Unexpected Surprises

1. I have two part time jobs. In Australia. I've never had two part time jobs at one time in my entire life. I think all of my English lesson writing for fourth graders is actually helping to improve my own spelling in a weird, ironic way.

2. I am completely addicted to online Scrabble. I play at least 2 to 3 games a day. I can't stop. I am pretty good too, if I may say so myself. I've got pretty much all of the two letter words down.

3. I am also addicted to peanut butter and honey sandwiches. I eat, on average, two a day. They are cheap and delicious and I had never had one before coming here. And I never would have had one if I hadn't heard people talking about them, and then a random company just HAPPENED to be handing out free honey samples. Bizarro.

4. I have a blue ukulele that I bought in Sydney. It was cheap. I have trouble tuning it, but I can play "Build me up Buttercup" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots part 1".

5. I have made friends with a guy from Wales who is hired by companies to ride his unicycle around and juggle clubs. How is it that I manage to always become friends with the most Hampshire-like kids whereever I go? Anyways, he is teaching me how to juggle and refreshing my memory on how to tie rock-climbing knots.

6. There is an ice-cream truck that plays "Greensleeves" and drives around the Macquarie University Village on Saturdays and drives me insane. INSANE! Blasting Greensleeves all afternoon...dum dum dum de dum da de dum de dum da de dum de dum...GAH! Why Greensleeves, WHY!?

7. Now my German roommate is humming Greensleeves downstairs in the kitchen. Great.

8. Also, there has been a number of BIRDS in my apartment. This is because I live with boys. Messy, messy, messy boys. Who don't know how to wash dishes/take out the trash/close the door. And so birds come in. It makes me unhappy to go downstairs for some cereal and instead find a bird.

9. I got my story back from my creative writing teacher. I was very nervous about being graded on my creative writing for many reasons including the fact that I'd never gotten graded on it at Hampshire, and also because after I handed it in I realized I misspelled my teacher's name on the cover sheet. It seems it didn't matter because there was not a single comment or correction on the entire paper. Then, on the very last page was one word: "Brilliant!" I am still completely awestruck, as my teacher seemed to hate the story I workshopped in class, but I have achieved brilliance with this one it seems. Especially since she told the class that she was really critical in grading these pieces because she wanted us to improve for the final.

10. That being said I got a "pass+" on my sociology paper which I think is equivalent to a C+ but I'm not completely sure. This is odd to me, because my creative writing class is 300 level, and my sociology class is 100 (introductory) level. But it seems my sociology teacher is a quite tough grader. I also think I did the assignment kind of wrong, and also I think I got points off for spelling "yogurt" the American way instead of the Australian way. Luckily that paper isn't a big part of my grade and I'm pretty excited about our next paper.

11. I have eaten approximately 16 boxes of cereal since I've been here. That's way under my normal cereal consumption

12. I have discovered the children's section of the library. I'm doing Judy Blume right now; finished "Forever" and "Are you there God, it's me, Margaret?" and now I'm onto "Blubber". Roald Dahl and Jerry Spinelli next.

13. Not to sound like a creepy stalker or anything but I remember reading Jonathan's Australia blog before coming here and he talked about the crazy cigarette boxes and I always see them on the ground and they really are crazy, the pictures on the backs are so disgusting. Not quite on the same page as him with the collecting though...I don't think I want those images in the room I'm sleeping. I wonder if they really do deter people from buying them.

14. You know that "Whatthehellit's5:30already?WhatdidIdoallday!?" feeling that always seems to come about when you have a bunch of stuff due soon? Well, just got that. Even in Australia.