Here goes.

I only have an hour before class so we'll see how much I can spill out until then...

From before our ten days of wonderment: played pick-up ultimate frisbee Monday night (a weekly event), lots of fun...went to a huge potluck dinner at Keith's Tuesday night, run by Malte - full of wonderful food, I ate way too much...Wednesday night played volleyball again; this time we had a training session beforehand, and WHOA did that help.  We actually sustained a pretty decent game.  Woohoo.  Keith played another gig at Moondyne Joe's Thursday night, then it was home to finish packing and get some sleep before our early start Friday morning.

7:45am Friday: meet in the carpark AT THIS TIME AND NO LATER or you will be left behind.  Cool, except the buses were about an hour late.  No surprise there.  There were about thirty students on the trip, along with two tour guides and a Murdoch rep to make sure we didn't disgrace the university.  We got a riveting speech from the president of Murdoch (or some other position at the uni that requires him to wear a suit) about how he could kick us out of Murdoch AND out of our home unis if we behave inappropriately during our trip...his speech was so uncharacteristic of Australian authority figures, it kind of weirded me out.  But no matter.  We piled onto two buses, led by our fearless leaders - Terry and Fi (short for Fiona but don't call her that), and we were off.  I was on Fi's bus, accompanied by pretty much everyone else I knew going into the trip, and a bunch of new faces.  Day one was all driving.  We saw a lot of sheep, a lot of kangaroos (Fi was kind enough to stop the bus so we could take pictures), stopped for lunch at a really windy but beautiful seaside picnic area - my feet were so happy to be out of their shoes.  Our stop for the evening was in Lynton, where we stayed in a sheep barn on a big ranch.  The barn happened to be located at the bottom of a HUGE, GINORMOUS hill, which a bunch of us climbed up.  Keith and I kept climbing (we couldn't see the other side of the hill yet, and we wanted to find a good place to watch the sunset) and came upon a whole other world up there.  Lots of really cool vegetation, the grass was higher than my knees, there were these weird melons growing on vines along the ground...anyway we found the sunset, got a lot of pretty pictures of the Indian Ocean (I think?), then spent a good amount of time wandering back through the tall grass to the barn.  Terry made us dinner (as he did every night) with the help of some of us, we ate off of tin plates around a big long table; it was a scene out of the Waltons or something.  And I forget what we ate, but it was tasty.  That man knows how to cook.  After dinner we moved the furniture around and put our sleeping bags on the floor and crashed pretty early - we had 6am starts every day.

6am means 6am.  Terry bangs on the door, yells "everybody get up" four or five times, and we are outta there.  Every morning was cereal or toast for breakfast (sometimes we had a toaster, sometimes we did not), and we were on the bus by 7am.  Day two was spent mostly at Kalbarri national park - we climbed a gorge, hiked over a lot of really beautiful cliffs looking down on the Murchison River, took a ton of pictures...this is when I realized how good this trip was going to be.  The gorge we were in had clear paths, but if you weren't paying attention or wanted to be an idiot, it's definitely possible to hurt yourself by, oh, say, falling off the edge.  And our tour guides basically let us roam wherever we wanted.  There's so much more trust in Australia than in America.  For that I am thankful.  One of the very cool structures on these particular cliffs was nature's window - a naturally made hole in rock looking over the river - photo op!  We went a little shutter happy.  That night we stayed at a place called Hamelin Pool, where we found, brace yourselves, STROMATOLITES!!!  Here's the deal with these babies.  They are the oldest life form on earth, and because they actually PRODUCE oxygen, they are responsible for the atmosphere we all know and love.  They're pretty badass.  And Hamelin Pool is the only place on earth where they are easily accessible by humans, although they are found in the Bahamas and in one other place in Australia.  Basically, they look like funny-shaped rocks.  They sit along the shore of a beach, there's a boardwalk that goes out to them so you don't step on any, and there they are: behold the beginning of life as we know it.  A few of us already knew about the stromatolites before we got to Hamelin Pool, so needless to say, we were ecstatic.  This is also evident given the number of pictures I took of these guys.  But it's hard to get other people to be excited about rocks if they have never heard of them before, no matter how heroic the rocks are.  We were the only people out there; I'm amazed anyone else finds this place, to be honest.  It's out in the middle of nowhere, when you get to the boardwalk there are a lot of placards with information about the stromatolites, but other than that you're on your own.  You don't have to pay to see them, they trust you to stay on the boardwalk (again, kudos Australia); seems to me, if we had this kind of scientific goldmine in America we'd have totally commercialized it by now.  Think of all the scam attractions we have in the US - this is real, live old rock, and the Australians just let it be.  This country has got its head screwed on right.

