Negative/Positive Reinforcement

this is why i'll never stop procrastinating... b/c i do well in the end. i got my human skeletal analysis paper on determing age and sex through different methods on bones of the body and his remarks are as followed:
"Good! (underlined) a well written, well researched paper, clearly structured, methodical and logical in its conclusions."
D+
(and i lied before. D doesn't stand for distinguished... it stands for distinction.) (so.. here, i'm hihgly distinct) (but i'm still distinguished... in my own grading system)

so apparently writing a paper in 8 hours is the way to go for me.

my new favorite work out song is: U + Ur hands by pink. We aren't here for your entertainment, fellas.

My friend, I, is on an intramural soccer team… two in fact. And he talks about all his soccer training. He means soccer practice. They call it training. Sounds like he’s suiting up for a war or something. But no, he’s just having soccer practice.

The other day I opened my blinds at 8am… and there was a huge red ball. Huge, outside my window, about 30 meters away… I don‘t know what that is in feet… it was like half a block away. But, oh wait, no, that’s not a huge ball. THAT’S A HOT AIR BALLOON. and this isn't the first time this has happened. i took pictures. y'all can check webshots for an update

Oh, and I had the best grocery shopping day ever the other day. I found jalapenos AND soy cheese. It was amazing. i made the best bean burritos.
i also made vegetarian tacos for S and B the other nite. and omg, they loved them. and B is a huuuuge meat eater. and he liked the fake mince meat i found. that's the other thing... they don't call it ground beef, it's 'mince'. well maybe we do that in america too, i just always called it ground beef.

in 2 weeks i'll have 2 tests and the week after i'll have 1 test and 2 papers.
the paper topics now are:
1) functional anatomy of vertical clinging and leaping primates. i guess i'll focus on the tarsiers??
2) the theory that the Y chromosome is disappearing and that within 10million years, it'll disappear completely. but i doubt humans will be around in 10 million years anyway... but, i thought it was pretty cool. our bodies might evolve and the sex triggers on the Y chromosome might fall onto another chromosome and we won't even know the difference. but i do get to write about 'gonads'.

so now i'm gonna have to lock myself up for hte next two weeks and do all the reading and preparation for said tests and papers.

BUT then i'll have a 5 week holiday!! part of which i'm going to fiji with some friends :) and i'm trying to plan a trip to visit my friend G at her home in tasmania.

it's weird because all of the exchange students leave in june. i couldn't imagine leaving here in 2 months.

S told me to stop 'bludging around'. apparently that means procrastinate. bludgers, bludges, all different forms.

another american from california told me he saw me walking home one day, very briskly and said i looked 'so american'. but it also could have been my bright yellow tote bag that has the outline of the state of texas on it. or maybe both the walking and the bag put together :)
and obviously most aussies don't even know it's texas. just like my texas flag.

for my friend's birthday, she's having an A-themed party. where you have to come dressed as something beginning with an A. i said i'd come as an american. or maybe i should go as the entire A-team.

i remember when my sister was studying in England she had her 21st birthday overseas. and i thought how sad, turning 21 isn't even a big deal there. but i was talking to this guy who was about to enjoy his own 21st, and he says it is in fact a highly celebrated birthday here. even though they earn no new rights with priviledges with turning 21, they still celebrate it wildly because americans do. say what??

i went to a dorm party the other evening. and i left after 10 mins. i felt like an old lady. 30 kids, in one room, smushed together with blaring music. you cant see or hear anyone. i had enough of that in undergrad. so i went to B's room and played poker all nite. much more to my liking :)

a 6 pack of sam adams here is A$27.

my friends made fun of me for shortening anthropology to anthro. omg, i don't understand it. it's ok for australian to shorten anything (in fact everything) but i can't. and anthro is a completely normal abbreviation!

i just learned, about 2 days ago, that instead of 9-1-1, they dial 0-0-0. that's probably something the school should tell international students.

no one knows what 'what's the 4-1-1?' means.

i know that there was so much more to include here.

my room is entirely messy. yeah, no one's surprised. i've gotten hooked on boston legal. and that takes precedent over dishes and making my bed.

i bought a box of kellogg's Sultana Bran. why don't they call them raisins? or a pepper a pepper? they say 'capsicum'.

i miss my car. i was going out driving with S and J in S's car when she ran upstairs to fetch something, leaving J and me alone. we were in the parking lot and i wanted to see how it felt to drive it. so i did. ahhh, it was freaky. i was only going about 2 mph and i was so nervous. and all i did was back it up. i don't think i could ever pass and get a liscence here. i would certainly kill 6 people the first day, nay, the first hour.

so nothing too crazy has happened in the last few weeks. i took a huge break from doing any sort of school work at all. i refused to open a book. i did attend classes, but nothing outside of those 9 class hours. i totally burnt myself out that one weekend with the paper and the presentation. and the past few weeks were awesome, stress free. but now it's all built up again.

and the weekends were weekends. we had a dorm building game torunament nite and i played in texas hold 'em. and i wasn't the first one out! and there were only 2 girls playing. i guess like 30 played and i was probably the 15th one out, or maybe it was earlier but still pretty good i say :)

the common room now has free wireless internet. no more charging for mb downloads!!

so all in all, things are going well. alright, i'm gonna go put up new pics on webshots before my add kicks in and i see something shiny.

