Sara Lake's Blog: Three and a Half Stars ???

March 8, Monday

Eight hour day. J Hooray for getting a holiday about only working eight hours a day.

I slept in today until about 10:30.

I called Dad to tell him about my camera. He told me to send it to him and he would take it to Best Buy and see what he can do about it because there must be a warranty on it considering I’ve only had it for about a month.

We were supposed to go to the gorge today but it was raining a lot. L

After talking with Dad, I walked to Chicken Feed with Natalie and Abdel. I bought a spiral notebook so that I could write everything out for my blog while I’m traveling. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such an ugly spiral as the one that I bought but it was the only one in the whole store.

Natalie needed coffee so then we went to Hungry Jack’s to fix that problem!

Malcolm and Abdel then drove Joey, Natalie and I to the bus station. It was a very fun weekend!!! It was nice having a fellow Texan, Abdel, around for awhile.

The bus ride home was pretty boring. Some high school aged girls were listening to country music. After they heard me on the phone saying something about Texas they kept turning around and looking at me. Haha. It was funny.

Back in Hobart we decided to just take the walk home rather than the bus since we’d just been on one for 2 ½ hours.

When we got back to Hobart at 5:30, it was nice and hot! We stopped at Cole’s on the way home. Natalie needed a lot of stuff.

By the time we got back to the Cottage of Nelson Road we were SO tired. It had been a long weekend. Joey made his “famous” burritos for supper. Marina and Stacey weren’t home (we could tell they had at least been there though because their stuff was at home). Natalie made some crazy tofu meal. Dinner was ready just in time for us to sit down and watch our favorite show, My Kitchen Rules! Our favorite team, two best friends from Perth are still in it. Yippy Skippy!

We then watched my favorite movie, 101 Dalmatians. J Marina was worried that I was sick because I had told her that it is my sick movie.

Then I was so incredibly tired so I showered and went to write before bed. Stacey came back and we stayed up talking about our adventures from the weekend until sometime after 1:30.

March 9, Tuesday

Happy birthday cousin Katie!!!

I told Natalie that I would go to her Popular Fiction class with her this morning at 9 AM. This is the class that I am hoping to join and get credit for rather than taking the Public Relations class and not getting credit for it. Nat and I met at the top of The Hill of Pain at 8:30AM. In the lecture today, we talked about Disney movies, Peter Pan, and the symbolism behind the stories. I liked it a lot!

I had an hour break after that class so I mailed my camera off to Dad. It cost $28 because I put insurance on it. It would have only cost $12 otherwise.

Then I went up to the library. I got to Skype with Nanna, Jackson, Durwood, Dad and Denise! That was so exciting! Nanna was so cute; she was wearing a Chinese robe because she was having people over for supper tonight. We got to talk for about 15 minutes before I had to head to class.

The classes I had today were Gender, Power and Change and my tutorial for Journalism, Media and Communications. I have a test in my Journalism class next week...scary!

When I got home I cooked some lunch and got to talk to Momma for a bit on the phone. Oh it was sooo great, I got my green card (Metro Bus System) card in the mail today! I also got cards from Momma, Momma Dos, Bonnie and Britton. It was so kind of all of them to send me mail! I love it. I decorate my room with all the cards and photos that people send me. J

The Telstra (phone service) dude just came out and set up our phone line. So now we REALLY should have internet at the house soon. Thank goodness.

Joey, Marina and I went to Macer’s (McDonalds) to use the free Wi-Fi. It was way slow. So I then walked back up to the library. On my walk, it started raining so it felt so far away!

Its Tuesday so of course that means...pancakes! I love this day. I find myself looking forward to Pancake Tuesdays now.

I was supposed to go rock climbing with Joey and Stacey today but I was still at the library when they went. Natalie and I were trying to plan our mid-semester break. We’d really like to go to the Gold Coast and stay with Steve-o but it is pretty expensive to get there during that break. But we’re keeping our eyes open!!

March 10, Wednesday

Tarni’s coming to HOBART today!!!

I didn’t have my Public Relations tutorial today since we didn’t have the lecture on Monday. I woke up at 9 and just couldn’t go back to sleep. So I went up to the library. I got to tlak to Momma. She is having issues with her trip plans. For some reason the dumb Travel Agent made her flight plans for the 28 rather than the 29. Stupid.

Gender, Power and Change was interesting today. We had the sex talk.

Once I was done with my classes I had a little over an hour before Tarni would get in. I got to work on my photo book a little. Really I just picked out which design I wanted to use. It has been a slow process!

Tarni got in town around 4:30 and we ate a late lunch at the house.