Hamelin Pool became "the place of sunsets" - for the two nights we stayed there we spent at least 45 min each night watching the sun go down.  Oh to do this every night.  We tented while we were there - I was in a tent with Lucy, Lauren and Julie - THAT was fun to set up.  The first night it looked a bit dilapidated (we were missing some parts), but we got it together by night two.  Both nights we had a big fire before and after dinner.  To quote Keith: who needs technology when you've got fire?  Seriously - we were entertained for hours.  Now here comes Aussie animal encounter number one: the first night we were at Hamelin Pool, I had to pee very early in the morning.  I did not want to walk all the way to the bathroom, so I decided to pee behind a tree.  It was still dark.  When I went to leave, I looked to my right and OH HELLO KANGAROO - there's a big red kanga about 2oo feet away.  Now, kangaroos are actually pretty dangerous - if I haven't said it already, they can attack you WITH ALL FOUR LIMBS AT ONCE.  But this guy was far enough away that I just watched him (or her) for awhile, then went back to my tent.  Oh yeah - the stars were perfect.

Oh these entries are going to be long.  I've gotta go to class so I'll stop here.  Hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend!  Love you guys.

Alive.

Hi all - just got home from ten days in the outback, so there will be several long entries about that as soon as I get my bearings back and the red dirt out of my hair...just wanted to say hi and hope y'all are well (: especially you guys who moved in to college the last week or so...fill me in.

Love you all and miss you heaps!

Meditation & Famine

Why hello.  40 Hour Famine is over!  Turns out there was a bit of a snag in the 52-hour count Keith and I had made earlier this week...famine started at 8pm on Friday, not 8am.  Well gosh, that's where all those extra hours came from!  So he and I ended ours after forty hours, which was at 6pm yesterday.  I was really, really hungry.  Yesterday was not a very productive day either...but dinner was GREAT.

I think I wrote last on Wednesday.  Here goes.  Wednesday night was volleyball night with the Sustainability team - we ended up just playing against ourselves (there were a ton of us), but it was heaps of fun.  Thursday I worked at the Sustainability Team table at the market in the morning, doing my best to get others to sign up or to sign our petitions or just inform them of what we were doing on campus (which is, at this point, not a whole lot more than playing volleyball every Wednesday night...but we're getting there).  I went to a Deep Ecology lecture later on - so cool, it's all about reconnecting back to the earth, this guy named John Seed (how appropriate) travels around the world giving workshops; this was just a lecture, but it was very enlightening.  He also performed two poem/song-things he had written, and gave us free Tim Tams.  I have zero to complain about.  THEN I went to a meditation class, so, so worth it.  Meditation is HARD, but I'm going to try to practice whenever I can.  You're supposed to do it as soon as you wake up; now I don't know how well that will work if Lauren gets up with me, but I'll figure it out.  Our instructor (I honestly have no idea if this person was male or female) also tried to teach us walking meditation, which theoretically you can do anywhere, but that's much harder, I don't know about that one.

I hung out at the tavern with some of the Sustainability team for awhile - Keith and I needed to rehearse for the open mic that night - then we competed in a club competition against a group called the Queers (the GLBT society on campus) for $200 for our club.  The competition was trivia, song identification, and then a few nail-biting rounds of pictionary - SO CLOSE, but we lost by one point.  However, the Queers were nice enough to give us half the money, because it was so close.  What champs.  Then OPEN MIC NIGHT!!!  At Moondyne Joe's - Keith went up and played three songs by himself, then I sang Sweetest Girl with him to close.  The video is posted along with my pictures if anyone's interested - I had such a good time; I think we'll do it again later this week?  Keith and I headed back to his flat to have some ceviche as our "last supper," until his flatmate Jess forced some tasty pasta on us as well...she was concerned that we would starve, you see.

