging icicles. So beautiful. Travis got some great shots of them but I can't put his photos up because i can't download anything on this computer.
Everyone headed back but Emily, Kelsey, Anna, myself, Rob, and Susan (our entomologist). We made out way back very slowly, stopping at all the bio-luminescing things, giant snails (baseball-sized), and critters. When Emily and I got to the suspension bridge we turned off out lights and we could see the stars up above us, and the green bio-luminescing constellations below.
THEN on our way back Susan saw a reflection off of her headlamp on a tree and pointed it out to Kelsey and myself. We thought she was insane. She kept describing where it was (on a tree 25 m away) we couldn't see anything on the tree. We walked off the trail to the tree and after a couple of minutes we spotted a gecko in the side of the tree. Impossible to see apart from the "eye reflection" (which I still couldn't see) and a very faint white line on its underbelly.
Rob caught up and got the spotlight on it and we moved around to see it from the front, but we lost it in its camouflage. we eventually saw it, though we still couldn't see the tail (it was a leaf-tailed gecko). Rob scampered up 8 m on the tree holing on to nothing but vines and grabbed the gecko. An amazing feat as he is aged-looking (65+?) and there were no branched low enough to grab on to.
We passed it around and IT WAS SO AMAZING. It loved me the most. It stayed still in everyone else's hands, but he licked me twice and then scaled my chest up to my neck.
What a night. When we got back i finally broke down and showered, (as my foot-funk was reaching biohazard levels) and I put on my old spice deodorant because it is cool enough to use it here without it melting.
Inside the wishing tree
Jack
Jack
Travis
Jack
3/17/10
........we woke up at 5:30 to catch birds. Sorry. We LEFT at 5:30 to catch birds. we woke up earlier. It's wet and cold. We saw one. It was pretty cool. Worth getting up for. I got to hold it and its heart was going so fast that it felt like it was vibrating in my palm
-Passed out from 10-12:30
-Lunch was delicious
-Entomologist was SO AMAZING
*we set traps for bugs
*we netted bugs
*we whacked trees and collected bugs with those spider-sheet things
*we ripped apart logs and picked out the nastiest looking ones with tweezers
-20 different spiders
-Ants
-Isopods
-Gumball-sized rolly-polly bugs
-Snails
-SO FUN SO COOL. Could do that for hours. Now I kind of get my girlfriend's ability to sit in a lab for hours on end. If it was with bugs maybe I could do that too.
-Speaking of my girlfriend learned about the giant woodmoth. Gets as big as a Sparrow (maybe 300-500 grams?) thought she would love that one.
-Passed out from 10-12:30
-Lunch was delicious
-Entomologist was SO AMAZING
*we set traps for bugs
*we netted bugs
*we whacked trees and collected bugs with those spider-sheet things
*we ripped apart logs and picked out the nastiest looking ones with tweezers
-20 different spiders
-Ants
-Isopods
-Gumball-sized rolly-polly bugs
-Snails
-SO FUN SO COOL. Could do that for hours. Now I kind of get my girlfriend's ability to sit in a lab for hours on end. If it was with bugs maybe I could do that too.
-Speaking of my girlfriend learned about the giant woodmoth. Gets as big as a Sparrow (maybe 300-500 grams?) thought she would love that one.
3/16/10
-I am NOT a fan of waking up at 6 am to go look at things we trapped. Great its a possum. Great its 20 fucking rats. Oh, some of them aren't rats. They are "carnivorous marsupials". IT'S GOT A FUCKING RAT TAIL AND IT SMELLS AND IT SCAMPERS AROUND. ITS A FUCKING RAT. and its 6 am I don't want to watch this old bearded scientist man-handle a bunch of small furry things before I have breakfast. Oh, I also am not a fan of the 30 min hike to the start of the traps, and the 20 min it took to find all of them and the HOUR we spent looking at them, while Rob told us the same things over and over again.
-I hate scientists. They have so many rules. Especially Rob. He is a crotchety old man that likes things done EXACTLY how he has done them (since the dawn of time) and god forbid you put the traps in any other order besides elliot, (big fucking one I forget the name of), elliot. If you go elliot, elliot, (big fucking one) then you are essentially ruining the ENTIRE experiment. Because.... well I never really found out why despite my attempts to ask.
