Home Sweet Home

ookkkk, so my school just had a 2 week holiday, an easter holiday actually. i originally was going to stay here, but after i put some thought into it, i started to get a little homesick and decided last minute i should fly home. so that i did! i used the cheap airfare sites and got myself a ticket home. i then added on a short trip to connecticut to visit all my undergrad friends for one of my weekends in the states.

as i began my trip, 7:00am on a friday, taking a taxi to the airport, i then started to remember just how long it takes to get back home. buying the ticket was easy, now i had to spend 20 plus hours flying. the canberra airport is very very tiny. i think it has 11 gates total. and being such a well-traveled person as i am, i had already placed my liquids in a baggie. so as i was going through security in airport, i took my liquids out and placed them on the belt. and low and behold, the securtity people were amazed. "oh wow! are you international? is this how you do it? i've never put my liquids in a bag. i've never seen someone do it either. is this all the room you get?' the security was asking me about the liquid security measurements. this is a very small airport. then i was bomb tested. i passed.

i got to sydney with no problems, except i had to change airlines once i arrived in sydney. after waiting for over 30 minutes for my baggage to arrive on the carousel, i had to walk from the qantas arrival gate over to the united ticket counters in the international area... which just happened to be very very far apart. i had to walk from area A to area K. ugh. as i was walking, i passed all the other international airlines. and as i walked by THAI airlines, i noticed the different boarding classes they had. they had Royal First Class and Royal Silk Class. dude, i wanna be on royal silk. it sounds so luxuriant.

anyway, i then did some shopping in the sydney airport and went through security again, where i was once again tested for bomb handling. i promise y'all, i didn't touch any bomb. so as i find my gate, i see that it is being guarded, with ropes all around so people can't even walk into the sitting area. then i realized i had to walk through some more limited security, walk down a small hallway, then i could sit in the room. they were really concerned about the security of this flight apparently.

so i make it on the plane, and yaya, i have a middle seat! for 15 hours! but it ended up being quite nice. the girl by the window was in highschool and was traveling as part of her school team. SHOTPUT. how crazy! they were going to a tournament in vegas. international highschool shotput in vegas! i had no idea this even happened. and the girl on the aisle, well, we ended up talking for most of the trip. she's a college teacher who frankly looked younger than me. and after she ordered wine with dinner and told me alcohol was free on international flights, my trip then just got that much better. so some wine i did have. i then also read about 15 articles for a paper i had to e-mail to my teacher within the next 48 hours. an essay i had yet to start.
right before we started getting ready to land, i made a last minute stop to the restroom, to brush my teeth and whatnot, and then turbulance decided to kick in, hard. as i'm stumbling back to my seat, trying not to fall onto the passengers in the aisle, the stewardess (who did not like me or my friend cause we kept asking for wine) had the audacity to tell me to be careful. 'oh really? i shouldn't run down this aisle carefree? this isn't a carnival fun house i paid for? i could actually fall onto another person due to the turbulance? i had no idea! thanks lady!'

but we landed and things were fine. i then got to spend an hour or so with my friend E who lives in LA and she came out to the airport to say hello! (since i did have a 3 hour layover) and we traded presents and she gave me an authentic wolfgang puck chocolate oscar that she stole from an oscar party! i love my friends :) i then boarded another plane and arrived on time and met my mother, got my luggage, and we were off to a family dinner where i suprised everyone with my presence. my grandmother stood in shock for 40 seconds just staring at me wondering why i was there. i also surprised my father who couldn't believe his dear little eyes that his daughter was home. wasn't he paying money for me to be halfway around the world studying? oh well, surprise!

anyway, my holiday was good. i got my weekend in connecticut and it was amazing to be with everyone, and to celebrate my friend's recent engagement! and it was slightly reassuring to hear things like 'packy run' and 'sneakers' and driving to massachusetts to buy alcohol because it was after 9pm. and my days home were fabulous also. except to say i will never fly us airways again. i used them to and from ct, and every plane i stepped on had a late departure. and on my way back home, they kept us on the ground for an extra 40 minutes or so. something about an auxillary engine not turning on? sounds safe to me. but in the end the trip home was very well worth it i believe. i even got my essay in on time. hooray!

except then came the plane ride back to australia. getting to sydney was actually fine. standing in customs was not. waiting for baggage took another 20-30 mins and then i had to run from united terminal back to qantas where i missed my flight and 'oh sorry little lady, the next flight wtih an open seat is until 3:30 this afternoon' yeah, well it was 7:30 in the morning. i stayed 8 hours in the sydney airport. ugh. i walked around a bit, perused the stores and found a movie and cd store. and then saw a glimmer of hope, i'll watch movies all day long! and after i picked out 3 movies, each at the price of 8 bucks, i realized they wouldn't play on my american laptop. dang it all. so i slept. and read. and watched 'breakfast at tiffany's' which i have never seen but i had forgotten i downloaded on my computer a while back. finally my plane was boarding and i was on my way back to school.
i took a taxi from the airport to my dorm, and i sat in the front seat. i've always noticed that's what everyone else here does, so i thought i'd go for it. and after talking with my driver and he learning i was american, he acutally commended me on sitting in the front, instead of being 'pompous and distant' and sitting in the back like all of those other unaccustomed americans. also learning that i was a student and i was arriving late on a monday he asked 'oh, so were we wagging off then?'
umm... maybe... wait... what?
"you know, skipping out on school'
ohhh, ha. wagging off.

