Bungee?

Hello from Robina!  

This week has flown by!  Classes were the usual fun times they always tend to be, but everything else has been amazing.  It had rained a bit over the first half of the week, but it has be nothing but sunny for two days, and helps me appreciate the sun and warmth.  Res wars didn't go as expected AGAIN!  We played netball, a women-dominated sport in Australia, and got smoked in the final round.  That is a two week losing streak, and it is unacceptable.  Next week is touch football so I think we will get back on the winning side very soon.

Thursday I didn't have a tutorial because of the mid-term on Tuesday, but a few classmates and my professor got together or lunch and a few beers to chat about sport, and life in Australia.  I had a great time, and was able to get to know a few of the kids in my class a bit better. Everybody is still so open and receptive to new people from all over the world, and it remains refreshing to know preconceived notions are checked at the airport.  After "class", I met up with a friend at the pool and just relaxed the day and week away.  Later that night, I made the 1o minute trek to B-Block (my adopted home) to watch a movie and further relax.

Friday morning came with good news from the states.  My oldest cousin (but not too old) gave birth to her first child Henry Johnson Weintraub!  Life is a beautiful thing, and I cannot be any more happy for them!  

Later that night, I had a few people over to my apartment for some drinks and to hang out.  Life here is tough.

Today was supposed to be the day for bungee jumping, but at the eleventh-hour, the plans fell through.  I'm sure my mother whenever she reads this will be ecstatic that we didn't go, but Mom, I am going at some point :)  The closest place to jump is about 25 minutes away in Surfers Paradise, and drops you from 40 meters to the earth.  I have lived in a ghetto for two years, gone sky diving twice, worn a Red Sox hat in Yankee Stadium, pet a tiger, but I can honestly say that I am more scared of bungee jumping than any of those activities combined. Actually, the word I am looking for is TERRIFIED, but I have to do it.  I know you all have figured it out already, but I think there might be something wrong with me...

Tomorrow we are heading to a water park and it couldn't come on a better forecasted day.  It is supposed to be 32 degrees (90 Fahrenheit) and crystal clear.  It should be a lot of fun. 

Well that's it for now.  As I turn my calendar to March, I am starting to really miss everybody from back home.  It has been at least two months since I have seen some of you, and some obviously much greater than that.  I officially have 71 days left here and that fact is sad, but I'm looking forward to be back home.  Goodnight from Paradise.........

Byron aftermath...

This past weekend was a blast!  We went to Byron bay as mentioned before at it was beautiful. The beach was fantastic, waves, amazing, and jumping out of another plane was exhilarating. That's right, ANOTHER plane.  The sky dive was part of the package to go so I "had" to do it. HAHA.  We jumped about two miles from the coast at around 7 am when the sun was just rising.  After we waited for a bit and had two meals at the airstrip, we took a bus to the coast for a surfing lesson.  I managed to finally ride a wave from swell all the way through the break. It took a bit of effort and a lot of falling, but I finally was able to do it!  We then headed to a hostile to shower up and get ready for the night.  The nightcap was a big party at a restaurant/bar called Cheeky Monkeys.  It was "Bond Night" so we were given free drinks, and the D.J. was handing out champagne for a few hours.  It was a great weekend!  

Sunday and Monday were study days for me.  I had a mid-term to prepare for on Tuesday and a few papers to turn in  as well.  Tuesday came and went quickly with the exam, a class, and a few beers to celebrate the end of exams.  This morning I had a class and now I am just relaxing in preparation for tonight's Res Wars event... Netball.  That's it for now...

Off to Byron

It's Friday afternoon here and this week went by pretty quickly.  After recovering from skim boarding down in Coolangatta, classes began again and life seemed to speed up again.  I had to give a 5o minute presentation on the movie GINGER SNAPS by John Fawcett.  It was a tough movie to present on because it was a mirror or a girl going through menstruation.  Funny that two guys were assigned this movie huh?  I presented with a guy from Walpole!  I traveled half way around the world to meet a kid who lives 15 minutes away.  Small world yet again!

Wednesday Res Wars fired up and this week was the postponed Trivia night.  B-Block wasn't looked at as a favorite this night, but we brought a pretty good game to the table.  We won three of the nine rounds but finally ended our winning streak losing by only 1 1/2 points.  

