dirrrrty pop (but not dcp, they dont have that here)

alright so. this past week has a been a WHIRLWIND of craziness and now here i am doing my best to procrastinate going on a run. actually, i don't know why i am procrastinating, i have a big craving to run but i am kind of worried about my knee. but i have a marathon to run in just over 2 months and i feel like it's a big deal that i at least try to get back into the running shape i was in pre-australia.

true story, i never joined the gym. f that. i've always been a big supporter of using my own body weight for strength training, and i hate running on treadmills (read: i am a cheap poor college student). so, i saved 5$ for the two week deal and i promptly went out and spent it on timtams. i mean, i have to walk 3 blocks just to get to the safeway (that's 6 blocks both ways, for all you non-math major types). 6 blocks walking to buy timtams is practically a marathon, especially that 3 block walk there where you are just filled with yearning for the chocolately fudgey biscuity goodness. i am working up a sweat just thinking about that. whereas the ab-ductor machine does nothing for me.

but i digress! (shout to the p-ryor, whoot whoot)

so it's friday now. sunday all the mary's kids moved back in and 1) they are super de duper friendly and 2) majority of them are supremely awesome. so there was a minipub crawl on sunday night and then monday night we had bucks and hens nights back-to-school style. i had no idea what that meant until i got here, but it's when guys go on one pub crawl and girls go on another and then you meet up at the end. everyone wore their old school uniforms (i got mine from an op-shop (thriftstore)) and we walked around melbourne reeking of style. no kidding. it was a LOT of fun. and i got to meet a lot of the girls who are all really really nice and really fantastic people overall. so we went to a bunch of different pubs whose names i don't remember and it's not really important anyway, but then we finally met up at the clyde and apparently newman was on a barcrawl too that night. fyi - mary's and newman are rivals (take that team awesome) and a fight broke out (but i use the term fight very loosely - maybe a minor SKIRMISH (that's shout out #2 to the pryorizzle, for those of you keeping track)). afterwards we made our way to the turf club by rmit village which was PACKED but a good time. i got into bed but remembered that yes, i did actually have uni the next day, at 11. so my shortlived vacation time at melbourne was finally coming to an end. sigh.

so uni! uni was good.. it was actually nice going to class again and my subjects are pretty interesting, so i don't mind going. plus, my earliest subject is 10am on wednesdays so it's not bad at all. tuesday night then was..oh, dinner with the senior students. that was okay. afterwards i just went back to newman and hung out with team awesome who has been disappointingly awol as of late. wednesday was more uni! and then christmas in july which was a formal dinner complete with our harry potter-esque academic gowns. dinner was a lot of fun - it was decorated really pretty, and everyone looked nice, but basically it was all you can drink free wine, which was fantastic. i wasn't going to drink and then i was like, stupid alycia, it's free, take advantage. so i did. and it was good. after dinner we made our way to p.a.'s (dirty p.a.'s?) where i was denied entry because the bouncer wouldn't take my student id, so i went back and got my illinois drivers license which the idiot would have no idea was counterfeit or not. um, hello, sir, clearly i am 18. so i eventually got in and woo!! it was a lot lot lot of fun! the wine might've had something to do with that. mmmm, wine.

thursday was yesterday..went to uni... missed dinner because of my sport class (um, hello, most blow off class in the WORLD) and instead i gorged myself on nutrigrain (don't have it in the states, its pretty much the best cereal known to mankind) and then afterwards was trivia night which was hella lame. not a lot of desire to go out last night (i'm on the every-other-day mode) so i stayed in and talked with some people here then met up with kristen and andrew and did the same thing.

so today, no uni! me and kristen just got back from the market where i picked up some pretty fantastic goodies. tonight is the dirty 80s turn which i am super excited for - i have a fantastically horrible oversize gold HUGE SHOULDERPADS jacket and some leggings, should be a good time. so i'm gonna peace out now: the agenda: run, shower, buy books, go to supermarket and buy timtams, possibly netball/city, dinner, 80s turn. arlhglahelr okay running time! go me!

