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  Randwick, Australia
Saturday, March 13, 2004

Heaps going on here in Sydney, which I will now tell you about while I also watch Neighbours... I've survived Week 2 of classes, and I had the best class ever on Tuesday night! To start off, my professor was about 10 minutes late because he snuck off to Coogee beach for a swim. Then out of nowhere during the lesson he went off on a tangent about how he talked to Barbara, the head of the postgrad linguistics programme, about having a linguistics dept. dinner and we're all invited. They usually have one at the end of the semester, but my prof reckons we should have it sooner because we all do interesting things like "drink and dance on tables." Then we had a random 8 minute break in the middle of class. And then to top things off, he ended the class early because of our "brilliance"! I love my Structure of English professor - he's living proof positive of Australia's laid-back reputation!

My Adult Language Learning and Teaching class is the complete opposite though

Coogee Beach Palace Hotel

. The prof (the aforementioned Barbara) is way more serious and the class is very structured. But I'm making some friends in it because of the stupid get-to-know-you games we have to play at the start of every class. This time the stuffed Dumbo doll we were throwing around during the name game almost got decapitated by the ceiling fan!

That was way more exciting than Bilingualism. Interesting subject, not so exciting class. The highlight was when hot Anthony arrived during the break... I was worried maybe he had dropped the class, but he just missed the entire first half. Unfortunately I didn't get to talk to him at all this time.

Last night, Kristin and I went to the Beach Palace Hotel in Coogee with Natasha, an Aussie girl who lives in our apartment complex. They have "Toss the Boss" on Thursday nights, meaning the bartender flips a coin and if you call it correctly you get your drinks for free. Somehow despite the 50-50 odds, both Kristin and I lost! Oh well, at least the Aussie dollar is dropping again. (It's down to 73 cents!) We had a good time, and I bonded with Natasha over her love of the USA and our shared love of tennis players. Even though Natasha's a dancer, we didn't hit the dance floor because there was no one on it except this really dodgy guy who kept asking me to dance with him.

The most exciting news I have is that today I got a job!!! I'm going to be working at the Randwick Raceway, which is right across the street from where I live, during the big Easter horse races. I was hired to do Lawn Party ticketing because of my "extensive ticketing experience." Who knew that all the brainless jobs I've had (especially ticket scanning) would finally come in handy? I'm actually qualified to do something! I bonded with my interviewer over the Olympics, and he was fascinated by my Kids on the Block puppeteering experience. The best part was when he told me I'd be making $28 an hour (Australian dollars) for the first 2 days because they're public holidays, and $16 an hour the other 2 days! Sweet! All that money to just stand around, check people's tickets, and watch horse racing (and maybe even meet the Bananas in Pajamas on family day)! And hopefully I can double what I make by betting on the ponies! :)

Time to concentrate on Home and Away, and get ready to party in the city with some people from uni...

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