thursday already

wow, the weeks seem to be going quicker, at least when there are things going on. its hard for me to believe that my semester in australia is almost 1/2 over with. there's still so many things i want to do while i'm here. oh well if i don't see it now, it'll just be something i can go see on another trip (or if somehow i move here after i graduate :)

tomorrow there's going to be a little get together for all of the international students. the international office people (claire and tina) are going to be giving awards out to people. i'm kinda scared 'cause the awards aren't exactly for doing well in something, its more of an award for something stupid you've done. oh well should be lots of fun, also since there's free food/snacks.

hmm....can't think of anything else and i have a couple of instant message conversations going on at the moment. laters

Australian National Botanic Garden

went to the australian national botanic garden today. really wasn't a planned outting or anything. actually i had just got back to my room after taking a shower and my phone rang. it was another international student (lisa) who actually had meant to call someone else, but since she had called me by mistake she asked if i wanted to go to the botanic garden. since i didn't have anything else to do today i said sure. it was pretty fun going. packed a lunch (actually my lunch was probably enough for 3 people, but that's only 'cause i get hungry every couple hours). i think the garden would have been better if it was spring because there weren't very many flowers. on the other hand though, even if it was spring there still may not have been very many flowers. either way it was nice to just walk around. i added an album for the trip ( http://photos.yahoo.com/sdbrak18 ).

after the garden, we went into civic (down town). it actually the first day that i was in civic in the day time. i think i'll probably head there sometime this week again to walk around (during the day) to see what all is there since everything was starting to close when we got there. i did see a target store, but someone said its heaps different than the targets in the states.

the easter dinner yesterday got postponed until a later date, maybe this coming up weekend. i made the potato casserole anyways, since a few of us still decided to eat together. it turned out ok considering i used a potato & spinach soup instead of cream of potato soup (since i couldn't find it) and i had to use a different kind of potato (since i couldn't find the kind i needed). other than that, not too much is going on. the semester seems to be going pretty quick because its hard to believe that in 2 weeks its semester break (which is 1/2 way thru the semester). maybe i can convince some specific people to let me stay for a second semester (what do ya think?).

anyways, gonna type some emails. laters

Happy Easter

first off, just gonna say Happy Easter to all of you who read this. today my aussie friends are going to show me what a typical aussie easter is like, at least thats what they said they were going to do. either way there's going to be a big meal. i think there's gonna be 10 of us or so eating dinner. actually i'm not quite sure what time exactly we're going to be eating. i should probably find that out. anyways, i'm gonna be making a potato casserole for it. i'm kinda scared at how its gonna turn out since i couldn't find any cream of potato soup or any hash browns, so i'm gonna be improvising. i'm gonna warn everyone first though, that its my first time making it and that i had to improvise.

last night had to set the clocks back an hour for day light savings. i've never been so confused with time changes before. mostly its trying to figure out the time in the states because its spring there so the clocks would get set an hour ahead, right? so does that mean that the time difference is now 16 hours since i went back an hour and you went ahead an hour? i guess i'll just have wait until i call someone and then ask what time it is there.

hope everyone has a happy easter and such. i'll let everyone know how the potato casserole turns out. laters

Smith Charts

At first when i was learning about Smith Charts (if you're not a electrical engineer, or in a field close to a EE, than ignore this part 'cause it'll probably confuse you) I really hated them. however after about 3 hrs of lab, and and 4 hrs of lecture/tutorial they're actually quite handy little charts (if you know how to read them). on the chart you can tell what the VSWR, normalized impedance (or admittance), and a whole bunch of other things are. some of you who are still reading this and don't know what a smith chart is/does. it means you can find a whole bunch of different things but not really have to do any calculations for them, that is just how well the Smith guy made his chart.

hmmm....i had heaps of other things to talk about, but i can't think of them right now. in my multivariate calculus class one day, a kid said 'z' instead of 'zed' and the teacher said something like "so you're american now" and then somehow the topic got to roads with round abouts and then to 4-way stops in the states. the professor made it sound like 4-ways were really stupid and that they should just make round abouts, but that's 'cause he thought each car took turns on who got there first. i tried to explain that in a way he was right, but that you don't have to wait for the other 3 cars to go (if there's multiple cars at the stop, going in all diff directions), you go when the car going in the opposite direction goes (any aussies reading this will probably still be confused, 'cause well i did type it in a confusing way, but i'm not gonna change it).