clementines are mandarins here, duh

okay. so i can officially say that the homesickness has set in. and i was going so good too! i'll put all the blame on jonathan. i finally figured out the network downloading thing this morning and i was putting all my new videos and music onto my iphone. so i put on the 'going away to australia' dvd that jonathan had me for me before i left and watched only a minute of it before i was like "no! bad idea! put it away!" but it was too late...

don't get me wrong. i have a strong base of friends here - i just got back from downtown with a couple of them. i'm keeping busy all the time and not getting home till late at night. so it's not that i'm lonely, because the friends i have here are great and fun and all that. i don't know what it is. i was walking down lygon today and i saw this man standing in front of a restaurant who looked like a fatter version of my dad. and for a slim second i thought it was him, but that went away fast because obviously it wasn't. and that's when it hit me that i'm here for 5 more months and there's no break in between it all. i want to be here. i like it here. it's just that i like it at home, too.

so today all the rest of the 160 kids at mary's are moving back in and i'm fully prepared to be completely overwhelmed. it was nice for the past week when there was only about 40 people back, it was easy to get to know people and go out. so tonight is going to be crazzzzy with people. i'm excited for this week, though. we have a back to school themed pub crawl tomorrow, tuesday is senior dinner night, wednesday is christmas in july, thursday is trivia night, friday is the dirty 80s turn, and saturday is...saturday? wow. so it's going to be out out out every night.

you're in australia, alycia. suck it up.

okay!

i think the main thing is to just keep busy - kind of hard to do with only 10 hours of class, right? also, i need to get on sending stuff home to people. i'm gonna go to the market sometime this week (let's be honest..probably not till friday) and pick up a wide assortment of souveneirs.

obviously iron&wine tuneskis are not helping. christina aguilera? yes! oliver would be proud.

alright, kiddies. enough sap time. also, i'm joining the gym tomorrow. and i'm gonna start running again - i think that's a big part. i just haven't the motivation to go. but i have a marathon to run in 3 months that i should probably start training for. or something like that.

peace out!

knock, knock, knockin' on heaven's door

dear me,

please note this point in your life when you were naive enough to not acknowledge an apparently social wide custom (at least in the uni circuit). please continue to play oblivious to the awkwardness of the night's events, but at the same time, next time, stay in bed.

love,
yourself.

better bigger faster stronger

so, the shower: not so bad! there was a vent that wouldn't close up in the corner of my stall but other than that..it was relatively easy to get a good temperature and had decent pressure..also..someone left a radio in there that constantly plays and while i was lathering and rinsing, kanye's 'stronger' came on which a) i have never heard on the radio and b) i have never heard on the radio in AUSTRALIA so that was quite the pleasant surprise, kanye would be proud. now i'm playing that on repeat (along with young folks) and it's pretty badass, i must say. so now that you know that you should also know that i am back writing this so soon because at this point i just want to get it over with. i could/should do this by pen & pencil (abby got me that nice journal!) but i am a lazy bum when it comes to handwriting anything (which is why you all have not got postcards yet) and this is just so much easier. except when technology fails on me - go figure!

so the room is still the same temperature as it has been, but i since amassed a total of 7 blankets (and i sleep under all of them). it seems like everyday i come back and there's another blanket sitting on the foot of my bed (which i am quite okay with) so sleeping is much more pleasant. except for the dreams i've been having.. i basically never had dreams back in the states (lack of ambition and whatnot) but here my mind is like a kid with add downing pixysticks. the other night i had a dream about a tornado touching down in a mall as i ran to avoid it, and last night i was dreaming of running along this path that looked an awful lot like bluff road, lemont, il, but was in australia.. i ended up in a truck rig somehow with a medley of killer animals (lions, tigers, and raccoons! oh my!) but none of them wanted to eat me. i was also at one point in an american car trying to drive on the australian roads (opposite sides). i woke up while i was trying to escape the truck rig (now i'll never know what happens to me!) maybe it's the southern hemisphere water doing crazy things to my head. or the beer.