-Also, when tracking possums at night, I recorded the pacers steps when they we saw the possum. Not when we were directly under where It had been. Big mistake. everyone knows that the distance of 5 kelsey paces could ruin the entire fucking trip especially since WE WEREN'T EVEN TURNING IN THE DATA SHEET THAT I HAD TO WRITE ALL THE FUCKING INFORMATION IN. I COULD HAVE DRAWN A GIANT PENIS AND ROB WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN.
-don't worry, only 3 more weeks of field study with Rob in charge.
-BIO-LUMINESCING FUNGI IS FUCKING AMAZING I WANT IT IN MY GARDEN AND IT WAS LIKE AVATAR BUT BETTER BECAUSE IT WAS REAL LIFE.
Courtesy of Travis
This was a pretty sight walking back to camp for breakfast (courtesy of Jack)
-I hate scientists. They have so many rules. Especially Rob. He is a crotchety old man that likes things done EXACTLY how he has done them (since the dawn of time) and god forbid you put the traps in any other order besides elliot, (big fucking one I forget the name of), elliot. If you go elliot, elliot, (big fucking one) then you are essentially ruining the ENTIRE experiment. Because.... well I never really found out why despite my attempts to ask.
-Also, when tracking possums at night, I recorded the pacers steps when they we saw the possum. Not when we were directly under where It had been. Big mistake. everyone knows that the distance of 5 kelsey paces could ruin the entire fucking trip especially since WE WEREN'T EVEN TURNING IN THE DATA SHEET THAT I HAD TO WRITE ALL THE FUCKING INFORMATION IN. I COULD HAVE DRAWN A GIANT PENIS AND ROB WOULDN'T HAVE KNOWN.
-don't worry, only 3 more weeks of field study with Rob in charge.
-BIO-LUMINESCING FUNGI IS FUCKING AMAZING I WANT IT IN MY GARDEN AND IT WAS LIKE AVATAR BUT BETTER BECAUSE IT WAS REAL LIFE.
Courtesy of Travis
This was a pretty sight walking back to camp for breakfast (courtesy of Jack)
3/15/10
-I hate being awake before 9 am. I hate being awake with other people around at 9 am. My only consolation is that Kelsey, who I am sharing a tent with, is even more lethargic in the morning than me
-Strangler figs are SO COOL.
-One of the reasons that humans are so prosperous is that we have very little body hair and we can sweat. Therefore we can track prey for a long time and when it finally has to stop to pant in order to cool themselves down, we just spear them.
-There were bush turkeys screaming, (yes SCREAMing) in the middle of the night last night. I wanted to get up to go pee, but it was too dark to see and I didn't want to risk a pecker to my pecker. I held it til morning. Also, rats tried to get into our tent, I could hear them scurrying under our rain fly and trying to get the velcro up, but I was too sleepy to care.
-Leeches are everywhere.
-Strangler figs are SO COOL.
-One of the reasons that humans are so prosperous is that we have very little body hair and we can sweat. Therefore we can track prey for a long time and when it finally has to stop to pant in order to cool themselves down, we just spear them.
-There were bush turkeys screaming, (yes SCREAMing) in the middle of the night last night. I wanted to get up to go pee, but it was too dark to see and I didn't want to risk a pecker to my pecker. I held it til morning. Also, rats tried to get into our tent, I could hear them scurrying under our rain fly and trying to get the velcro up, but I was too sleepy to care.
-Leeches are everywhere.
Lamington Plateau
Ok. I've got 1 hr until my bus leaves and just enough money to pay for the internet. I'm gonna bullet point my week at Lamington, w/ a few extended descriptions, then post up as many pictures as I can. I've got much more to say on this past week in Noosa, but you'll have to wait until I get back on the 15th to hear it all because I don't have enough time.
3/4/10
-There is no point in stargazing in the Northern Hemisphere. Looking at the other side of the milky way sparkling like a million grains of sand blown across the cloudless night sky is enough to make oneself lost in space and time.
-PADEMELONS! OMG OMG OMG WITH BABIES!
-That was one of the VERY few times the sky was cloudless. It was fucking wet and cold al goddamn week. I left portland because it was 50 degrees and raining. I don't want any more of it now that I am here
-Bower birds= amazing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bower_bird
(Photos courtesy of Travis/Jack/myself)
Bower bird nest @ our campsite. This things are amazing. Rob said that there was a study done where a group of scientists broke up a bunch of blue glass bottles, and scratched the surface to identify them. Then then tracked them and found that each piece of glass could move up to 3 different nests per day. That means that the male bower birds (during mating season) are constantly stealing each other's "blue treasures"
3/4/10
-There is no point in stargazing in the Northern Hemisphere. Looking at the other side of the milky way sparkling like a million grains of sand blown across the cloudless night sky is enough to make oneself lost in space and time.