Friday Friday Friday...well the famine supposedly started at 8am, so off we were.  I had class at 8:30, then a meeting at 10 with the director of the show I'm stage managing.  I thought the meeting would take about an hour...well, I was wrong.  By about 100%.  Two hours later, I was off to the library to get a headstart on some paperwork for the show, then off the rehearsal at 1:30.  Don't look now, but I actually think I can handle this job.  Now that I've said that, I'll probably crash and burn...but I'm staying above water so far, how much harder will it get?  Ha.  Right.  The director reminds me of Jim Radgowski a little bit, not totally...I'm not sure who reads this so I won't say anything else on THAT comparison...

Friday night I watched Fight Club for the first time, check that one off the list.  Saturday was the opposite of productive because I was so dang hungry.  I did a lot of reading (some for class, some not), got a call from Keith deciding that we should end the famine after 40 hours instead of 52, agreed, and ate a delicious dinner of pasta and chicken.  Mm mm mm.  Today I've been trying to get work done, but mostly failing...mostly due to slam poetry on youtube.  I'm an addict.  I've actually started writing some myself now; I wrote a bit this summer, but never really finished anything...I think I'm going to try to get a few done here so that when I get back to Boston I can actually go to some slams and maybe perform.  I love watching slam though - Marty McConnell, Sarah Kay, and Rachel McKibbens are my favorites if anyone wants some brain food - and I think it's good for you.  A poem a day, at least.  They've got important things to say, and they say them in some fantastically creative ways.  Sarah Kay is especially impressive, she's only 20 or 21, and she's got some videos of when she was 18...the lyrics she writes are so beautiful and so relevant.  I've probably watched about 3 hours worth of poetry this weekend, eeks.  Ah well.  Good for the mind, good for the soul.

So what are you guys up to?

(:

Photographic treats.

More pictures are up!  Two albums, not a ton of pictures but you'll get the idea (: also, in the album entitled "A bit more of Australia," check out the video of Keith and I singing "Sweetest Girl" at open mic night at Moondyne Joe's last Thursday.  Quality's not that great, but again - you'll get the idea.  SO much fun, and Keith and I have rehearsed four or five songs together so hopefully I'll have some more videos to show you guys soon.  I have a ton of just Keith singing, I should post those too...

Anyway, enjoy, send me anti-hunger vibes!  I'll write a real post later this weekend.  Right now I'm too hungry, and helping Lauren make a grocery list...our bill this week will be so much higher because all I can think about is food right now, haha.

MISS YOU GUYS.  If anyone wants to Skype soon let me know, I got to talk to my family (and my extended family of Stephan, Melissa and Sue) for over an hour today, and that hit the spot better than any foodage could (:

Love.

Dolla dolla bills, y'all.

HEY YOU GUYS!

This is going to be a short entry, full of cheap shots...well, one cheap shot.  I mentioned in my last entry that I'm participating in the 40 Hour Famine (which we've determined is actually 52 hours, go figure) this weekend, actually starting this morning at 8am, and I'm looking for sponsors.  So if you feel like giving me money to not eat for the next day and a half, here's the link: https://famine.worldvision.com.au/famine.cgi?a=SPONSOR_&pn=292354016.

All of the money actually goes to World Vision, an international organization that raises awareness about and seeks solutions for the global hunger crisis.  It's become a very important cause, I would love it if anyone feels like contributing - but absolutely no obligation.  I think if you click on the link above it'll take you right to my page, everything is done by credit card after that, but let me know if it doesn't work.  And THANK YOU so much if you are able to donate - it really means a lot to the people who receive it, and to me.

That's all for now...I'll write sometime this weekend if I can muster up the energy (:

Love you all.

Waitin' on a sunny day.

I need to get better at Skyping. Also, I can't believe that's a commonly-used verb. I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. Regardless, I keep missing my family by twenty minutes or so...by the time I reach them now they'd better have a four-hour block available to catch up properly. HEY FAMILY - I MISS YOU GUYS.

A few adventures since I last wrote...Sunday morning was another tree planting escapade, this time we got rained on a bit, but still a lot of fun - I was with a much chattier bunch, mostly familiar faces, so even more enjoyable than our first go at it. Other than a trip to the grocery store (or to the IGA store, which is a kind of lukewarm grocery store, but they're open way longer than Coles so who can complain?) Sunday was dubbed "Catch up on all the reading you should have done this week" day. And oh the reading I did.