i have a volleyball game tonight at 8:30, which reminds me i need to call and get a ride to it. not sure what i'm gonna do after the game, hopefully it'll be a good game though. oh yeah, still gotta figure out what i'm gonna do over the easter break, since i could go to sydney or head to melbourne with other americans/international students. could also be fun to see who all is staying on campus.

yesterday was one of my aussie friends (macca) 21st bday. i'm glad that 21st bdays are still big here, although i don't think i'm gonna have a party. i'm gonna kinda be celebrating my bday but not really because another one of my aussie friends (ringo) bday party which is the 16th of april although his bday is april 20th.

well like always after my wednesday lectures and such i'm starting to get hungry (actually i always get hungry around 5). laters

slow sunday

not much has happened as of today, at least not yet. just wasting some time before i have to go to volleyball practice and procrastinating on some homework. the homework really shouldn't take all that long to do. i just have to analyze an urban legend and say what parts of it make it an urban legend, or something like that. the urban legend i'm gonna do is the one about if you see a car driving around w/out its headlights on, not to flash it 'cause its a gang initiation. i tried thinking of some other ones, but i couldn't. although in my searching i found a web page that has haunted places in colorado, it might have a link to ones in SD too.

oh yeah, did laundry today too, was running out of clean shorts, jeans, etc. i keep thinking i should by some more, but then i think that i won't have room to bring them back, so who knows what i'm gonna do. that just made me think of how cold the aussies were saying it was last week (did i already talk about this, i forget). it was around 18 degrees celsius, which is 60-something farenheit (if my quick little conversion is right). to me that's still warm enough.

spent a lot of money on friday. i payed for 5 day sailing trip around the whitsunday islands for my break. the tkts to get to the place was almost the same price as it was for the sailing. although thats not all that big of a surprise. still need to figure out what i'm gonna do for the other half of my break though. actually i need to figure out for sure what i'm gonna be doing this weekend (if i want to go to sydney w/ aussie friends, or head to melbourne with some other international students).

well, i better get headed to volleyball

Instant messenging

hey, one of my friends just showed me how to get instant messenger to work on the schools computers, so you may actually be able to talk/type to me sometime

happy saint patrick's day

so its saint patricks day today, but i don't see all that many people wearing green. maybe they're waiting to wear it tomorrow night at the saint patty's punch party.

v-ball was ok last night. they were tough games, so there wasn't any substitutions that were made (so me and 2 others, just sat and watched all night). kinda sucked, but oh well. i guess there's enough people that they're going to try and make a 2nd state reserve team, which will be good 'cause than there will only be 7 or so on a team instead of 9 (they'll be bringing people up from the other leagues). not much else happened last night. had planned on going out, but it was raining (and no car) just stayed in the ressies. although it wasn't the ressie that i live in. i was going to wait to go back to my ressie when it stopped raining, but around 2am i got tired of waiting for it to stop, so i just quickly jogged back.

i think i'm gonna attempt to make bbq's later today. hopefully they turn out a little better than the enchiladas. if not, its another learning experience.

oh yeah, a little while ago i dropped some film off to be developed (from the great barrier reef). not sure if or how i'll be able to get them into my photo album. maybe with the good ones i take a photo of them (like i did with me holding the koala) and then put them on. actually there's a couple people i know that have a printer/scanner/copier thingy like mine. so maybe i'll be able to use that. the photos will be ready for me to pick up after 10 tomorrow morning, so i'll let ya know if there's any good ones you should be expecting to find in my photo album in the future.

there's an official 3-day weekend coming up. classes on monday are canceled for Canberra Day (not like it matters since i don't have class on monday anyways). several people are going home this weekend. which reminds me, i need to figure out what i'm gonna do over the easter weekend (which is a 4-day weekend). a couple people invited me to go with them home, so i might do that, or else i think i'll probably get really bored.

well i'm getting kinda hungry (big surprise isn't it?)

radio communication

so today was the first lab for my radio communications class. the lab started at 8:30 (its the earliest i think anyone in my class has had to get up in quite a while as we were all about to fall asleep). none of us really knew what we where doing and it didn't help that all of us were doing different labs (all the labs for the semester are set up and we just rotate/pick one to do next week). the professor was actually told us in the 1st hour of lecture today that he was expecting it to be kinda chaotic, since we hadn't learned everything yet that we need to know for the lab. oh yeah, and since we were a little behind, he decided to just have 4 hrs of lecture today instead of 3 hrs lecture and 1 tutorial (although we were asking lots of questions when he was lecturing). sometimes i don't know if he understands the questions right away or not, 'cause he'll say one thing, explain it, then the person will ask the question again (in a yes/no sort of way) which was what the person asking the question was wanting all the time. anyways, back to the lab. i didn't think it was really possible to have much older equipment than tech has, but yup wrong again. i think i'm gonna take my camera next week and take a picture of the equipment to let yous (aussie term) see it.