-PADEMELONS! OMG OMG OMG WITH BABIES!
-That was one of the VERY few times the sky was cloudless. It was fucking wet and cold al goddamn week. I left portland because it was 50 degrees and raining. I don't want any more of it now that I am here
-Bower birds= amazing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bower_bird
(Photos courtesy of Travis/Jack/myself)
Bower bird nest @ our campsite. This things are amazing. Rob said that there was a study done where a group of scientists broke up a bunch of blue glass bottles, and scratched the surface to identify them. Then then tracked them and found that each piece of glass could move up to 3 different nests per day. That means that the male bower birds (during mating season) are constantly stealing each other's "blue treasures"
Friday, March 12, 2010
Ramblin Man
Alright, well, I am about to store my computer. I won't have any internet access for the next month while I travel around all over the bush. I will try and write as much as I can down in my journal, but we have non-stop activities scheduled from 7 in the morning to 7 at night for a good portion of the locations that we will be in, so I will most likely be exhausted and tired and not wanting to write. I will take as many pictures as I can.
T-minus 30 days and counting til my arrival back in the states. Thanks for those of you who have kept up with this so far. I think I had a lot of unintended readers, so I hope y'all weren't offended by anything I said. If you were, tough shit. There is no such thing as political correctness in Australia.
-Chris
T-minus 30 days and counting til my arrival back in the states. Thanks for those of you who have kept up with this so far. I think I had a lot of unintended readers, so I hope y'all weren't offended by anything I said. If you were, tough shit. There is no such thing as political correctness in Australia.
-Chris
Last week
*whew* This past week was crazy.
Exams were a piece of piss. Short short short essays on topics that required no studying at all (I know this because the only "studying" I did was to wiki the Australian parlaimentary system, which it turns out I didn't need to know). However, the next two days were brutal. Tuesday Lauren and I worked all day making our presentation power point show, and finalizing our paper (/working in a giant quote that we found THAT DAY which made the Howard government's policies in the Intervention look stupider then they already are, which is saying something). Basically the quote gave a bunch of recommendations for solving the issues of violence and abuse in the NT, which the government completely ignored. The report stated specifically that "there can be no one-size-fits-all approach to solving these issues" What did the Howard government do? Make a giant discriminatory one-size-fits-all program.
Anyways. We worked on those two things for about 10 hours on tuesday. Wednesday was the first day of presentations, and we sat through 5.5 hours of presentations with one 20 minute break from 12:00-5:30. I nearly died. Most of the presentations were really interesting, but my body is not meant to sit still for that long. Lauren and I went to the library after getting dinner at a local restaurant, and then we worked on finalizing our presentation (and getting our works cited in the proper format...bleh) and we practiced once before I told her that I couldn't take it any more. She went home to practice, I went home to go to bed. I was not nervous at all. I was ready to be done.
Well...I never feel nervous for any sort of public speaking thing. I mean, I guess it's not conscious. I went to the bathroom 4 times in the three hours between when I got up and when I had to present. I guess my body was telling me something. We were the second presentation, and all throughout the first presentation I felt like I was going to be sick/faint/pee myself. Which is weird, because we've got a really nice group of people who all want everyone to do great. But they ask so many goddamn questions! And I had never given a 20 minute long presentation before, especially about a topic that was so broad and had so many factors influencing it.
Right before we got up to talk Lauren ran to the bathroom to take a pee. I would understand, but she practiced like...20 times the previous night, I just sort of made up how I was going to phrase things on the spot.
It was a decent presentation. I kept myself from jumping around and fiddling with things and spoke loud and clearly. I only got hung up once, and I dug myself out of it before Lauren had to jump in. It felt great to be done. I also liked flopping our 13 page monstrosity onto Peter's desk. I told him that Lauren had put me as the first author, but she really should have had that spot. He laughed and said "You are very generous Chris, you would never make it in academia."
We went over to the storage area where we are going to store electronics and unwanted stuff til the end of the trip, then I walked past this clothing shop with a really good-looking button up that I had been eyeing for days, and I decided to use some of my $650 travel stipend on it. Totally worth it. Then I got a haircut from a nice young lady who laughed at all my jokes and generally thought I was hilarious, which is weird, because no one tips in Australia so she must have just genuinely thought I was humorous. win.