Monday, Monday...ecology lecture in the morning, we learned about soils...really interesting stuff, and I wish I was being sarcastic here. I always find it so unrelatable and almost offensive when I hear that people DON'T think nature is interesting. I know that's dumb, because there are millions of people in the world who would say they don't have the time or energy or willpower to appreciate the earth...but it's also very sad to me. Australians DO. They love it. They try really, really hard to make their country sustainable, and they have to work a lot harder than we do in the US because their climate is so damn unforgiving. Also, the middle of the continent may as well be considered "unexplored," so who knows what's really going on. I've had a handfull of conversations the last few days with people about climate change, whether it really exists, what can be done about it, what is "clean coal" anyway, is it too late...and some of these conversations have been really frustrating to be a part of, but the point is, we're talking about it. Murdoch has a whole major devoted to sustainable development, plus all your typical natural science options. I'm a bit starstruck I guess.

Lauren and I did a bit of op shopping (thrifting) on Monday in between classes - there's a Salvos (Salvation Army - don't you love this slang?) down the street from Murdoch, so I found another book, two dresses...I'm definitely selling/donating a bunch of my clothes when I leave here. Ain't no way I'm going to fit them all back into my suitcase and backpack. Maybe we can have a garage sale in Freo! Heck yes.

My other class on Monday was Shakespeare, which meant...dun dun dun...CAST LIST TIME. And I did not get the part I wanted, but I did get a part pretty well suited for me, and one that will be a lot of fun to create, so I'm not disappointed. Our director is writing a script for another play, called Master of the Revels, which will fit into and on top of Twelfth Night; there are seven of us cast in that play (I'm playing the Stage Manager, how's that for appropriate) and we don't exactly know what we're doing yet, BUT I do know that my character (a sarcastic, overintelligent SOB) has a tiff with the character Ingenue, because the SM thinks she could play the role better, blah blah blah...well the girl cast as the Ingenue happens to be the girl in the class that I'm pretty sure can't stand me. I'm not sure she can stand anyone, or that anyone can stand her. Oops. Hope she doesn't read this! Maybe we'll become best friends and she'll want to know everything about my life, in which case I'll do some editting to this entry...

Monday night Lauren and I went to a rehearsal for Perth Undergrad Choral Society - way way out in a town called Stirling, on the UWA campus. I'm bummed about this because I was really hoping it would be a great musical experience that we would want to return to every Monday night...but it was not to be. The music was fine, although tricky because this was rehearsal #5 or 6 and we had to dive into it...it's all classical pieces from the Baroque era, not the most exciting songs, but still music and definitely worth singing. But it just wasn't very much fun. The choir itself is mostly adults, very few students and nobody else from Murdoch, it was a hike to get out there, there's a membership fee...just not really feeling it. We'll have to get our musical kicks somewhere else.

Yesterday was rainy, but Lauren and I went for a run anyway - not a great decision but a fun one, then I worked at the barbecue stall for the fundraiser I'm doing this weekend called Forty Hour Famine. I worked out last night that it's actually fifty-two hours, so I'm not sure where the title comes from, but regardless, this weekend I will not be eating from 8am Friday to 12pm Sunday. Hopefully I'll get some people to sponsor me so I can give some money to World Vision, a group that raises awareness for and tries to offers solutions to the global hunger crisis, among other causes. I'm looking forward to that actually.

I also went to a meeting for the Murdoch Uni Sustainability Team yesterday, that was good fun - all my Australian friends are in the group. Murdoch has a whole week devoted to sustainability ("Sus Week") coming up soon, so we've got a bunch of events to get ready for. AND we have a volleyball team that plays every Wednesday at 6pm. Peeeeerfection.

Lauren and I made tacos last night! The making and eating of tacos dirties many a' dish, but it was worth it. We managed to avoid having to evacuate for the fire drill too, I'm not sure how, but nobody banged on our door and told us to get the hell out, so we were able to enjoy our dinner. A welcome quiet night last night. Keith made ceviche - not sure if I spelled that correctly but it's fish that you cook using lime juice (because no bacteria can withstand the POWER OF CITRUS!!!!) and add cilantro, garlic, peppers, onions, etc...then you can eat it on chips. And it's delish. So I got that going for me.