so.. when we last left the spectromagical life of alycia it was monday. it's friday now. i am now fully enrolled as a student at melbourne uni, woo! my purpose of this semester is finally actualized. now i just have to go to class: which shouldn't be hard... i have a total of 10 hours of class time for the WEEK. 10 hours. i wouldn't even be a full time student at home (yet i am getting 16 credit hours for this semester (shhh loyola)). check out this schedule:

monday: OFF!
tuesday: 11-1230 apartheid in south africa lecture
415-545 migrants and refugess in australia lecture
wednesday: 10-12pm Australian political economy lecture
12-1 Australian political economy tutorial
thursday: 315-415 Apartheid tutorial
415-515 Migrants tutorial
515-645 sports and education in australian society lecture
friday: OFF!

clearly, my semester will be a rough one. i hope i can handle it.

as for my past week, let's see. tuesday i went out on a pub crawl with some kids from my college (aussies!). um, hi. i LOVE australians. they are possibly the greatest people alive. we started out in the city center and went to a bunch of different pubs (don't know names, don't ask) before ending up at pugg's for the night (surprise!). i ended up learning what skulling is (chugging) and the art of throwing a 20 cent piece into someone's drink (forcing them to skull). and at pugg's i met up with the rmit villagers which was cool, because it was definitely weird not going out with them (and no team awesome!). most of the night though i got to know the aussies which was pretty cool. when we finally decided to leave it was raining (big surprise, melbourne!) and we decided to run home so we wouldn't get soaked (hello marathon training!). so as we're sprinting up elgin st or whatever road it is, one of the aussies shouted "welcome to australia!" which i'll take as my official welcome. it was just cool hanging out with australians..kind of crazy. like, hi, i'm in australia. whoa.

wednesday we did the whole enrollment thing and later on at night went to go see harry potter at the LARGEST IMAX IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, woooot! it was pretty sweet, especially since the last half hour was in 3d. it was also nice to take a break from going out for a night (we were home by 930, woo!). me and kristen ended up going to hang out with andrew (aka, mr. illness) because it had been too long since we all hung out together (like 6 hours, whoaaaa).

thursday i finally got my ids (i accrued like 72 of them in a 2 hour period) and then instead of doing the amazing race thing we opted out to exploring the city. we walked around and window shopped before stopping at myer (like macy's) and got our makeup done for the night at the cosmetic counters. the lady who did mine and siobhan's went a bit overboard (think pornstar) and we definitely felt awkward when we left to go to the dinner for the race. made sure to stop in a bathroom and lightened up the purple just a little bit. unfortunately we didn't get a picture but i'm sure it won't be the last time we get our makeup done (way to be cheap ass students, us!).

so later that night we opted out of the pubcrawl that we were supposed to go on. instead we went to casino night at rmit and then headed to pugg's (again!). i saw a bunch of the aussies i knew so i hung out downstairs with them instead of going up to the CROWDED dancefloor. dancing at pugg's on thursdays is great but yesterday it was ridiculously packed..could barely move..and i hate getting TOUCHED by random people and also it smelled badly of bodily odors. so i stayed downstairs and met a bunch more aussies (who are all going on a ski trip this weekend, so i won't see boohoo).

and now here i am! i'm going to lunch now and then after i think i'm going to some thrift store shop with some aussies to get stuff for O2 week next week. there's a back to school pub crawl (think catholic school girl) and an 80s-retro turn in the JCR. so we'll see what crap i come home with (i mean, quality clothing goods). alright, kids. i can only listen to so much kanye. that's a lie. young folks is on repeat.

see you yesterday! <3

welcome to the australia, mate

ARGH!

i just wrote the most amazingly long post EVER and low and behold safari is sure to crap out on me. thanks, apple! you rock!

seriously, kids..this novel of a post talked about dreams, kangaroos, my shoe size..everything worth knowing about me and my crazzzzzzy adventures. now, i have nothing but a large large disappointment in my void of a blogging life. i am going to go drown in my sorrows in a shower. that will most definitely take about 20 minutes to get to the right temperatuer (i had written about that too!)

so, in conclusion, crapple is a 5star computer. i'm going to post this now so that i forever remember my anger at this very moment in life. it's 1135 am. time for a shower. and wine. would you like some whine with that wine? gosh, i'm witty. okay. PEACE!

just because i'm closer to antarctica...