There were supposed to be big plans for a giant party on thursday night, but everyone was too exhausted, so I ended up going over to Kaitlin and Anna's and we drank Cider, watched LOTR and dished out massages.
Friday was a different matter. We went to a rugby league game, got really into it(read: intoxicated) and then nearly everyone on the trip minus Kelsey C, Maren, Kaitlin, and myself went to a hotel room to celebrate Shandarra's 21st birthday. I would not be surprised if there are 20 American's in Brisbane police headquaters today.
The rest of my troupe headed out with Haley and Drew (Kelsey and Marens 26 year old host parents, for the past two weeks. Kelsey and Maren's original homestay had a family emergency, so Kelsey and Maren moved in with Haley and Drew. Haley is the daughter of Helen, who is Anna and Kaitlin's host mom).
We went to a 4 story bar with a live band and 5 or 6 different bars and a ton of different rooms.
We had a good time.
This morning I made the odyssey back home. I am having a family BBQ for the last night, and then I am going to run my computer and some extra clothes and presents down to storage.
If I had one photo to some up the past week it would be this one:
It was taken at the party Claire thew for her half-birthday last friday. This is our attitude now that exams, papers, and presentations are done.
This one isn't bad either:
Exams were a piece of piss. Short short short essays on topics that required no studying at all (I know this because the only "studying" I did was to wiki the Australian parlaimentary system, which it turns out I didn't need to know). However, the next two days were brutal. Tuesday Lauren and I worked all day making our presentation power point show, and finalizing our paper (/working in a giant quote that we found THAT DAY which made the Howard government's policies in the Intervention look stupider then they already are, which is saying something). Basically the quote gave a bunch of recommendations for solving the issues of violence and abuse in the NT, which the government completely ignored. The report stated specifically that "there can be no one-size-fits-all approach to solving these issues" What did the Howard government do? Make a giant discriminatory one-size-fits-all program.
Anyways. We worked on those two things for about 10 hours on tuesday. Wednesday was the first day of presentations, and we sat through 5.5 hours of presentations with one 20 minute break from 12:00-5:30. I nearly died. Most of the presentations were really interesting, but my body is not meant to sit still for that long. Lauren and I went to the library after getting dinner at a local restaurant, and then we worked on finalizing our presentation (and getting our works cited in the proper format...bleh) and we practiced once before I told her that I couldn't take it any more. She went home to practice, I went home to go to bed. I was not nervous at all. I was ready to be done.
Well...I never feel nervous for any sort of public speaking thing. I mean, I guess it's not conscious. I went to the bathroom 4 times in the three hours between when I got up and when I had to present. I guess my body was telling me something. We were the second presentation, and all throughout the first presentation I felt like I was going to be sick/faint/pee myself. Which is weird, because we've got a really nice group of people who all want everyone to do great. But they ask so many goddamn questions! And I had never given a 20 minute long presentation before, especially about a topic that was so broad and had so many factors influencing it.
Right before we got up to talk Lauren ran to the bathroom to take a pee. I would understand, but she practiced like...20 times the previous night, I just sort of made up how I was going to phrase things on the spot.
It was a decent presentation. I kept myself from jumping around and fiddling with things and spoke loud and clearly. I only got hung up once, and I dug myself out of it before Lauren had to jump in. It felt great to be done. I also liked flopping our 13 page monstrosity onto Peter's desk. I told him that Lauren had put me as the first author, but she really should have had that spot. He laughed and said "You are very generous Chris, you would never make it in academia."
We went over to the storage area where we are going to store electronics and unwanted stuff til the end of the trip, then I walked past this clothing shop with a really good-looking button up that I had been eyeing for days, and I decided to use some of my $650 travel stipend on it. Totally worth it. Then I got a haircut from a nice young lady who laughed at all my jokes and generally thought I was hilarious, which is weird, because no one tips in Australia so she must have just genuinely thought I was humorous. win.
There were supposed to be big plans for a giant party on thursday night, but everyone was too exhausted, so I ended up going over to Kaitlin and Anna's and we drank Cider, watched LOTR and dished out massages.
Friday was a different matter. We went to a rugby league game, got really into it(read: intoxicated) and then nearly everyone on the trip minus Kelsey C, Maren, Kaitlin, and myself went to a hotel room to celebrate Shandarra's 21st birthday. I would not be surprised if there are 20 American's in Brisbane police headquaters today.
