I don't know what's happened to my writing mojo, but I don't really find the urge to write like I did during the first couple weeks here.
Maybe I've gotten settled in for real and before writing was my way of dealing with the "homesickness" that I was feeling. I've definitely settled in some and gotten the swing of things down.
This weekend was a pretty relaxing and uneventful one. A lot of my class mates were out traveling. A few went to Brisbane, where it was flooding, and another group went to Tasmania. I just stayed in Melbourne and chilled. It was nice. We had Thursday and Friday off due to Australia Day which is surrounded by a little bit of controversy as some people call it Invasion day. It's the day that white settlers first landed in Australia and it's since, at least publicly, become a holiday to celebrate the diversity of Australia. To show for this there's a parade with tons of different organizations and clubs that all represent a different cultural group that takes place on the day. Of course we went to this because it's the touristy thing to do. And of course it was pretty boring/lame. I mean it's cool and all to see the stuff, but really it was just people dressed up in their traditional cultural garb walking around. Of the guys I talked to who went, everyone seemed to agree on this and as of course as WPI students, the highlight of the parade is when the Star Wars club walked by.
After the parade there's a bunch of other activities going on in the gardens on the outskirts of the city and we wandered down to see the woodchop. Yes, a woodchop. They have lumberjacks race to see who can cut through the log the fastest both with axes and chainsaws. It was actually pretty entertaining.
To most Australians, the holiday is just about kicking back, relaxing, throwing some food on the barbie and drinking some beers. To commemorate this there was a reddit meet up on Australia day in one of the nearby parks. I invited all of my classmates to go as well, but I was met with ridicule and how meeting people from the internet sounds like a good way 'to get free candy from a van and never see the United States again'. Mmmhmm, feel free to live in your WPI bubble while on the other side of the world and be too scared to meet locals. Yes I'm a bit angry, but whatever, not my problem. I'll go explore the city and meet locals and hear about the hidden gems, you can socialize internally with people from the States and be closed-minded.
So I went to the meet up and there was a good number of people there, about 15ish as a ball park. The event was BYO and of course being a cheap student, and given the fact that alcohol costs way too much here, I didn't BMO. I was just looking to meet some people. And that I did. It seemed that everyone there was pretty much a mix of a group of friends that regularly meet up about once a week via reddit. They all have their own friends outside so it seems, or maybe not since they're redditors, but they congregate and chill.
That evening one of the sponsors invited us over for post-dinner drinks and snacks. Naturally, free alcohol and college students go hand-in-hand so we all went over and had some drinks. Now his house is near Chapel Street which is supposed to be a ridiculously awesome place to be on a Friday night, so since we were already out there we decided to check it out. Unfortunately the place was pretty dead as a lot of people had work the next day so it was a failed excursion. Most people were flying out the next morning so it was extra sad because they stayed up late for the "legen-wait for it-dary", night for nothing.
That brings us to Friday, and I guess my motivation to write is gone, but once I start writing everything just kind of explodes out onto the paper. So back to Friday, I don't really remember what I did during the day… Oh right, I just kind of chilled at the library and played some Terraria and tried to get details for what was happening that evening because I got invited out for some drinks with the redditors I had met on Australia day. So afternoon was spent at the library, but I started to get hungry so I starting thinking of what to make for dinner because I had plenty of time and was in the mood for cooking. So I start thinking of what we have in our fridge/freezer which is dictated completely by the price of things since most meats are in the ball park range of $15-25/kg, which roughly translates to $8-12/lb which is RIDICULOUS. But at the Queen Victoria market there are ground beef bulk specials and it's $10 for 2 kg of ground beef, which is awesome. So we have a lot of ground beef in our freezer, and as usual potatoes are always cheap no matter where you go for whatever reason. Ground beef+ potatoes = shepherd's pie of course. So I look up some recipes and throw together a MEAAANNN shepherd's pie. I was so happy with how it came out and it was so delicious, it's definitely being made at least once a week if not more.
Friday evening comes upon us and I invite a couple of my classmates out to the bar. We go and meet up with them and just generally have a good time chatting with them and stuff, and they're all young professional who have money so they buy a couple round of drinks for us, again free alcohol is awesome. It was a relatively quiet Friday night, but still enjoyable nonetheless.
Saturday, uhhh, afternoon disappeared to I don't know what. Maybe grocery shopping and wandering? Not too sure, but the evening I went to the International Student Ministry they have at the church I went to on Sunday, met some more people and went out to dinner with them.
Sunday I went to church, went to the market, bought another 2kg of ground beef as I ate most of what was in our freezer over the course of about a week and a halfish. Pick up a few kangaroo steaks to cook and eat for dinner. Go to the beach and chill, the water was so warm, but it seemed like as soon as we got there the sun decided to hide behind the clouds. We came back I cooked the kangaroo steaks for dinner with a side of mashed potatoes, perfect medium doneness on the steaks. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures until the last bite of the kangaroo so it's a rather messy, unflattering picture of my cooking finesse. Then the Australian Open final was on and it was a hell of a long game. Nearly six hours and each set was ridiculous. Nadal looked like he was going to get stomped on, but then every time he would stay in, fight and win the game. He was down 40-0 and he came back and won the game. It was RIDICULOUS and I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish watching the match.
Sorry for the cop-out in writing after Friday, I was hungry and took my lunch break and I discovered that pieces of my bread were moldy, I was about to bite into it and I notice that there are these black splotches on my bread. And I just bought that bread like 3 days ago. Ridiculous, I'm going to start storing my bread in the fridge. Oh and I guess I was going to explain that the lunch break destroying my writing mojo. Man, I never want to read over/edit these, following my thought processes must be so difficult.
Oh well.
P-P-PEACE
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