When will I learn

so remember how i was boasting about never having school work? well it all just caught up with me. i haven't talked to many, well frankly, any of y'all for a week or so, due to me locking myself in the library for 3 days straight.

this is a little bit of what happened. i had a paper due monday and a presentation due wednesday. i was supposed to start both over the holiday, but did nothing for either.
then i get back and for the first week back, i did no school work. even with the ANZAC day holiday, i did no work that day. i was too busy being social, der. so then the weekend comes upon me. and i stay in (almost) every nite, with the plan of doing school work. and somehow i always got talked in to hanging out or going to a bar to watch a cricket world cup game to cheer on australia. the cricket game, mind you, started at 11:30 at nite, and the 'half-time' break was at 5:30am. that's when i went to bed. what a stupid game to last for so long. so now it's sunday, and i have yet to start my work. so my teacher, on our field trip on friday, said to me and a fellow post grad that we could hand out papers in tuesday morning, cause we had to write 1,000 more words than the undergrads. so i took that to heart and didn't do any work on sunday, because i knew i had all day monday. it's like, i can't do work unless it's absolutely necessary.
so now it's monday, and i have my friend take me to the national library and i'm there from 10:30 am til it closes at 9pm. and at this library, you can't check out books. you can only 'request' them online, and they are brought up from the basement, and then you can photo copy them if you like... it's a really weird system. so i sat there all day with my mozart, my computer, and 36 references and tried to write the paper. so i get back to my room and hang out with some friends for a bit, c'mon, i had literally just spent the entire day at the same desk, in the same corner of the library, writing, i was totally entitled to a break. and i took one. til midnight. then i wrote some more of my paper til 3am. then i took a nap, woke up at 5am. and finished writing my paper. i even did a proof reading. and i got it all done and handed in at 8:30 tuesday morning. but it's not over yet, now i have to start work on my presentation... the one on inbreeding.
so i come home and pass out at 10am, and wake up at 2pm. and look up some resources and then, somehow, wasted the entired afternoon, i think mainly watching scrubs. and once midnight rolls around, i realize my presenation is due in 12 hours. so i go to the common room and make myself comfortable, and i sat there until 8:30am wednesday, when i finally finished it. i was completely out of my mind by this point. but i got it done.
i even went to class at 10, 11, and gave my presenation at noon. and it went pretty well, but then my teacher asked me questions afterwards and my answers were so insane, i couldn't form a complete sentence.... but we'll see what grade he gives me, haha.
so when will i learn to not leave everything to the absolute last minute!!!!

so then wednesday i went home.. and i didn't have a lab that day! so i passed out at 2 and woke up at 7pm... not knowing what day it was or where i was. what a good sleep.
but then the wave of relief hit me as i then realized i don't have anything due for another month. yaya! i can have stress-free fun for a month!
so that's what i've been doing. i taught all my friends the drinking card game 'wheel of fortune', also known as king's cup, or circle of death. i have so much to teach the kids here.
i've also made time to watch legends of the fall, bridget jone's diary, truman show, and the first 6 episodes of 30 rock, while all my other friends are doing school work.

but today, i realized, i am really happy here. that could be the stress-free relief talking, but the past few days i've really felt like i've made some really good friends here, school is going well and is interesting (apparently inbreeding ain't all that bad), my mother's surgery was successful, the weather is beautiful, i've been working out, australian boys like my american accent, N from home sent me the best package ever. a shirt with a brontosaurus (well actually, an apatosaurus. brontosauruses don't exist anymore. ok, yeah, no dinosaurs exist anymore, but there was never such a thing as a brontosaurus. they were all apotosauruses.) on it that says 'NEVER FORGET' and an awesome cd, and i did laundry today! i love clean clothes. and i have a new shirt that says 'KISS ME I'M A TEXAN' with a four leaf clover on it. i'm wearing it right now.

so don't worry anyone, if you were, i'm loving it (but i do miss you all and feel bad i haven't talked to anyone in a while.)

now... some crazy australian things
i went to a bar: the Labour Club.... which has slot machines in the back, which they call Pokies.
at the same bar, my friend and i went to order a drink and he mumbled what i thought was 'shooshah uhvix' but he actually said 'schoon of vics' which is a schooner (a glass) of victoria's bitter (a beer). and the bartender understood him. i obviously did not.
they have a COPS show here where they boast about catching all the 'crims'. no one can say a complete word here.
BUT my friend was convinced she had pink eye last week. and called me saying she had conjuctivitis. and i took a beat, then go 'oh yeah, pink eye!' and then later that day she said conjuctivitis like 3 more times, and i kept thinking she was trying to be funny or clever calling it the technical name, instead of pink eye... but turns out, they don't say pink eye.... they say conjuctivitis. so the one think americans have nicknamed, they haven't.
today the dorm put out a notice complaining about the furniture missing form the 'break out area'. sounds like a rash. but apparently it's the little common areas at the end of the hallways where they put couches on each floor.

and that's about it friends!

oh, and i've started to say 'i reckon'. i feel like i should be wearing overalls when i say it though.