That's all I've got. I'm gonna go eat breakfast and stare at my computer screen some more in hopes that someone with the last name Alexander will return. For all you 80s cats - I got several emails this week telling me that I missed a top-notch show. So congratulations (: especially you Montvillains - though I expect nothing less from you guys. Tell me someone has a DVD of it that I can watch in December?

Hug each other for me.

Why this is the greatest place on earth.

I don't actually have a list of reasons - but the statement still stands.  After this week I'm 100% convinced that I'm in the right place.  Not much of that has to do with classes themselves...I go to them, they're even interesting (NOT my ecology lecture...although in class yesterday I had to stand up and pretend to be a tree, that was fun), but it's all about the people I've met and the places we've been.  People are so active here - they want to do something every night, doesn't matter what, nobody wants to sit in their rooms.  And my advice (passed on from Chris Turner, the Australian exchange student in the BC theater department last semester) to any student in a foreign country, or even your own country - you have to be a yes man.  Say yes to everything, just go, experience it, you will get so much more out of your time, wherever you are.

Some highlights from the last week:

Open mic night on Tuesday - Keith and I ventured into Northbridge and he played a set at the Impact Bar, then we explored the city for a little while and ended up walking home from the Murdoch station, but not a bad time at all.

Keith's birthday on Wednesday - I made a cake!  In our terrible oven.  And it actually turned out moderately well, given the circumstances...the way our oven works, it cooks the top of the food first, but doesn't cook the inside AT ALL.  So before I could safely say that the cake was totally baked, the top had burned...but I peeled it off, frosted it, and covered it with gummy snakes.  Totally fine.  Keith's flatmates had gotten him a cake too so all our bases were covered.  Jess made really yummy pasta with chicken and pesto, Darren made mushroom sauce - I don't know if I've been that full in the last month.  We went to the Newport, did some dancing, went home, stayed up way too late...just a great night overall, and I think one of the best birthdays Keith has ever had.

Thursday - Class at 10:30, not fun given the five hours of sleep I'd gotten then night before.  Oh well.  Keith had another open mic gig, this time tons of Australians came along - so many new friends.  Keith won a bottle of wine that night for playing - the "No good reason" award, now he has to sing a Doris Day song next week at the same time...eeeks.  Another beautiful night.

Friday - Ecology at 8:30 (death...this was when I had to be a tree for Professor Ladd), then auditions for Wounds to the Face (the show I'm stage managing) in the afternoon.  Boy, was I nervous.  Audition day isn't terribly stressful for a stage manager, this became clear pretty early on, but I was so worried about not knowing anyone, not having any authority, us not being able to cast the show, whatever.  They went so well.  Everyone who auditioned had clearly put a lot of work into their pieces, we were able to see characters for everyone, it was just great.  And I got the hang of it, eventually.  Now I know names too, which is really good.  And the director told me I did a good job (: yay.  Did a little face painting in the afternoon with the Aussies (I became a butterfly) and went out afterwards, butterfly and all.  THAT was fun - lots of strange looks, but we had quite the motley crew - Lauren was a fish (obviously), Keith was a shark, Anna was Spiderman, Rachel was a baboon...good times.  There is so much to do around here at night, so many places to just walk around or go inside and sit if you want to.  And public transportation is really reliable and really easy to get from point A to point B.

Today was Fremantle day - I just got back, did a little thrift store exploring, got tickets for Earth Dance, which is this music festival happening at the end of September - it's kind of like an Australian Woodstock or Bonnaroo, but on a much smaller scale.  It happens on a farm, everyone camps out and there's just music and dancing the whole weekend.  I tell ya - if you make friends with Australians, you find out about EVERYTHING.  It's great.  So I went to the market again today, helped Krystal find a dress to go salsa dancing in, had lunch with John, Jessica and Heather at a Mexican restaurant...another successful day.  I'm going to have so much reading to do tomorrow (after tree planting and a volleyball tournament - this is the life), but it's worth it.

Uncle Mike - get down here.  You're gonna love it.  Anyone else who can - get down here.

Can't wait to hear how Back to the 80s went...miss you all!!!