The rest of my troupe headed out with Haley and Drew (Kelsey and Marens 26 year old host parents, for the past two weeks. Kelsey and Maren's original homestay had a family emergency, so Kelsey and Maren moved in with Haley and Drew. Haley is the daughter of Helen, who is Anna and Kaitlin's host mom).
We went to a 4 story bar with a live band and 5 or 6 different bars and a ton of different rooms.
We had a good time.
This morning I made the odyssey back home. I am having a family BBQ for the last night, and then I am going to run my computer and some extra clothes and presents down to storage.
If I had one photo to some up the past week it would be this one:
It was taken at the party Claire thew for her half-birthday last friday. This is our attitude now that exams, papers, and presentations are done.
This one isn't bad either:
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Exaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaams
So we have round one of our final exams tomorrow. We are taking two written tests (i.e. in class essays), for two of our International studies courses. The paper/presentation counts for the final of the cultural studies, and we have one more exam at the very end of the program on ALLLLLLL of the science from day one until then. (not really fair because most of that stuff is the stuff that I pay attention to). Anyways. I read the wikipedia article on the Australian parliamentary system, and called it good, as far as studying goes. I am really sick now (especially after a wild party on friday night). I slept 10 hours last night, napped for three today, and I am exhausted now that it is past 9 pm. Additionally I am quite the snot factory. Hopefully I will recover a bit for tomorrow, otherwise I will probably fill up the trash can with tissues by the end of my first exam.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
It took two months. But I'm finally homesick. I want to be back where beer is 15 dollars a case and you can get a decent burger for under 20 dollars, and people are fat and lazy and I can drive wherever I want whenever I want and I can lift weights and play footie and tennis and just generally do something besides sit on my ass.
Sit on my ass on my morning bus ride. Sit on my ass for 4 hours in class. Listen to how the world is fucked. Sit on my ass in the library for another 2-3 hours using the internet. Sit on my ass on the bus ride home. Go home and sit on my ass for another few hours to write my paper. Go to bed with a sore tailbone.
It's also rained for about 5 days straight. You have to wear flip-flops, not because its warm, but because you're shoes with soak within 45 seconds when you step outside. There are puddles that are a foot deep on the city streets.
And I think I have a sinus infection. I can't tell. I've never had one before. But I got sick in November and I haven't really ever cleared up fullly since then. I've gone fore a couple weeks without being sniffly, but it always comes back. And I have tons of sinus pressure that randomly stuffs up a nostril when its least convincing. My back molars are in pain frequently, but I got them checked out before I left and the dentist said that everything looked perfect.
I just want to dry off.
Sit on my ass on my morning bus ride. Sit on my ass for 4 hours in class. Listen to how the world is fucked. Sit on my ass in the library for another 2-3 hours using the internet. Sit on my ass on the bus ride home. Go home and sit on my ass for another few hours to write my paper. Go to bed with a sore tailbone.
It's also rained for about 5 days straight. You have to wear flip-flops, not because its warm, but because you're shoes with soak within 45 seconds when you step outside. There are puddles that are a foot deep on the city streets.
And I think I have a sinus infection. I can't tell. I've never had one before. But I got sick in November and I haven't really ever cleared up fullly since then. I've gone fore a couple weeks without being sniffly, but it always comes back. And I have tons of sinus pressure that randomly stuffs up a nostril when its least convincing. My back molars are in pain frequently, but I got them checked out before I left and the dentist said that everything looked perfect.
I just want to dry off.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Spiders, Alarms, and Paper Completion
Yesterday was a good day. After two pretty good lectures, one on women’s history of Australia, and one on the history of environmental impacts from European settlers (both delivered by the same history professor from UQ) I begrudgingly went to the library to keep writing my paper. Instead, Kelsey C and I looked up places to stay for our Spring break in a couple weeks, and settled on a place on the Gold Coast called Noosa. We’re going to stay @ a hostel that is 26 bucks a night (for a 5 person villa w/ tv refrigerator and kitchen, that is a two minute walk to the beach. Omg. Win.) It’s about 3 hours north of Brizzy, and a 40 dollar round trip (we’re taking G.E.D.’s free busride to C. Gorge from Brisbane the day after we get back from Noosa).