...doesn't mean i need to know what the continent feels like everytime i go to the bathroom. seriously..every single building and hallway and ANYTHING inside is ch-ch-chilly, but the bathrooms are ice cold. to quote kristen: "it's too cold! i don't want to take my pants off!" she's a classy broad. obviously.

so i don't know when the last time i wrote was but obviously a LOT has happened since then. today is the...17th? it's sad that i have no idea what day it is. well, not sad. actually that's pretty standard. everything for the past week has been go go go and now i am finally getting some downtime to do absolutely nothing!

so last week we had melbourne welcome where we stayed at queen's college with all the other international kids, which was basically all americans. it was 4 days of constant movement which was great, it was a lot of fun, but it took soo much out of us. by the last night all we wanted to do was stay in and watch a movie (girlie night?) and eat tim tams which we did. mmm. tim tams. they are endless here and right now they're even on sale for 2$/box at safeway!

so melbourne welcome... we went on tours of the city (aka to find out where the 'big w' is (read:walmart)), we visited a wildlife sanctuary where they had kangaroos, koalas, emus, etc.. it was cool to see them here because we got to feed them from our hands. they were supertame and would just come up to us and nuzzle their noses in our palms. at the same time though it was just a little bit less cooler than when we saw them for the first time out in the wild. if you could call backyards wild, haha. the koalas were less than impressive. no, they were cool, they were just sleeping when we saw them. the 'dropbears' is what aussies call them..because when you walk underneath trees they can just drop into your arms. the emus we saw were HUGE and massive and scary and pretty much ugly.

last saturday we went to a footy match (geelong cats v collingwood magpies) and george from the miami had told me to be a collingwood fan. me, the impressionable young dame that i am, heeded his advice and went for them (not rooted..rooted=sexed). turns out they are like the cubbies of aussie rules footy! by the end of the match i was going to switch over to geelong until i realized that i am better at criticizing a team than i am cheering for them. so collingwood it is (they lots, by the way. pretty badly). makes me not miss home so much when i have the cubbies' curse tagging along with me!

we also went to the eureka tower which is 88 stories up? and saw melbourne from above.. that was pretty sweet to view the city as a whole. and i could look down and see rod laver and vodafone arenas in all their aussie-open-glory. which reminds me, i want to look up tours of rod laver while i have internet (who knows how long this will last for).

oh! my laundry should be done soon (yes i am doing laundy! its only been 10 days, too, but all my clothes are pretty muddy and gross and let's be honest, they smell). besides i was only to bring 2 bags to australia..i need to cycle these clothes wisely. so go on, be proud of me for doing laundry. i am!

last night was the first night of re-o week for the rmit village kids.. not rio week contrary to popular belief. there was a horrible linkin-park-every-song-sounds the same band but then there was a cover band and who doesnt love covers? so we rocked out to that all night. tonight there is a pubcrawl right after tea (dinner). if i have learn these slang words so do you, eh?

i should go get my laundry now which means i need to log off my internet so it doesn't continue to charge me. it costs a lot here! then i'll try to call home and find out they want to skype this shiiiiiite up! hopefully the rain stops so we can go to the qv market..melbourne weather = not so hot. literally. okay.

peace out cub scout!

happy birthday to me!!!!

july 10th, 2007
1242 pm aussie time

okay. so. back to business of writing this thing. im trying really hard to keep up with it..so far so good eh? right now we're on the bus ride home from grampians... we went out this morning for a bush walk to a waterfall that was about a half hour hike away..really pretty stuff. i climbed to the top of it (by myself - no one else was daring enough to get their pants dirty?) and saw a fantastic view of the mountains of australia. who knew australia had mountains? there is pictures of it and all that good stuff so no worries, mate. you'll see it.