Yesterday I only had one class so I decided to go look for an external hard drive in Surfers.  I had no luck!  There aren't any stores like Best Buy or anything here and the closest Apple store is only 13 hours away.  Great!

After waking up and having four hours of class this morning, I took a "nap" which was more like a second sleep, and here I am now.  Tonight we have a meeting for our trip to Byron Bay. Byron is about two hours south of here driving and we are leaving late-night, early morning. The weekend looks to be pretty fun with some surfing, skim boarding hopefully, good food, great friends, and maybe a little something extreme.  

Well it's off to dinner, a meeting, and then early to bed tonight. 

Goodnight from Paradise!

Day of firsts...

Today was the first sunny day in three days, and I was able to take advantage of it.  Christian, Jorge, Ford, and I rented a car and headed to Coolangatta for a day away from campus.  I was the one driving, and it was a bit strange driving on the opposite side of the road, but we made it there and back safely, with only a few dodgy moments.  We brought our skim boards and had a blast.  Coolangatta is due south of Robina about 30 minutes, but the drive didn't seem that long.  The beach was amazing, and the water for boarding was fantastic.  We met up with a few of our girl friends randomly on the beach, and just chilled out.  

After about two hours of boarding, we had a search for food.  From what we have heard, Coolangatta has a wide variety of foods to try, and we did just that.  We went to a place called Outback Jacks and indulged in some crocodile and kangaroo.  Crocodile looked similar to chicken, and kangaroo looked basically like steak.  They were both pretty tough and had strange tastes, but now I can say I have eaten both.  I hope to have kangaroo again, but I will pass on the croc.

It's now about 7 p.m. and I am exhausted from the day in the sun, but also from a crazy night Saturday.  Goodnight from Paradise!

Happy birthday

Hello from down under!  It is a lazy, rainy Friday afternoon and I'm just lounging around my apartment.  I just want to say Happy Birthday to my MOM!  I'm not exactly sure if it is the 13th back home or not quite yet, but happy birthday none-the-less.  I would drop her age right about now, but that is no way to garner any more financial flexibility down here (and I'm not exactly sure either).  My mother is one of the main reasons I am who I am today (if yo like it or not), so she deserves a lot of praise for putting up with me for this many years.  She is one of the strongest, most genuine people in the world, and I have been blessed to have her presence in my life. Happy birthday again Mom!

Love,

Me

Brushfires...

Thank you for all the concerns through email and facebook about my safety regarding the brushfires that have consumed about 3,000 square km of land in Victoria.  I am in no harm where I am currently located, about 20 hours north, but many of the students on campus have been personally affected by the deadly blazes.  The news has reported that 180 people have been confirmed dead, with more to be named, by a fire now believed to have been set by an arsonist. The fire is the most deadly brushfire in the history of Australia.  I have heard that the school is going to send some folks down to Victoria for the cleanup effort, and I will most likely go to help if I get a chance.  I will keep you posted with the aftermath of this sad story...

Sunday...

Today, Jorge and I took a small trip to Burleigh Heads Beach.  It was about a 45 minute bus ride, but it was worth every minute of the ride.  The beach was amazing, and the water was warm and calm in the swimming section, but amazing for surfers in their designated area.  We only had a few hours there, but we enjoyed the sun, and actually bought cheap skim boards for future adventures.  Skim boards are kind of like boogey boards, but they are not used primarily on waves, but on the wash out once the wave dies.  You basically "skim" across the shallow water similar to surfing hence the name skim board.  

After we left, Jorge, James, and I went rowing with the rowing club on campus.  We rowed for about 2 hours.  It was my first time rowing, and I found it incredibly hard to pick up.  I still haven't actually.  Once back on land, we ate dinner, and now I am here.  It was a long day, full of sun, sand, and rowing, but it was a great day.  Now it is off to bed to prepare for yet another week in paradise.  Goodnight!

a crazy week...

First off, sorry I haven't posted in almost a week.  Things have been crazy!  It is still bright, sunny, and beautiful here so don't panic!

The week started off with classes and homework.  There are always reminders of the real reason I am living in paradise.  The classes are actually pretty interesting and quite demanding.