After we finished scoping that out and decided that we would find 3 other people in the near future, I decided that I would get on skype for the first time in a month (apart from a little convo to the parents to tell them I was alive this past weekend), and chatted with my girlfriend for 3 hours. It was amazing. It made me happy. (So happy in part because she made me realize that the paper that has been consuming my life and stressing me out for the past two weeks was halfway done over a week before it was due, which is for all intents and purposes, a first in my academic career). Also, I love her.
I took the bus home and distracted my host brothers from their homework by telling stories and roughhousing for an hour or two (taking a half hour break to watch the Simpsons in-between) before eating a delicious pasta creation of Donna’s. (It was chicken and sundried tomato with bacon and sweet chilli sauce. I ate about 3 pints of it for lunch today).
We ate a delicious chocolate cake and rice pudding for Tom’s birthday (A fact which I learned about 40 minutes before dinner. He told me it was his birthday after I got home and I didn’t believe him. Partly because of the context. I was giving him a wet willie and he told me that I had to be nice to him because it was his birthday.
“Bullshit” I said.
“No really, it is”
“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard that one”
Then Sam confirmed Tom’s story. Their birthday’s are five days apart. I wonder when Donna and Matthew’s anniversary is? Sometime in the end of May or early June is my guess. Anyways. Tom and I then gave Sam wet willie’s. One person on each ear. That’s what you get for sticking up for your older brother I guess. (I introduced them to the concept of wet Willie’s. They love/hate it)
So we ate cake and then Tom and I talked about girls while we were supposed to be doing homework and Sam put a fake spider on my desk because I told him a story about how I don’t like spiders. Real funny, kid. That son of a bitch. I feel I should mention the story now:
Three days ago I went to go pee in the middle of the night, and as I went to go to the toilet I saw this flash of brown go across the glass of the shower door. I took a closer look and I saw a couple of legs sticking out of the metal framework near the wall. Then the legs started to move upward. I don’t like spiders but I had to see more than just the legs. So I blew on the framework. In about 1/8 of a second, the spider shot out from the framework, around the hinge of the glass door, and stopped halfway between the metal framework and the edge of the door on the opposite side of the glass.
Fuck that is a fast spider. I went pee and went back to bed. The next morning I went in for my shower and scanned the metal framework on the inside. I thought I saw the legs sticking out at the bottom on the inside of the glass so I turned the water on (while standing outside the shower) and tried to point it at the corner of the framework. The shower head didn’t reach that far so I cupped water in my hands and tossed it into the corner. Nothing happened. So I stepped into the shower and bent down to look @ the corner. It was a screw that was sticking out. Not legs. Whew, I said to myself. I turned around to take my shower
AND THE FUCKING SPIDER WAS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE GLASS IN FRONT OF ME. It’s a good thing I was naked in the shower because may have been need for a carpet cleanup crew otherwise.
Just to give you a mental picture (mostly for my girl Erika Harris on this one, seeing has how I don’t have a photo) the diameter of this spider’s legs are only slightly larger than a 50 cent piece (minimal by Australian standards) but the thing can move probably about 10 inches per second. Squashing the goddamn thing would be near impossible. Anyways. I showered while looking at the bloody arachnid the entire time (it made it real easy to not go over the 4 min limit that the Aussie government suggests to conserve water) and for some reason didn’t really feel the need to do my pushups and situps and yoga that I normally do to wake myself up in the morning. In fact, I was wide awake on the bus and even talked with Katie and Zoe on the bus to school (normally we nod and smile at each other and cease verbal communication until the free coffee @ the G.E.D. classroom is obtained).
SO ANYWAYS, after Donna made Tom go to bed because he wasn’t doing any of his homework, I sat up for about 3 hours and wrote two sections of my paper. It was super easy because I had already read everything, and it was all in language that anyone can understand, so if you have to block quote something, you block quote it…….and then put a sentence after it to recap what was said, and maybe another to say why it was said…….and then YOUR DONE. It is so weird. Normally I have to spend pages deciphering the poetic implications of the language or alternative meanings, or debate about why and where things are mentioned in the literature. And I have to argue a point.
I just have to say shit here. I say it and I’m done. I state like its fact (cause it is I guess) and then that’s it.
I submitted my intro to Peter and he told me to be less biased in it. Meaning that I shouldn’t have an opinion during the opening. You just give background and say what you will discuss. It takes two seconds. And my brain doesn’t hurt at all. I’ve written seven pages and I’ve essentially just been regurgitating what other people say I haven’t had to really think for myself at all. Crazy.