i guess i left off on yesterday's adventures. i don't know where. we had the wine tasting blah blah went to bed early blah blah and then the next day woke up, had breakfast, then went on our rock climbing experience.. the place we went to was about 30 minutes away on this crazy unpaved sandy road in the middle of nowhere..that was an adventure in itself, i guess. we got there and met earl and ian (our guides) and picked up our gear, then hiked it to the wall. the greatest part about it all was that it was a real clif we were climbing..not man made in anyway at all (not even the parts of the rock that seemingly made excellent handholds). so we all took turns climbing and belaying and all that good stuff. i climbed two walls..first, an easy one, then the hardest one they had there...and just so happened to make it higher on that wall than anyone else (this wall was tough, i earned the bragging rights). so take that, boyzzzz.

after that we went to the top of the cliff for abseiling (repelling). this was FREAKY.. you tied a rope to you and basically just walked backwards off the edge of the cliff...i'm not so bad with the heights fear but this scared the crap out of me. earl was really trustworthy though (for an aussie bushman) and i made it down alive. obviously.

all in all it was a fantastic experience..like nothing i've ever tried before. i'm really proud of myself for what i was able to do and it really connected the group with the whole bonding thing. it gave everyone an adrenaline rush and all those good exercise endorphins. by the time we finally made it home everyone was starving. or at least me. mostly me. so we went out to this resturant (the quarry) and i had a kangaroo fillet, which was a bit juicy (read: bloody) for my taste. the best part of the meal was the dessert..our table each ordered a different one and then passed them to share. mmmm sticky date pudding...apple and pear pie...brandy snaps...so far the food here has not disappointed. THEN after that luke & liz surprised me with a lamington cake (much better than any kind i've ever made) with a sparkler and singing candle on top. everyone sang to me, it was really sweet and surprising and made me happy. right now this is one of the greatest experiences of my life, and i'm so glad i'm here.

amanda and george and vito all called me at midnight MY TIME on my birthday..the only ones (although tim was close at 3am). i really appreciated that. i miss them tons and vito i'm sure is crawling and hopping and talking in tongues by now. thats the only part about this trip i am truely missing. otherwise this is one of the greatest opportunities of my life and i can only hope that it keeps getting better.

now, enough of being an unsocial computer geek on this busride home (i'm gonna go listen to my ipod).

going out tonight for my birthday! hopefully it should be a good time (finally legal!)

love, me

the champions of grampians

1132 am july 9th

3 days after my last blog...still have no internet access so i don't know if i can exactly call this a blog. it's more of a 'dear diary' sort of jiggy.. speaking of the word dear, it's kind of like that dear abby article that talked about the twins alicia and amanda. weirdddddd. not that the internet audience knows what i am talking about. or at this point cares, this is supposed to be about australians and kangaroos and didgeridoos.

so i guess a lot has happened since the plane ride. i landed safely and soundly in australia with all my luggage in tow. luckily for me on my flight from sydney to melbourne i met this girl kristen who i found out was in the same program as me, so that was pretty sweet. it helped to know that i had someone to get through what i figured to be the hardest part of the trip (thus far?): finding my way out of the airport. we got into melbourne on time and both cleared customs (which was remarkably pretty easy? not that i had anything to hide. except for the drugs). we found our togoto dude and he drove all of us into the city, giving us advice about melbourne and offering handy dandy australian sayings..of the favorites: "colder than a mother-in-law's kiss" and the tale of politicians who "lost the unloseable election" after building the mcdonald's-esque structure leading into the city.

we got to the miami hotel and met up with three other ies kids and went out to lunch with them. we found a small cafe along errol st and munched it up, then came back and showered. oh my god. that shower was GLORIOUS. you will never know what i mean until you travel on planes for 24 hours straight, arrive in a strange city knowing no one, walking in cold and rainy weather but are able to wash away all your worries with some streams of hot water and victoria secret shampoo. i mean, the shower was okay. i guess.

we met liz and luke and went to a meeting about the program, then went out a pub afterwards for dinner. i ended up with a pot of pure blonde..after an embarassing experience with the bartender. it might take a while to catch up on that whole slang thing. i thought i had it down. nope.

woke up the next morning to leave for the first field trip, to grampians national park about 3 hours west of melbourne. along the way we stopped at this winery for lunch (delicious!) and a wine tasting tour. i guess the tour was kind of cool besides the fact that i didn't know what the man was saying. wine isn't my forte. we tried a bunch (no black puma) which all tasted great, or at least as great as my unrefined wine tasting skills could go. definitely was a cool exeperience.. it was like all of a sudden, civilization! after a 2 hour ride into nowhere.