i'm really glad the class is over for the day, although now (once i get off the computer) gotta get something to eat and get ready for my v-ball game tonight. i wonder if the jerseys are in yet (i had to buy a jersey). the club will by the jersey back for $10 less than what i paid, but i think i might just keep it. i wasn't able to get the number 18, cause someone else was already that number. actually i think all 3 numbers that i picked are already taken, oh well.

oh yeah, saint patricks day is tomorrow. i really want to find the movie boondock saints to watch tomorrow, but i don't think i'm gonna have that good of luck in finding it. some of the aussies i've talked to have seen it though. i'm also trying to get the to watch Equilibrium, although some of them say it looks "dodgy" (can't think of the equivalent word we'd use right at this moment and i'm too lazy to find out, 'cause it varies a little depending on the text you use it in). anyways i'm getting hungry, so laters

dazza

semester break

k, so i just came from the travel place on campus and i think i know what i'm going to do (at least for 1/2 of my 2 week break. i'm gonna take a 5 day/4 night sailing trip around whitsunday (which is suppose to be super nice/beautiful). i just need to make sure that i'll be able to get to newcastle (which is quite a ways away) on the 16th for a 21st bday party (not for me, for one of my aussie friends).

tried cooking chicken enchiladas last night. they tasted ok, but were a bit runny (i think i added too much milk or cream of chicken soup). i blame that i'm having to convert the recipes into measuring in grams, milliliters, and the fact that i also think the cans are a little bigger here. oh well, i'll know next time. although i think the next thing i make will either be spaghetti, meatloaf, or tator tot casserole (although they really don't have tator tots here, so i'm gonna have to improvise).

i have a 3 day weekend this weekend, but don't think i'm gonna be going anywhere. there's some people going up to sydney, but since i didn't go to volleyball practice this weekend (due to my sunburned shoulders) i should probably go this sunday. oh yeah, lost my touch footy game last night, but i did score a point.

and supposedly i'm suppose to ask andy about an adventure in colorado, so andy if you're reading this expect a phone call within the next week. and ashli you never responded with why you were in illinois. oh well, i'm a little outta the loop, but i suppose thats to be expected since i'm in a different hemisphere.

that's it for now, cheers

Thredbo

this weekend was heaps of fun. it woulda been nice to have had a longer time at thredbo, eventhough there really isn't all that much to do there. its a pretty small resort type place. friday when we got there we ate at a really good pizza place (i was actually able to order pepperoni pizza, although the place named it their americano pizza). the hike up on saturday took about 1.5 hours (seemed a lot longer though). the elevation of thredbo is 2,229 meters, which i forget what that is in feet. on the hike my shoulders got a bit burnt (actually more than just a bit, 'cause i didn't play vball yesterday since they hurt). today though my shoulders are feeling fine. i had put sunscreen on my ears, nose, face, but just not my shoulders. oh well. that's about it with the thredbo trip, except that in the hostel we stayed at i shared the room with 4 girls and i'm never going to do that again!!!! i think it scarred me for life (not really but it could have)

going to go grocery shopping today, to get all types of ingredients so i can actually cook something good. gonna get stuff so i can make chicken enchiladas, bbqs (sloppy joes), meatloaf, etc. hopefully i can find everything. the thing i think i'll have the hardest time finding is the onion soup mix for the meatloaf.

oh yeah i'm finally adding pictures to my photo album http://photos.yahoo.com/sdbrak18 some of them didn't turn out all that well, so i might try to edit them sometime later. there's a new album for thredbo, the horse races, and i added a couple pics of 'roos to the UC album.

can't think of anything else right now, and i need to still transfer all the pics and then need to make sure i don't miss my ride to the mall to shop for groceries, so laters

annoying birds

so there are various birds here that i'm starting to get use to (they were very and i mean very annoying when i first got here, especially in the mornings). the sounds they make sound a little like people saying "ah, ah, oohhh" in the mornings it just seemed to be really loud, but i haven't really heard it the last couple weeks. i must have learned to tune them out in the mornings. also the same birds, i really haven't seen them fly all that much. when you walk towards them, they just run/hop away. actually a lot of the birds on campus seem to do that. on a different note, but still kinda the same topic, the kangaroos just tend to ignore people. i was walking back to my room one night, and there were a couple next to the path (and i mean right next to the path). not too sure if they would hop away or not, i had decided to walk off the path and go around them. oh yeah i finally have a picture of a roo that i took from the window in my room. it was at night, so it was pretty hard to get a picture that actually somewhat turned out. the first couple of pictures the camera focused on the screen, but i eventually figured out if i turned the flash off and had the window shut i was able to get a picture.

