And so it begins.

I've officially gone back to school. At the beginning of August. There's something wrong about that, but actually, I like it. I've always thought summer was too long - my brain needs some structured stimulation after two months of FRIENDS dvds (although I do love them...). First though, our final weekend of freedom. I went to a pub! Saturday night, I went out with Keith and his roommates (Malte, German, and Kirsten, Danish) to Perth to meet up with some other German exchanges at the Belgian Beer Pub on Murray Street. We got off the train in Perth around 9:30pm, and after a LOT of walking in the wrong direction, came upon this European look-alike pub, full of twenty-somethings and other college students. It took a bit of convincing to get the bouncer to let us in, because I was the only one with a passport (I hate carrying it around, but that's usually the only ID they'll take at bars and pubs); luckily, it was his last night on the job, so we were eventually let in, with instructions to "not stay longer than an hour." Keith bought the first round of Stella Artois, a popular beer in these parts (and one of the cheaper varieties) and we squeezed in at a little cafe table with the five people we were meeting up with. What a nice night. They turned the lights on around midnight and we began our long, cold journey home (the buses had stopped running, so we had to walk from Murdoch Station - not fun), but the few hours we spent in the bar were great. It felt very adult, but not in an intimidating way. And not in an unsafe way either, for all my relatives who are unhappy they started reading this entry (:

Sunday was pretty quiet, except that I played volleyball for a total of four or five hours I think. Lisa, a friend from Germany, got us started that afternoon, and I played with a huge group of people I didn't know after the barbecue we had that night. I didn't suck! Not anymore than anyone else at least. Somehow I end up in the sand after every single hit though. Not sure why that happens...I just like falling down I guess. Lisa is going to try to get a game going every Saturday.

Monday: time to go back to school. First I had to go see Emma about the North West trip, this big excursion during one of our weeks off for the international students to explore a bit of the Australian coast. I tried to sign up but had an issue with the bank...ended up being a bit stressful, so I wasn't in a great mood to start off my first day. THEN I got lost. I thought I knew just where my class was, I wrote down the room number and everything...well turns out, it was my professor's office room, not the lecture room. Great. A very nice woman in the enviro office found a time table on her computer and directed me to the right room. I was only about five minutes late to ecology, but not happy. I had to sit at the back of the room and it was difficult to pay attention/understand what Professor Ladd was saying - the accent, the distance, not a good combo. It was pretty boring, mostly introductory business stuff, but we do have a field trip in two months that should be fun.

Went home, had lunch with Lauren and Tina (another German friend), and then went to my marathon Shakespeare lecture and workshop - slated to last three whole hours. Well turns out, college theater departments in Australia and America are very similar. Full of best friends, and the "outsiders" have NO CLUE what's going on. It'll be alright, I just gotta get to know some people and become involved...I did meet a few, and everyone is, surprise surprise, super friendly. I think the class is going to be very entertaining - the professors are very casual, everyone goes by first names, lots of joking around...not at all unlike DSTP or Acting II at BC. The best part of class was the announcement that we would be putting on a production of...dun dun dun...TWELFTH NIGHT!!! My favorite Shakespeare, and coincidentally, the show Scott is directing on Mainstage this November. I was so bummed when I learned that I wouldn't be able to see and/or work on Twelfth Night at BC this fall, but auditions are on Monday, and because it's a totally student-run show (directed by our professor), it looks like I'll get to work on it in some way no matter what. There's a part I'd love to play, but I have no idea what I'm up against in this course...maybe all these students have been acting professionally and studying Shakespeare in all their spare time (believe me, we have a lot of it) for years, and I'll end up on stage management or lighting or something. That wouldn't be a bad thing either. The only downside to this setup is that my other acting course, Acting and Production II, puts up a performance the week before Twelfth Night. Gulp. So I'll have two tech weeks in a row. Not impossible, but I'll be tired. After last semester at BC, with Real Thing, Oleanna, and Charity all in a row - I think I can handle it.

Tuesday and Wednesday I have NO CLASS, so yesterday Lauren, Keith and I ventured into Freo to investigate the Fremantle library, in hopes of finding a solution to the "paperback copies of Shakespeare are wicked expensive at the bookstore" problem that I discovered. Seriously - $30 for a copy of Henry V? No thanks. The texts are all available online, but I sometimes like to read outside, in the grass and sunshine, so I was hoping for a few hard copies. We left Keith to do some busking (street performing, he plays guitar - more on that later) and headed inside. Boy, what a failure. First we inquired about library cards: $20 deposit for a "temporary membership" if you're not a citizen of WA. Okay, fine. We hunt around for books, I had a stack of five or six (including Twelfth Night, yippee!) that I wanted to check out, but oh wait, if you're only a temporary member you can only take one at a time. Well no thanks, not for $20 - so we're outta there. When I run out of books in my room I may venture back, but I've got friends with paperbacks and we'll do some swapping until then. The library on Murdoch's campus doesn't have anything but course reserves and reference books, so there's no help there. I have definitely developed a greater appreciation for the library system in the United States, especially BC with it's huge stacks of available reading. Don't be alarmed if you find me hugging the shelves on the fourth floor of O'Neill in January.

We found Keith on a bench in a street square, with a good five bucks in his guitar case and still playing...what a perfect afternoon that turned out to be. He's good - he sings and plays lots of Dispatch covers, State Radio covers, Jack Johnson, and some originals. Lauren and I harmonized when we knew the words (and sometimes when we didn't) and had a wonderful time. There were some people advocating for the Wilderness Society hanging around, and I asked if they were hiring - they were, but only fulltime positions, aw shucks. They pay $16.50/hr too. I shall have to look elsewhere.

We stopped at the chocolate shop on the way out - another good decision - white chocolate macadamia cookies and chocolate covered cherries MMMMM. I should see if that place is hiring. I still have some of the cherries in my fridge, though I doubt they'll be there for long; good chocolate is hard to come by in Australia. Then we hustled to the bus stop to go grocery shopping before Coles closed. We barbecued chicken kebabs and fries on the outside grill for dinner, then accompanied Keith to an open-mic gig he'd landed in Floreat, a town north of Perth. We took a bus, a train, and a cab to get to the bar, which turned out to be a pretty hip, modern place in a suburban area - very young management, very cool. I had the Beez Neez, Lauren had the Stella, Malte had the Carlton Dry. I'm no beer connisseur (nor do I know how to spell that word), but I may be by the end of the semester (just what you were hoping I'd say, right Mom and Dad?). Again, so sweet to see Keith play, even though the crowd could hardly be called a crowd...some more Dispatch, some more originals, even a little Shakira and Slightly Stoopid. What a night.

Today is another day off (tomorrow might as well be too, I've got an hour-long class at 10:30), so I'm looking for volunteer work/a job, making too much rice for lunch, and hopefully making a better batch of cookies with Lauren in a bit, maybe some pancakes in Keith's flat later on tonight. Our internet hasn't been working for the last two hours (I've actually had to rewrite half of this entry from the library), so that's frustrating, and I'm still not enrolled in my third unit...efficiency is really lacking around these parts, but I'm learning to roll with it. If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself. If you can't do it yourself, you gotta be persistent and sometimes a bit creative. It's a good test of patience anyway.

Looking forward to a Skype conversation with my family tonight (if my internet ever kicks in)...I hear Jakey's canoe trip is going forward tomorrow, and Mol dyed her hair - lots going on at home that I wish I could be around for. Tomorrow's Festival Day - I'll have more to report after that, and after my remaining two days of class for the week. Until then, peace out, cub scouts.