Tarni wanted to get some panty hose so we made our daily trek to Cole’s. J

In Cole’s, there is a fake yellow lab for people to donate money in and every time we pass it I make sure that I, and whoever I’m with, pet the dog.

Megan Macdonald from La Bella’s had invited us to a house party with her friends so went to that. It was nice to meet Aussies. Most of them went to high school together in Launceston. Because of that, Joey, Natalie, Tarni and I were kind of the odd ones out. We only stayed there for about half an hour. Megan is super sweet though, I hope to hang out with her again!

We walked down to Salamanca next. We were trying hard to show Tarni a good Uni night in the big city of Hobart.

We then went to see Danny at La Bella’s. He let me make a pizza!!! It was so yum.

When we got home and were going to bed, Tarni and I talked for a long time. :) She is such a sweetheart!

March 11, Thursday

Hey weekend, hey!

This morning Tarni and I laid in bed for awhile chatting. We got up around 10:45 to get ready to go to Launceston!

The Koala Bear, aka Stacey, was fulfilling her name. She earned that nickname because she loves sleeping and she’s incredibly slow. She was taking her time lying in bed watching a movie and eating oatmeal while we were waiting on her to leave. Tarni needed to be back in Launy by 2:30 so we needed to leave by 12. We finally got Stacey in the car at 12:30 and we were on the road!

When we got into Launy we got Macers! We then went back to the house and Stacey got to meet everyone. We didn’t do too much that night. We went to Woolworth’s and got stuff for supper. I made some pretty awesome tacos! I made them nice and spicy...they were so wonderful after not having spicy food for a long time.

Malcolm had baked a cake for Tarni’s birthday. It was admittedly better than the one that I had made. It was still chocolate with chocolate but it was much moister. Malcolm had also put smarties (like m&m’s) on the cake. He has to go out of town on Friday for work so the house celebrated her birthday today so that Malcolm could be a part of the festivities.

I love the Launy house because they don’t have a living room or a television so they all just sit in the kitchen and talk with each other. I really enjoy it…its quite cute. J Malcolm has a strange fascination with random laws. He looked up a few about Texas. Apparently if you introduce someone as your husband/wife three times in the state of Texas then it is official. Also, it is illegal to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a building. They didn’t mention anything about the third though so…guns up!

March 12, Friday

Happy birthday Tarni!!!!

I woke up around 10:30 to Stacey and Tarni saying that it was time to open presents! Tarni had gotten a package from her parents that she knew had an ipod in it. And surprise, it also had a camera!!!

Tarni, Stacey and I then went into town to shop. Stacey wanted to look for a camera and I wanted to buy perfume. I ended up being the only successful one of the outing…or maybe it was actually Stacey since she didn’t spend money. I really, really wanted the Viva La Juicy perfume but it was more than I had wanted to spend so I bought (don’t laugh) Mariah Carey’s perfume. It surprisingly smells very good.

We then went home to grab a bite to eat. Marc was home from practice so we heated up the left over taco meat and ate those. After lunch we were ready to head off to the gorge!

The gorge is a huge lake with rocks all around it. You can lay-out on the grass or on the rocks. Since it was a week day it was pretty empty so we were able to lay on the rocks that you cliff-dive off of. The cliff diving wasn’t THAT extreme. It was probably around 20 feet. None of us girls had ever done it before so we were scared and made Marc go first. After we saw that it was safe we were all for it though! The water was SO cold…when you jumped in it kind of took your breath away and made it hard to breathe. It was a really cool experience. We had a lot to do that day so we left the gorge around 3 I believe.

On the way home we stopped by Woolworth’s and K-mart. Marc was looking for “candy apple green” flip flops because that’s "the greatest color in the world." Unfortunately they only had that color in girl’s sizes. Tarni got some nail polish while we were there. Stacey and I found a DVD player for $35 that we’re really tempted to buy! ...Buuut, we didn't.

When we got back to the house we were all pretty tired to we took a nap. Around 5:30 it was time for the girls to start getting ready to go out for Tarni's birthday! Stacey and I were very excited because Tarni has a hair dryer and a straightener so we were going to get to do our hair for the first time in a month and a half!

Marc made me a wonderful chicken burger for lunch! Yummy! Fraser came over for a little bit to eat some cake for Tarni's birthday. He couldn’t go out that night for some reason so he came over early. There was a little bit of Malcolm’s cake left so we put a candle in that and sang to Tarni again.