Wednesday found the next episode in Res Wars... Ultimate Frisbee!  For this installment of the war, we were brought to the rugby fields and quickly segregated ourselves into our teams, trying hard to not interact with the other sides as a show of, for a lack of better terminology, being poor sports.  We had to break up the team into two groups which wasn't too bad because our team destroys anyway.  To start the night, only 10 people (six guys) could be on the field at once, and since the girls from our team decided to not show up until later in the night, both groups played down at least 3 players to begin.  Despite the lack of players, my team dominated our bracket (going undefeated), and landed in the championship game.  Before the game however, the best player of the night was named, and once again, the best player on the best team didn't win the award.  Not to sound cocky or like a bad sport (my friend actually won so I was okay I didn't win), the consensus from every team was that I should have won, but the referees decided Lee was the best so they gave it to him.  Oh well.  My team ended up winning the championship game for the second week in a row so all was forgotten.  Next week is trivia, so the competitive juices won't be flowing as high.

On Thursday, there was a party on campus called Palaver.  We started at the bar on campus, and the theme of the night was Las Vegas.  There were table games all over the bar, and the atmosphere was great.  The night then went to Surfers Paradise and the craziness continued.  It was fun, but that scene is starting to wear on me.

Friday was a dull day.  I had a 4 hours class, and then I basically slept the rest of the day.  It was nice to just relax and not have anything to worry about.  I did manage to drag myself to the pool for a few hours to swim and sun with my friends.  Again, it is a tough life.

Saturday came quickly because I was sleeping for most of it.  I had a soccer game against the United Nations team.  They are supposedly one of the better teams in the school, as it seems most teams are dubbed that, but we beat them pretty soundly.  The 2-1 score was not indicative of the way we dominated the game.  About 30 minutes after I got back to my room, a group of us headed into Brisbane for our friend Scott's birthday celebration.  We jumped on a bus, and then a train to get into the city.  When we arrived, we actually only saw the birthday boy for about an hour because we were wandering around the city getting lost.  We finally met up with some other friends and had some dinner.  After some more wandering, we decided it was time to leave so we just caught a train and headed back to campus.

beauty

Walking home from dinner tonight I saw such a beautiful sunset!  The way the light was reflecting made the boardwalk heading to my building and everything surrounding it a beautiful tint of red. It looked like something out of a movie and I was the star.  Even though I have been here for about 4 weeks now, I still have moments like this that make me step back and remember where and how lucky I am.  I wish all of you could be here!

Futbol...

Today I had my first real taste of soccer in Australia!  It was a lot of fun!  The way the school breaks up the teams is by home country, so I thought I would be representing Team USA, but once I got to the field, that wasn't so.  

I know soccer hasn't boomed in the US like it has in practically every other country in the world, but there were only 3 Americans who signed up for the team.  Hmmm.  How can the most popular sport in the USA for kids under age 16 only have 3 representatives in a school of about 4,o00?  Anyway, the three of us joined the MIBS team.  I wish I could remember which countries make up MIBS, but we can now add an "A" somewhere in there.  (Malaysia and Indonesia are the "M" and "I")

Today was a big step literally for me because it marked the first time I was playing in a soccer game since my ankle injury that ended my college career.  I was very hesitant at points which frustrated me, but I eventually started playing my game.  I am the first to admit I'm not a great player, but I did score our first goal on a header from a corner kick.  We found ourselves playing Team Latino who apparently are the best side in the school, and pretty much got dominated from the opening whistle.  Down 1-0 at half, we evened things up just a few minutes into the second, and actually took the lead 5 minutes later.  After our go-ahead goal, the Latinos seemed to kick things into gear but couldn't score for a while.  They finally broke back and took the lead for good with about 15 minutes left.  We had some good opportunities in the final 5 minutes, but couldn't get the job done.  All in all it was a fun day, and important for me to get back on the field.

Right now the ankle feels a bit shaky and weak, but tomorrow will be the big test as to how it is going to react for the rest of the semester.

Tomorrow morning I will be waking up early (I don't have any classes) to watch the super bowl on Monday.  It is very interesting to have basically zero coverage of the "biggest game of the year".  If the Patriots were in the game I would be going insane, but since they are not, it's not as big of a deal.  A few of us are heading to a local bar to check out the game and maybe enjoy some breakfast.  I'm going to go with the Cardinals because I really don't like the Steelers, but I think the Steelers will win.  I am going to miss the traditional buffalo wings my dad makes and the endless array of snacks my mom prepares every year, hanging with the foursome, and having "Super Sunday", but I guess I can deal with not being home for a year.

Goodnight from Paradise!