Today, Lauren convinced me that she wanted to write the last section before our conclusion, and I conceded because she had an amazingly well constructed outline of it, and even if her grammar or sentence structure is complete crap, (which is isn’t) it will maybe take 5 minutes to edit. Then I just have to write a page conclusion and WE. ARE. DONE. A full seven days before it is due. Crazy.
The other funny story from today is that I managed to set my family’s home alarm system off. I got in the door, and supposedly have 1.5 minutes to put in the code, so I go to my room to put down my backpack and umbrella (it has been pouring down rain consistently for the past 60 hours). That was a mistake. The thing started beeping angrily upstairs so I went up to put in the code and it got even angrier after I came up the stairs. I went to punch in the code and all hell broke loose.
I’ve never been on a nuclear submarine, but I’m pretty sure that the nuke warning on one of those is much more subtle than this fucking device. My ears were bleeding, so I tried to call Donna on her mobile to ask what to do, but the power had been out since this morning (unbeknownst to me) to I had to parade around the neighborhood at 1 in the afternoon to try and find someone’s phone I could use. By the time I got a neighbor’s cell phone the company had called Donna and she figured that I had screwed up and told them that she was coming to check it out and they didn’t need to send anyone. I made the mistake of hitting the “off” button before punching in the code. You punch in the code, and then hit off, which is different from setting it, to set it, you hit set, then punch in the code.
Honestly I’d rather fight an axe murderer in hand to hand combat than figure out that fucking thing @ 3 in the morning.
When Donna got home she told me the reason it freaked out on me was that I went in to my room, instead of going straight upstairs which makes it freak out automatically. Great. Anyways. Made for a good story to tell people over drinks sometime.
Tonight I am going out to dinner and then to a showing of Avenue Q downtown. I get to enjoy it because I can’t write anything til Lauren gets her part of the paper done. PARRRRRTY!
Live is so good sometimes.
P.S.
I described the spider to Tom and Sam and they told me it was probably a juvenile of one of these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRV4d9LCawU
This video, might I add, was sent to me by Ben Bryant the week we got here. That fucker.
Miss you all and I am looking forward to being home!
-Chris
After we finished scoping that out and decided that we would find 3 other people in the near future, I decided that I would get on skype for the first time in a month (apart from a little convo to the parents to tell them I was alive this past weekend), and chatted with my girlfriend for 3 hours. It was amazing. It made me happy. (So happy in part because she made me realize that the paper that has been consuming my life and stressing me out for the past two weeks was halfway done over a week before it was due, which is for all intents and purposes, a first in my academic career). Also, I love her.
I took the bus home and distracted my host brothers from their homework by telling stories and roughhousing for an hour or two (taking a half hour break to watch the Simpsons in-between) before eating a delicious pasta creation of Donna’s. (It was chicken and sundried tomato with bacon and sweet chilli sauce. I ate about 3 pints of it for lunch today).
We ate a delicious chocolate cake and rice pudding for Tom’s birthday (A fact which I learned about 40 minutes before dinner. He told me it was his birthday after I got home and I didn’t believe him. Partly because of the context. I was giving him a wet willie and he told me that I had to be nice to him because it was his birthday.
“Bullshit” I said.
“No really, it is”
“Yeah yeah, I’ve heard that one”
Then Sam confirmed Tom’s story. Their birthday’s are five days apart. I wonder when Donna and Matthew’s anniversary is? Sometime in the end of May or early June is my guess. Anyways. Tom and I then gave Sam wet willie’s. One person on each ear. That’s what you get for sticking up for your older brother I guess. (I introduced them to the concept of wet Willie’s. They love/hate it)
So we ate cake and then Tom and I talked about girls while we were supposed to be doing homework and Sam put a fake spider on my desk because I told him a story about how I don’t like spiders. Real funny, kid. That son of a bitch. I feel I should mention the story now:
Three days ago I went to go pee in the middle of the night, and as I went to go to the toilet I saw this flash of brown go across the glass of the shower door. I took a closer look and I saw a couple of legs sticking out of the metal framework near the wall. Then the legs started to move upward. I don’t like spiders but I had to see more than just the legs. So I blew on the framework. In about 1/8 of a second, the spider shot out from the framework, around the hinge of the glass door, and stopped halfway between the metal framework and the edge of the door on the opposite side of the glass.
