Post Twenty Three: Off into the wild yonder

Hey everyone! I am going on break (FINALLY WHOOPIEEEEEEEEE!!!!) so I will be out of internet contact for the next three weeks. Thus I will not be posting at all, I will try to remember and write down as much as I can in a journal or something and then post one really super long post, or a bunch of shorter ones, or something when I return from my adventures!

So yep, I leave Friday afternoon by my time, and I return on the 23rd. though I may not have a computer until perhaps the 26th. So until then, farewell to everyone and I will get in touch again upon my return to DLC!

TTFN!

Love - Ariana

Post Twenty Two: ok, a few things I forgot to mention

How to kill a cockroach family:

Step 1. Locate cockroaches. This will happen purely by intuition. Similar to suddenly getting the feeling that there are raccoons by your picnic table, you will allof a sudden get the urge to look to your left to the corner, or to go over by your sink not knowing why with goosebumps prickling your neck. You will then spot a cockroach parent on your wall, or cockroach child on your floor respectively. 

Step 2. Choose weapon. Find something that you do not care if it becomes either broken or smattered in cockroach. (cups from the dining halls that you have no respect for are perfect).

Step 3. Calmly and firmly grasp weapon and slowly lower towards cockroach. No fast movements, they will notice and subsequently skitter out of sight causing significant distress to your person as you will now have no idea where they have gone to.

Step 4. Once weapon is sufficiently close, quickly finish the blow and squish roach thoroughly making sure that it is separated into at least two halves. Otherwise it will continue to live. If either of the halves are still moving, repeat step 3 and 4 until no movement is detectable and roach is in a number of pieces.

Step 5. Leave in conspicuous spot for the cleaning crew to discover. Perhaps they will realize that there is a problem. Or. if this is impossible because the roach is in a traffic area and you will forget that the roach is there and will inevitably step on it, use utensil (again, dining hall materials such as knives work well) to pick up roach and place in trash.

Step 6. Hope and pray that you have now killed mom and child and not dad and child. if you have succeeded in killing the mother, then any subsequent children will not exist. If you have only killed the dad and child then you have only cut of the head of a hydra, as the cockroaches will continue to multiply. If this second is the case. Repeat steps 1-5 until problem is no more.

Step 4

Step 3

Ideal results of Step 4. (thumb included to provide scale)

second thing one must know. they PAY you to take psych studies here! no candy involved you get CASH MONEY!

third. the concept of the icecube is utterly foreign to the Australian. Thus, so too is the idea of cold beverages.

lastly, 'all you can eat' dining service is a lie at DLC. it is not 'all you can eat' it is instead 'limited first servings, only allowed one option of the three given, served conservatively by staff, then no seconds allowed until 10 minutes before closing (if there is any left at this point) to make sure we actually have enough for everyone because we don't plan well and often run out of food by the end even with our restrictive first servings'. So show up early to make sure you actually get food, and if you want seconds, bring a sweatshirt or something so you can go in with a different shirt on, sometimes they will not recognize you and will give you seconds thinking they are your firsts.

Anything I left out? oh yeah. make SURE you check your apple before EACH bite. otherwise you may end up finding you have just eaten half of a black spot or worse...

Post Twenty One: Almost there, but one more adventure before break.

Not much to report this week. I have been trying my best to finish all of my homework so that when I go on break I can actually be on break. I am currently trying to finish a huge research paper. It is not due for a little while even after the break, but seeing as during the month of May I will have a total of three of these monsters to accomplish (in addition to all other papers and tests). Granted, the workload here is not as pressuring as the one at LU, but I have one more class than back home and only a couple of extra weeks (since we have this giant break) of actual school. So, anyway, this will be a short post.

Yesterday I went with some friends beck to the Blue Mountains. The weather report was "mostly sunny"...however the sun did not get "mostly" until around 3pm...typical. I am finding it a trend that whenever I make plans to go places the sky tends to be either raining, or cloudy and cold.

However, it was actually pretty sweet to have this weather as you will see in a minute. After a long trainride we arrived in Katoomba and walked down to Echo point. We learned why people usually take tourbuses, because it is a fair walk (not undoable for sure, but it is a bit of a walk) to get anywhere.

where are the mountains?

Anyway, once we arrived at the 'scenic lookout' Echo Point. But, wait, where were the mountains? we couldn't really see anything due to massive cloud-cover. it was hauntingly interesting, every now and then a mountain would emerge and then disappear again into the clouds.


We then walked down to the three sisters, again it was so cloudy that it was hard to see anything. but it did clear now and then, enough that we were able to glimpse some of the vistas.

Lunch!

After this, was lunch on the side of the path (we received some looks from the passersby, perhaps because we were all sitting on the ground in front of a bench...instead of on the bench...)

can you find us?

sunlight turns it into a tropical woodland!

Then we walked along a path trying to get to the Leura Cascades. The walk was really fun, sometimes it was like walking through a misty valley in a horror movie or a rainforest. and then the sun would come out and it was like a tropical island walk! the walk was supposedly only 3 km... however, it took us 2 1/2/ hours before we reached a sign that said Leura Cascades 750m ahead. GREAT! but then, about 100m farther we saw another sign that said Leura Cascades 1.1 km...hmmmmm not good. we decided to sadly forgo trying to find the falls and instead headed up away from the mountains and onto the road to Leura town. after walking up and down and up and down hills we reached Leura and enjoyed windowshopping (it was a beautiful day at this point) for a bit before heading back on the train.

Since we had all purchased tickets that let us travel on all transportation free for that day, we decided to continue all the way back to Sydney City. We went to the Rocks Pancake House for dinner, I ordered one of their 'famous chocolate pancakes' and shared. It was our consensus that "they forgot the pan in that pancake!" Still, it was pretty good, even by my snobbish chocolate standards.

On the ferry, behind me is Circular Quay

Blue, and the Opera house. how can it get better!

We finished the night by riding the ferry to a litup Luna Park before returning tired but happy and satisfied, to the Uni.

There was my one day adventure! a bit short and to the point, I apologize. but homework calls.....