and when i arrived my friends were waiting and it was very nice to feel missed :)

so things went right back to routine, like i had never even left. except, wednesday was ANZAC day. which is a huge national holiday in australia. it's the Australian New Zealand Army Corps... or something like that, where there are parades with all war veterans, and people light candles, and no one works or goes to school. so it was nice to have the day off, especially since wednesdays are my only truly busy school days.

i did find out that i passed the test i took before holiday. i even got half credit for the aegyptophicus question! i didn't do too shabby at all. and when i inquired about my grade for my presentation, my teacher looked it up and said 'oh yes, it was very fine. detailed and easy to follow. i'd say it's on the border of a D and DH.'
uhh... ha, sorry, a D?? what?!
'oh, distinguished and highly distinguished. i think that's what you might call an A-.'

so look at that y'all, i'm almost highly distinguished :)

the weather has turned a bit colder and it's fabulous. i'm still wearing my flip flops though :)
and last nite a bunch of us drove up to Mt. Ainsley. i think it might be more of a hill, but it gives you a great look out over the city. and we went at nite so the city was lit up and i took a picture of the lights in between parliament and the war memorial. i'll put it up soon on webshots. and i took pics of my friends, which i will also soon add (as soon as they get the internet working again in my room.. something about resetting the system and blar blar blar...) so y'all should be prepared to see some real live ozzies.

so i forget if i've already said it, but they spell fetal = foetal. and hemoglobin = haemoglobin and anemia = anaemia. it throws me off each time.
and speaking of all that jazz, my race and human genetic class was soooooo boring today. i don't even know what we were talking about. 'beta thelassaemia" and 'polymorphic structural variants of haemoglobin'.... i definitely tuned out.

i've already had a few run ins with the word 'cut' here.
my friend I were talking about his soccer game being cancelled due to the other side forfeiting. and then told me that the german on his team was gonna be cut.
and i said 'oh no, is he bad? does he know he's gonna be kicked off?' and he was entirely confused because apparently 'being cut' means being upset. so the german was going to be upset the game was cancelled. and last nite my friend asked me if i was cut because my new shoes hurt my feet. 'no, my feet aren't cut, they are just sore' 'dude, i'm asking if you are upset cause you new shoes suck' oh... right

my friends here have actually learned to speak slower to me. ha, it's true though. and since S talks so fast and has a pretty strong accent, she's learned to accept the fact that after she tells me something, she has to wait a few beats before it'll register with me. i'll just stand there with a blank face, then it'll start making sense :)

my friends went to mackers along the way to mt. ainsley and ordered Sons of Macs. apparently these are like junior hamburgers? 'i'll have a son of mac please'. do we sell this in america?
i played pool in the common room yesterday with J, and the balls are so much smaller. apparently it's custom. they have 2 different sized playing balls and most of the time it's the smaller set. and sometimes they don't even come numbered. they come in 2 separate solid colors. you can either be yellow or red. i guess they don't play 9 ball very often.

and my sleep schedule has been totally crazy. well it's not that crazy. except for the past 3 nites i've been passing out at about 9pm and waking up at 7:30am. all on my own! i don't even have class til 10! what is this all about??

i think my friend S makes up her own words. she's going home for the weekend and she was talking about what she needs to pack and she said 'one nice outfit for dinner, some t-shirts, and some bum chuckies' apparently that's S for laying around clothes, or just pj's.

West wing informed me that from Yiddish, the English language has adopted: farfetched and spatula (my sister once convinced me it was pronounced "spa too lah’) (I was a very naïve child).
ok, i have to stop here because i'm going on a fieldtrip! yep, i'm in 3rd grade. but it's gonna be cool. most of the anthro students are taking a bus to sydney to see that bodyworks plastination exhibit. i saw it at home with my mom and grandma, where i got a great shirt "mind if i smoke? care if i die?". i wore it yesterday and my german asked if i smoked. umm... no, i don't, that's why i'm wearing the shirt. but anyways, i'm excited to see the exhibit again.

btw, i went to bed last nite at 10 pm and woke up today at 7 and couldn't go back to sleep. i have never, ever in my life woken up before noon and felt refreshed. i also had one of the worst nightmares ever. it was like i was in one of those horrible horror movies. but get this, the bad guy was a sheriff who killed little girls in the neighborhood, and in my dream it was played by dan ackroyd. weeeiiirrddd.