tomorrow i'm going to be heading to Thredbo, so i probably won't be at a computer again until about monday. its a good thing that there's a trip this weekend, 'cause heaps of people seem to going home (mostly to sydney), eventhough i think next weekend (or maybe the following one) its a 3 day weekend. it would be fun to go to sydney though, since the only part i've seen is the inside of the airport.

like always, nothing else is really going on. i'm starting to run low on food though, so i eventually need to go grocery shopping. probably after the thredbo trip. anyways, see yas

playing musical classrooms

hey, just got out of my classes, and had to write about what happened at the beginning of them. at the lecture earlier this morning the teacher had said that the next lecture would be in 11c34 (building 11, floor c (3rd), room 34). so all 9 of us are standing outside the room waiting for the teacher to show up. waited for about 20 minutes and then someone decided to go downstairs to see if the teacher was in any of the other rooms we had had lectures in before. the person came back and said that there was a note on one of the doors that said the class was in 6c9, so we all went there and when we got there, the was no teacher. so then we went to the teachers office (in building 11) and found him there. he thought that all of us just didn't show up because we didn't want to and then we had to convince him to teach us today (he didn't want to since he thought we didn't show up). in the end we ended up having the class in 11c34. when the teacher got to the room, he understood that it was all just a failure of communication (meaning he wanted, well maybe not wanted to teach, but he didn't not want to teach if that makes sense). well i'm getting hungary since i haven't had anything to eat for multiple hours, laters

g'day

hey everyone, hope everyone is doing good. there's still not much going on here. had a touch footy game monday night, which my team won (i didn't score any points this time). then after the game i pretty much ran back to the ressies to catch up with people that were going to the labor club for dinner (which does have good food and i got in this time). although they didn't even look at my passport this time, the lady last time must have just been on a power trip or something.

yesterday the one girl that lives in my building said i could take her computer, so i have one. it is old though (well kinda, it has windows 98 on it and has a pentium 2 processor). whenever i try to do a disk defrag it freezes up so it might take a little bit before i actually get it hooked up to the internet in my room.

have a v-ball game tonight, should be lots of fun. i'm glad i'm able to catch a ride with someone, or else the place is like a 30 minute walk from campus (and in what direction i don't know). hopefully i won't get the ball spiked in my face all the much :) anyways once again i have class pretty soon (i'm on my 1hr break right now). next week is going to be worse. i'm gonna start at 8:30 go to 12:30, and then go from 1:30 to 4:30 (all of which is for the same class). anyways, see yas

v-ball

so, just got done playing/practising volleyball. i had only planned on playing on the recreation league (and only had taken enough money to pay the dues for that), but they asked if i wouldn't mind playing on the state reserve team. of course i said i would. in reality though i think it'll be fun since i am a bit competitive and state league is the highest i think, or pretty close. its also kinda fun since i'm only this little 5ft 6in (5'7" max) person.

last night was heaps of fun. ended up not going to the fireworks display. it was kinda windy and a little cold (for the aussies i was going with, i thought the weather was fine). but we ended up playing board/card games. the first game we played (i took over for someone) was monopoly. i think i did pretty well for myself, since when i took over for the person, all the properties had already been bought and she had only had one. i merged with one person (who is also from colorado), putting all our money and property together (my one property). this was after a couple other people had already merged together. then a third person merged with us. in the end there was only 3 different teams playing. my team was the first one to go bankrupt. oh well. after monopoly we played cranium, which was fun but really hard since all the questions dealt with australian terms, models, etc. (luckily i was on a team w/ 2 aussies). the game went on for a while. then after cranium so people left so we decided to play cards.

back to the other person (jon) from colorado. we both have the nickname "colorado", so when we're both in the same place he's colorado, and i'm colorado 2.0 (or dazza). anyways, the library just made an anouncement that it is getting ready to close, so hope all of you at Tech are having a fun spring break, and those of you elsewhere, i hope you're having fun too. cheers

skyfire

well tonight there's a big fireworks display called skyfire or something like that. hmmmm.....once again not too much going on. last night went to the bar on campus and bought 3 drinks. with each drink i got a little scratch card thingy, and i won all 3 times (i was amazed). i was going to stop after 2, but i thought what the hey and got another one. i really didn't want to try a 4th time. i won a pair of sunglasses, and 2 sweatbands (all of the name of the drink on them which is canadian club). the drinks were bottle in australia but made from stuff from australia and canada.