March 13, Saturday

Stacey wanted to go back to Hobart today because she wanted to go to Bonorong Park on Sunday with the Bushwalking Club. Not too much happened today. We went to Chicken Feed to do a little shopping. Abdel burned some DVDs for Stacey and me…yay, movies! Marc cooked me a chicken burger for lunch…so yum. J

There is a park in Launceston where they have monkeys! They’re so cute. J They are in a little cage but you can watch them play and chase each other. At the same park there is also a huge chess game set up. There was a cute little Asian kid who was playing by himself. The chess pieces were as tall as he was. It was so funny! Stacey decided that she wants to get married at this park…there was a beautiful greenhouse with tons of cool flowers. Malcolm and Abdel stood in as the grooms so we could get a good visual of what she would look like walking down the aisle.

After the park we dropped Stacey off at the bus station.

That night Tarni and I went to watch Marc play basketball! He did really well; his team won soundly. There was one other guy who was pretty good but Marc was for sure the best. He had lots of rebounds and points. J

Saturday night Tarni and I rented 500 Days of Summer. By the time we got home and ate dinner we were too tired to watch it though.

Around 4 AM we heard a car horn and alarm going off. We looked outside and saw a car in the parking lot across the street on fire. We guess a bunch of boagans had stolen the car and then set it on fire to ditch it. It was crazy! Everyone in the house woke up and we all went into Marc’s room to watch it. Who needs movies when you have boagans who set cars on fire?

March 14, Sunday

Tarni and I had planned on going to La Trobe to see the platypus capital of the world. I checked my bank account before we went tough and saw that Myer’s had charged me twice for my perfume. So we decided to the platypus for another day. We went into town because Tarni wanted to buy some flip flops. She showed me some cool stores…Thank goodness!

We then headed out to the gorge. Tarni and I got there around 12:30. Malcolm met us at 1. Marc was at practice still and Abdel had to do homework. We didn’t dive today because there were tons of Jr. High kids there. We just laid-out on the grass and swam in the gorge a bit. It was definitely easier getting into the water when you were jumping into it rather than just swimming out in it. It was way cold. We treaded water for a while, hoping to warm up, but then just ended up going to lie on the grass.

Tarni and I cuddled up in bed and watched the movie “500 Days of Summer” when we got back home. The movie was pretty good…kind of strange. I didn’t like the way that the girl treated the boy, it made me angry.

After the movie it was nap time in the house!

When we woke up it was time for us to head to the bus station to catch my 7:30 PM back to Hobart. Tarni and Marc drove me up there this time. We stopped by Macer’s to get me some supper for the road. I sure do love my pollo nuggets! I said bye to them and then had to wait about 10 minutes to load my bus.

The bus ride felt really long for some reason! I slept for the first hour of the trip. After that I just couldn’t do anything. There was a girl sitting in the seat next to me so I felt pretty confined. By the time I got back to Hobart I was real happy to be off of the bus.

When I got back into Hobart I made the 45 minute walk back into Sandy Bay. It felt weird coming home after being gone for so long! Stacey and Joey told me all of the stories about Saturday’s occurrences.

Apparently we have at least two rats, Earl and Richie. They say that the rats have gotten really brave and will just sit there and look at you if you walk into the room. Also, one of them must have gotten sick from the poison and spat blood all over the kitchen floor. Because of this our kitchen smelled RANCID. GROSS. Ugh, I cannot even express how thankful I am that I missed all of this. Marina is going to go talk to the Tasmania University Union, who we rent the house from, tomorrow to see what can be done about this little situation. Needless to say, I will be avoiding the kitchen for the next few days.

I was pretty tired from all of my traveling so I went to bed not long after getting home. Joey and I tried to watch Twilight New Moon, one of the DVDs Abdel had burned for me, but it didn’t work on my computer so we watched another one instead. I passed out not far into the movie!

March 15, Monday

Back in Hobart and back to class.

Because I am going to drop my Public Relations class, I didn’t have class today until 3.

I woke up around 9 and laid in bed debating what I should do until 3. Natalie called and asked if I wanted to go to Cole’s with her. …What kind of question is that? Of course I want to go to Cole’s!

Friday is Natalie’s birthday so I bought stuff to make cupcakes for that! Hip-Hip Hooray! They’re going to be chocolate with white icing.

After the store we came home, ate and discussed our mid-semester break plans. It’s in two weeks!!! Can you believe that? I went to the library to look up flights and Natalie went home to do the same and to put her groceries away.

Natalie and I found flights to Melbourne for pretty cheap! Our roundtrip total was $195. We will be there for eight days (March 31 – April 8). I’m SO excited! I had really wanted to go to the Gold Coast but those flights were super expensive. We have worked out to stay with one of our friends from Austra Learn, Lee. His dad and brother are coming in on the 3 thought so after that we can either stay with one of his friends or go to a hostile. We’re probably just going to play that part by ear.

