the sun is shining...

...birds are singing, bees are trying to have sex with them.

okay. now i'm not trying to preempt the weather but i'm thinking that spring is HEE-RE. that's 2 syllables in that here, too. so for the past couple days it has been a GORGEOUS upper 60s..today it got up to 70 and monday it is supposed to be 75. it's fantastic, i love it. keep this up, and melbourne just might make a marathoner out of me yet - i'm not staying inside when i could be outside running. speaking of which, i have the 10k tomorrow. eeek! my last race was the july4th one, the 4 miler with amanda.. gosh. that was a long time ago. i have been in australia for 51 days. i am about to start my 6th week of uni. mid-semester break is in 3 weeks! which means i need to get on booking my flights to brisbane. have i mentioned what i am doing yet for break?

so the first week is the IES field trip to tasmania... i don't know much about what we will actually be doing but it involves a trip to the cadbury chocolate factory (fyi: cadbury chocolate >>>> hershey's chocolate - except for reeses, which australia does not believe in). and we're going on a midnight ghost tour of a supposedly haunted prison. that's all i know, although tuesday we are having dinner with liz & luke so hopefully they can shed some more light on the trip. although it would be nice to be surprised about some things, too. like how the grampians was completely a shock and it was awesome.

the second week is on our own, so me, karri, and monica are headed up to brisbane. we're doing some tours, i think one of fraser island (world's largest sandbeach) and one up to the southern most point of the great barrier reef. i was so excited when i found out about the reef tour - that's the one thing i wanted to do while i was here, because who knows how much longer it will be here for? plus, since i am not going all the way up to cairns, there is less coral-bleaching because the sun isn't as strong as it is near the equator. this means more pretty coral for me! we also might head down to the gold coast or surfer's paradise for a day or two, but if we don't make it, it's aright, because i'm still planning a trip to sydney sometime in october for a 4 day weekend. adelaide is a maybe at this point. i guess i'll wait to see how my final exam schedule plans out to be.

speaking of final exams. let's talk about how i have NOT DONE ANYTHING for ANY CLASS AT ALL. um, alycia, i reckon study abroad does involve some sort of studying. now don't get me wrong.. i have gone to all my lectures and tutes. actually, i've only missed one lecture and that was for footy practice, but what's more australian than footy? in any case i have a bunch of essays due right before the break.. as well as an essay proposal due this tuesday, a 2000 word essay due this thursday, and a 500 word essay due sept 8th. now, the thing about uni here is that whereas the usa is all "pop quiz! 5 exams a semester! homework!" and you get your grade based on all of these combined, aussie uni is like "here! write an essay, it is worth 60% of your grade, and then your final essay is worth 40%!" so most of my classes have 2 assessments: one at midsemester, one due at the end, and then your grade is based on those two essays. oh boy. i should get on these.

but back to footy. so there's college sports and next weekend is chick's footy.. it is SO MUCH FUN! we had two training sessions already and although i am not very good.. we were doing a drill and after i kicked it to run to the other line i heard someone say "oh, she's a natural!" BOOO YAH. and next weekend is father's day (sept 2nd.. what the heck, australia?) which means lots of people might be going home which means MORE PLAYING TIME FOR ME?! we will seeeeee! either way i have to invest in footy socks and a mouthguard...fierce stuff here. also, do not be surprised if you get footies for christmas. it is just my way of finding people in the us to play footy with.

besides that..what has happened this past week? last night we had college netball finals, it was mary's vs. newman.. long story short, it was a great match, newmandestroyedus, and afterwards we went out to the clyde. i re-realized that vodka cruisers are not good skulled, and also not good green. my stomach did not thank me after. it did like the toastie though! and free chips!

the ball is in 4 days! i am super excited for that.. and today we bought tickets for the australia vs. argentina soccer match. i'm not a soccer fan at all, true, but then again i am not in america, and the game is at the mcg which will be holding 100k screaming soccer fans.. so i think i can handle being a fan for one night.

other than that. i cleaned my desk yesterday. i can see the gray colour of it now. anthony called me this morning, waking me up at 10.. for the first minute he didnt say who it was and my phone just shows it up as 'blocked'... and i had no idea who it was. then finally he was like "do you know who this is" and i was like "yes of course" because if i did this to someone i would hate for them to be like "uh..no" and lucky for me it was like CLICK! ANTHONY! and how awesome was it to hear from him.. it's been FOREVER.

yesterday i was on skype and saw amanda on, it was around 1130pm by her and she said that vito was having trouble falling asleep. so i sang him a lullaby and told him a story on the webcam and although it did not work at all on getting him to sleep.. it was nice to be able to at least somewhat connect to him. he is BIG! he has 2 teeth coming in and a full head of hair.. uncle jesse would be proud. that's the hardest thing about this whole trip.. not being able to see him grow up. how many chances do you get at that?

alright, folks. i got back from my room about an hour ago and i haven't showered yet. i bet you're really keen to know that, too. so i'm gonna go get my pineapple mango loofah on.. enjoy your saturday! i most definitely did!

love, me (i definitely was going to write alycia but wrote australia instead, too, fyi)