sunday i have v-ball practise (wow i'm starting to spell things like they do here) and have to pay however much it is to be in the recreation league. then on monday night i have a touch footy game which should be heaps of fun.

anyways, that's about it, things have been quite calm since classes have begun. i'll definately have more to write about in about a week, since next weekend i'll be going to the tallest "mountain" (or one of the tallest) in australia.

oh i just thought of something. for my truth, belief, and science class we have to do a 20 minute speech and a 8-9 page paper on a topic. i picked to do mine on parapsychology, which deals with telekinesis, telepathy, precognition, etc. who woulda guessed i'd choose that as a topic?

another thing, my phone card ran out, so don't be expecting any phone calls until i get another one that's a good price (i tried using the one you gave me mom, but the 1800 number doesn't work here). i could use the mobile (cell phone, oh and they pronounce it mo bile, not mobile) but it'll cost more than a phone card would, but still cheaper than it would be to call someone in australia. so weird, but oh well.

cheers

nothing new

hey, hope everything is going good for everyone. not too much new and/or interesting things have really gone on lately. tuesday was kinda interesting though (in a way). on monday and tuesday nights a club (called the labor club) has a buffet meal thing for under $7, so a group of us went there for dinner. since its a club and such they were checking id's to get in (oh and you have to go in with someone who's a member if you're not a member). anyways, 1/2 of us didn't get in (one of which was me). the lady at the front counter said i couldn't get in 'cause my driver's license and the other 2 or 3 photo ids i had weren't good enough, i needed to have my passport (but i'm not going to carry my passport around with me since its kind of an important thing if i should happen to loose it). another guy in our group had the same problem (he's from malaysia). bryan the aussie that didn't in was because his id card had expired. so after leaving the front entrance we went to the back one, signed in and got in. as we were standing in line for food, the lady from the front counter came and asked if we had gone and gotten our passports. since we didn't she continued to say something about that we could get banned from the labor club for doing what we did. its not like it would be too horrible of a thing to get banned from there anyways, there's nothing to impressive about it. there's dozens of other clubs. anyways, went home and just made myself a sandwich, which probably was cheaper than what i would have paid.

i haven't put the new pics up yet, but maybe by this weekend they will be up. hmm...really can't think of anything else to really type.

wait just thought of something. for those of you at Tech, a person from the raver emailed me asking me if i would send a summary of what i've been doing in australia, so there might be something in the next raver or the one after that.

well thats all for now (plus i have a class that starts in 15 minutes or so). cheers

touch footy

touch footy was heaps of fun yesterday, plus there was free food and drinks. for drinks i was assuming it would just be water and pop (they call it soft drinks), but no, the drinks ranged from pop to red bull to VB (victoria bitter, one of their beers). i just had a red bull. anyways back to touch, i actually scored. to score you have to get to the "endzone line" (i forget the actual term) and put the ball down. the game is really fast paced, and i think i like it a little more than soccer right now (could be 'cause its new). hopefully i'll have learned all the rules by the time i leave so i can attempt to teach everyone.

gonna go grocery shopping later today to get ingredients to attempt to cook for some aussie's. not sure how well its going to work out. still not completely sure on what i'm going to be cooking for them. might be meatloaf, or maybe just bbq sandwiches. who knows. or maybe i'll make the chicken pot pie that i made before for some of you.

oh yeah, since i haven't figured out how to link my photo album to my blog here's the addy again http://photos.yahoo.com/sdbrak18

not much else is going on. watched fear and loathing in las vegas (or something like that) last night. it has johnny depp in it and it was kind of a weird movie. it was based in 1970 or sometime close to that. it was funny, but also some parts seemed to just drag on and on. missing all of my movies, oh well.

just thought of something else. today the cleaning lady came and vacuumed (pretty sure that's not spelled right) everyone's room. she comes every 2 weeks. which is nice 'cause that means i don't have to do it. i just gotta make sure the floor is picked up so she can vacuum (which means everything get's thrown in my closet, on my bed, or on the table. they're also pretty stricked about the kitchen area being clean. if you leave dirty dishes out (someone also said clean ones) they will take them and then you have to go claim them or something like that. its just nice 'cause it makes the kitchen stay clean. not like i've done any actual cooking yet, but still.

well i think i might type some emails to some people, cheers