I then had to go to class. It was Journalism, Media and Communication. That lecture is two hours long and it is just killer! Plus, I think that they’ve decided that because it is autumn they don’t have to turn the air conditioning on anymore. Hah, they’re wrong!

I have a test tomorrow in that class so I spent tonight studying for that. I’m not too worried about it because it is just over this week’s readings. I’ll let yall know how it goes!

Cheers!

March 16, Tuesday

I had to wake up SO early this morning…8:15. It’s crazy how 9 AM seems so late but the 8 AM hour is just a whole different story.

I went to Popular Fiction this morning. Today we talked about Harry Potter. J I like this class. I went and met with the Professor, who reminds me of one of my friends, after class and told him that I’m enrolling in his class and asked what I needed to do to catch up. He was really kind and told me the contact information for James, who I needed to talk to for advice about enrolling late.

I then went to the library to use the internet and contact the guy who my Professor, Dominic, had told me to. I did that. I had also gotten a response from my advisor to my e-mail asking about adding/dropping classes. I sent one back asking how I go about dropping a class…you know, considering I’m a new student here I may not know these things. The response that I got said this and only this: “Dear Sara, You draw a horizontal line through the class.” …Thank you kind advisor woman. Ugh. I knew what sheet she was talking about but I didn’t know where I was supposed to turn that sheet in or if there was a way to do it online. I was so angry with the response that I got from her though. She is the international advisor, she may have to deal with stupid questions every now and then from students who aren’t used to their system here! Grr.

Anyways, I believe I figured out how to take care of it on my own. I’m going to go and meet with the James guy who my English Professor told me about and have him double check that I did everything correctly.

At 11 I had my Gender, Power and Change class. We have our first paper due on Monday so all this week we are solely talking about the paper. It was totally exciting. We learned how to answer an essay question and how to set up an introduction, body and conclusion.

Next, I had my Journalism, Media and Communications tutorial. It was test day! We had 10 minutes to take a 10 question short answer test. It was pretty easy! I know I didn’t get a 100…probably an 80 or 90. There is always that one question that just kills you! The one that got me was asking for the names of the researchers on one of the statistics that was in our book. Bummer.

After class that crazy guy followed me to Uni Print and back home again. It is SO bazaar. Thankfully he didn’t stay long though today because he had to grab food before his next class.

Marina got home around 2ish; she and I decided that it was a good beach day. We walked down Sandy Bay to the dock that we normally swim at. When we got there it was all nice and sunny. But for some reason we have super bad luck or timing. The sun decided to hide behind a ton of clouds. It kind of looked like it was going to rain off in the distance. We left the beach a little earlier than we had hoped.

I went into town to withdraw some cash from the bank. I went to Blockbuster to ask if they had “Night at the Roxbury” and they don’t. Sad. Anyone want to send it to me?? J Then I went to Chicken Feed. We needed dish soap and toilet paper.

Have I told yall about our Chores List that we have on the refrigerator? Each time you: Buy Toilet Paper, Clean the Dishes, Take out the Trash, or Buy Cleaning Supplies you get a mark next to your name. It helps to keep track of who all is spending time/money on things. We also have another one with each week we are here. It rotates who gets to clean what that week. The rotations are: Kitchen, Living room, Entry way, and Bathroom. So far it is working out well I think!

After Chicken Feed I dropped my stuff off at the house and went to the library. Natalie met me up there and, can I just say, that her mom is my absolute most favorite person of the day (and possibly longer)!?!?!? She sent me GOLDFISH!!! “Goldfish: The snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off.” (I’ve always thought that that was the strangest jingle). Oh but that made me so happy!

Furthermore, it’s Tuesday…and that means: Pancake Tuesday!

Natalie cooked her awesome pancakes tonight. They were so tasty. J Stacey and I keep getting so hungry though, it’s like we’re full but we’re never nourished. I think we determined that it is because we don’t have a lot of meat in our diet here. Back home we eat tons of it and our body gets tons of protein that way. But here, we generally eat pastas or something like that. If we have meat then it is just a little bit on a sandwich probably once a day. We are going to try to change that! We are going to go to Cole’s tomorrow and shop for some good food for us.

After eating tons of awesome pancakes I was tired! So I took a shower and now I’m fixing to head to bed…before midnight. How crazy.

As always, thanks for reading my posts! I know some are definitely more exciting than others…maybe I should start a point system and put it in the blog title. Something like: “5 Star Blog: MUST READ!” or “2 Star Blog: Only Read if you’re Bored and Trying to Avoid Work.” That way if you have other things that you need to be doing then you can be like “Eh, today is just a 3 star blog; I’ll just wait and catch her on a 5 star day.”

Yeah? Let me know what you think! J

Here are some photos to reward you for that long read!!!