so we got to the park later than we thought, unbagged all our stuff, ate dinner and basically crashed at 10pm. early but still later than our previous night of 8pm. slowly but surely that jet lag will disappear.

it's 1145pm right now..im basically just trying to stay up to my birthday (in case someone calls). i guess i'll be super depressed if no one does. anyone? anyone?

everyone is asleep now though so i feel bad typing so loud. im gonna finish this up tomorrow on the bus ride home...

today was great though. roos, bike rides, rock climbing, abseiling, more roos, 6 desserts, a singing birthday candle, victoria bitter. and it's not even midnight yet.

good onya, mate.
me

leaving on a jet plane

So it's 6:01 in the morning Chicago time right now, Friday July 6th... I have no idea what time that translates to where I am right now. I'm on the plane from San Francisco to Sydney as I write this...I'll have to post up let to the internets because obviously I don't have it right now. I was inspired to write because of hte moon but now there are a couple things I want to mention..

1. the flight from chicago to california was pretty good. compared to my last flight (from disney world when I had some kind of squirmy-parasite-stomach virus that was HORRIBLE) it was rather smooth and plus i wasn't gassing up the cabin with toxic fumes this time. true story. we ate at sweet tomatoes right before i left and i made sure to stay away from the bran muffins. only one. maybe two. anyways the coolest part was looking out the window (always a window seat) to see the rocky mountains below.. the sky was crystal clear and i could easily make out the snow capped mountains. and when we got into san fran it was sunset... now i have seen the sunrise over the atlantic plenty of times.. so seeing the opposite over the pacific ocean was a new treasure. it was really, really pretty. and we flew in over the lights over the golden gate bridge which was also pretty cool.. i feel like my adjectives are really underwhelming right now. use your imagination.

2. so while it would've been nice to spend some time in california, seeing as i have never been here before, it was not going to happen and my flight to sydney left an hour later. i met this other girl on the first flight who is studying in newcastle (2 hours north of sydney) and we were talking about how the trip is finally realized.. like there's no turning back now. not that i want to. but i'm just saying.

3. so we load up onto the flight.. first of all, this plane is HUGE. tim, it has that double decker you thought the air bus had (but didn't). i am in row 53, 10 wide. and there are still plenty of rows behind me. first class is SWAAAANKY. economy is not. As i write this i am cramped into a devilish 2x2 foot hell hole.. if i had claustrophobia i'd have gone crazy by now.

4. now, my main motivation. it's dark out right now (still have no idea what time it is) and according to this super in flight map projection, we're a couple hundred miles or so south of hawaii. We're going... 590 miles per hour and still have over 4000 miles left to travel.. it's -37 degrees outside right now. i knew it was winter in australia but this is just ridiculous. possibly has something to do with our 32000 foot altitude.

5. the moon! the moon is RIDICULOUS. it's so bright..and the stars are too.. i wonder if i'm seeing new stars because of the new hemsiphere.. i want to find that out. it's nothing like i've ever seen before and if my seat weren't so uncomfortable i'd want to ride an airplane just for the views. as it is, i'm refusing to come home unless someone flies me first class. $20000 is well worth my comfort and satisfactoin. start saving.

6. also. this chick next to me is a frickin annoying diva -like lady. um, miss, if you're going to act like that, cough up the money for first class. or at least economy plus. i'm sorry, it's a 14 hour rlight, and i'm going to have to go to the bathroom, and if you don't want to get up to let me out, my butt is going to be in your face. enjoy it.
7. so now what. our arrival time in sydney is 5:57 am saturday. i have no idea what that means. All i want to do is lay out on a bed... i don't even get a recovery day. i land in melbourne hopefully around 945am.. get to my hotel and hopefully shower and maybe nap.. have to be out the door by 345 in the afternoon for a meeting.. then we leave at who knows how early on sunday for the first field trip.

wa wa we wa. lets do this.