Fuck that is a fast spider. I went pee and went back to bed. The next morning I went in for my shower and scanned the metal framework on the inside. I thought I saw the legs sticking out at the bottom on the inside of the glass so I turned the water on (while standing outside the shower) and tried to point it at the corner of the framework. The shower head didn’t reach that far so I cupped water in my hands and tossed it into the corner. Nothing happened. So I stepped into the shower and bent down to look @ the corner. It was a screw that was sticking out. Not legs. Whew, I said to myself. I turned around to take my shower
AND THE FUCKING SPIDER WAS ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE GLASS IN FRONT OF ME. It’s a good thing I was naked in the shower because may have been need for a carpet cleanup crew otherwise.
Just to give you a mental picture (mostly for my girl Erika Harris on this one, seeing has how I don’t have a photo) the diameter of this spider’s legs are only slightly larger than a 50 cent piece (minimal by Australian standards) but the thing can move probably about 10 inches per second. Squashing the goddamn thing would be near impossible. Anyways. I showered while looking at the bloody arachnid the entire time (it made it real easy to not go over the 4 min limit that the Aussie government suggests to conserve water) and for some reason didn’t really feel the need to do my pushups and situps and yoga that I normally do to wake myself up in the morning. In fact, I was wide awake on the bus and even talked with Katie and Zoe on the bus to school (normally we nod and smile at each other and cease verbal communication until the free coffee @ the G.E.D. classroom is obtained).
SO ANYWAYS, after Donna made Tom go to bed because he wasn’t doing any of his homework, I sat up for about 3 hours and wrote two sections of my paper. It was super easy because I had already read everything, and it was all in language that anyone can understand, so if you have to block quote something, you block quote it…….and then put a sentence after it to recap what was said, and maybe another to say why it was said…….and then YOUR DONE. It is so weird. Normally I have to spend pages deciphering the poetic implications of the language or alternative meanings, or debate about why and where things are mentioned in the literature. And I have to argue a point.
I just have to say shit here. I say it and I’m done. I state like its fact (cause it is I guess) and then that’s it.
I submitted my intro to Peter and he told me to be less biased in it. Meaning that I shouldn’t have an opinion during the opening. You just give background and say what you will discuss. It takes two seconds. And my brain doesn’t hurt at all. I’ve written seven pages and I’ve essentially just been regurgitating what other people say I haven’t had to really think for myself at all. Crazy.
Today, Lauren convinced me that she wanted to write the last section before our conclusion, and I conceded because she had an amazingly well constructed outline of it, and even if her grammar or sentence structure is complete crap, (which is isn’t) it will maybe take 5 minutes to edit. Then I just have to write a page conclusion and WE. ARE. DONE. A full seven days before it is due. Crazy.
The other funny story from today is that I managed to set my family’s home alarm system off. I got in the door, and supposedly have 1.5 minutes to put in the code, so I go to my room to put down my backpack and umbrella (it has been pouring down rain consistently for the past 60 hours). That was a mistake. The thing started beeping angrily upstairs so I went up to put in the code and it got even angrier after I came up the stairs. I went to punch in the code and all hell broke loose.
I’ve never been on a nuclear submarine, but I’m pretty sure that the nuke warning on one of those is much more subtle than this fucking device. My ears were bleeding, so I tried to call Donna on her mobile to ask what to do, but the power had been out since this morning (unbeknownst to me) to I had to parade around the neighborhood at 1 in the afternoon to try and find someone’s phone I could use. By the time I got a neighbor’s cell phone the company had called Donna and she figured that I had screwed up and told them that she was coming to check it out and they didn’t need to send anyone. I made the mistake of hitting the “off” button before punching in the code. You punch in the code, and then hit off, which is different from setting it, to set it, you hit set, then punch in the code.
Honestly I’d rather fight an axe murderer in hand to hand combat than figure out that fucking thing @ 3 in the morning.
When Donna got home she told me the reason it freaked out on me was that I went in to my room, instead of going straight upstairs which makes it freak out automatically. Great. Anyways. Made for a good story to tell people over drinks sometime.
Tonight I am going out to dinner and then to a showing of Avenue Q downtown. I get to enjoy it because I can’t write anything til Lauren gets her part of the paper done. PARRRRRTY!
Live is so good sometimes.
P.S.
I described the spider to Tom and Sam and they told me it was probably a juvenile of one of these guys:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRV4d9LCawU
This video, might I add, was sent to me by Ben Bryant the week we got here. That fucker.
Miss you all and I am looking forward to being home!
-Chris
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