Missing Our Lady

Ah syllabus week back at Notre Dame came to a close yesterday and I hope most of you are still not awake from celebrating last night.  I on the other hand have just gotten done with our 5th week of school and celebrated by spending an afternoon at Cottesloe Beach since it got all the way up to 24 degrees here today and was sunny.  Anyway since I have been thinking about all the stuff I am probably going to miss this semester at ND, I decided to make a top ten list of things I am going to miss from ND while I am here.


1.  Friends
Obviously you guys are the thing that make Notre Dame home for me, so naturally you will be the thing I miss the most while I am here.  Basically you guys make everything else on this list 100x more fun.

2. Football Games
The time honored tradition of a fall Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame is unparalleled.  Watching the games at 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning just wont be the same.

3.  Volleyball

Of the three activities that take up 90% of my time at ND, the other two being working at the DH and doing homework, volleyball is easily the thing I enjoy doing most at ND.  Going to miss giving "buttery sets" as they call them, to the team.

4. Pick up Basketball Games at the Rock
What better way is there to spend Friday and Saturday afternoons than playing a pick up game at the Rock?  Who knows, maybe you'll even get to play against kids like Nate Montana.

5. Flex Points
Having a store of fake money that you have already paid for is so much more useful than spending real money just because I am more willing to spend it.  Especially for....

6. Reckers' Smoothies
There is no better way to take a break from studying than hearing one of my buddies coming down the hall telling me its time to go to "reck-city".  All that Razz and Berry Breeze are my one-two punch.

7. DJing Halo Games
When the jerseys go on and the sticks get fired up I just get an itch in between my shoulders, and the only way I have found to satisfy that itch to throw up some beats for the combatants.  It is hard to please everyone playing but I just beat as best I can and hope they don't mind.


8. Tim
Easily the biggest character in South Dining Hall, this grilled and sometimes dread-locked cook is the funniest guy to talk to while I am working, as well as fist pound after receiving my omelet from when I get one.

9.  Long Walks to Jordan and the Jacc
These are the best especially when accompanied by my boys Rob Bauer and Swalsh, respectively.

10.  ESPN
Not much TV down here but I am definitely going to miss being able to watch NFL and college football games.

Things I won't miss at ND: Quaterdogs (I couldn't care less if they raised prices to $0.33. Theres no reason three terrible hotdogs for a dollar can't cover your hunger needs instead of four), everybody freaking out because they have tests (I mean we still have tests its just that there are less people to freak out here), Sundays (as much as I like doing homework for hours on end)

Kalgoorlie Weekend pt 2

So I left you guys after friday night.  Saturday we headed out to the Hoover House for the morning after a later than normal start on the day (we left at 9 or so).  Of course this was an hour/ hour and a half away so we hopped back onto our bus and drove through the outback some more.  When we got there we just walked around his house and mining property for a while looking at all of the old stuff.  It was interesting while we were there but nothing too exciting.  While most of the group headed down for lunch at the base of the establishment Kevin Bell and Joey Rich decided to hop a fence and go on their own exploration of the property.  Jane was none to pleased with this decision, as usual, but they got back in time for our bus to leave on schedule.  The ghost town at the base was pretty cool.  The town had dried up when the gold rush passed, just like so many out in the West of America.  After that we headed to the town of Menzies as a precursor to Lake Ballard and its Inside Australia art exhibit.  An artist took body scan outlines of the people of Menzies and turned them into statues at 2/3 height.  He then stretched them and dropped them throughout this huge dried-up salt lake and called it art.  It was actually pretty cool going out onto what looked like Mars a bit and walking to these statues.  We had an hour to walk around so naturally there was a group of people that after climbing a big hill at one end of the lake decided to walk at least 35 minutes out to a diferent hill.  They stayed out there for sunset, even after we were explicitly instructed to be back at a certain time so we could head back to Morapoi in time for dinner.  Luckily getting back and hour later than expected had no real impact on dinner otherwise the group of us who were on time would have been quite upset. 

That night was the real entertainment for the day however.  After dinner we got taken out to the place were the owners skinned their kangaroos and actually got to see a live skinning.  I will upload a video or two when I get back to my room but I am currently in the library wait for a class so bear with me all you dedicated followers who are reading my blog at 3am back in the States.  It was so cool to watch and so much better than any dissection I have done in bio ever.  Alan had to hold the tail to provide stabilization while the guy skinned and gutted it.  After that was done a group of us went out for a walk on our own under the light of the moon into the brush.  We didn't really see anything out of the ordinary but just walking through the outback at night without any light except the moon was an awesome experience.  Sunday morning we headed back into Kalgoorlie to visit the mining hall of fame where we got to go underground into the first of 13 levels of the mine that was there, as well as see a gold pouring. 

Over all the weekend was a very enjoyable experience and something that I probably would not have chosen to do just because it wasn't one of the first things that came to mind when thinking of things to do in Australia for a weekend.  Plus it was all free (and by free I me Notre Dame paid for it, who I previously paid to study abroad) which made it even better.  The flight back was another enjoyable hour-long flight despite the great in-flight service (getting served a dinner/appetizer dead last on the plane only because I finally got a hold of a flight attendant).  Got back to Tommy More and watched Good Willing Hunting for the first time.  Good way to end a good weekend.

Out, Out, and Away

It has been eleven days since my last blog post and for this I apologize.  I was without internet for the whole weekend so.  There was not much going on last week besides trying to get all my work done before we left for our weekend trip out in the middle of Western Australia.  Bright and early friday morning, I use the term morning loosely here since most people would consider 4 o'clock in the morning the middle of the night, all of us awake and get on a bus to the Perth Airport.  We are taking a Notre Dame mandated trip out to the mining town/area of Kalgoorlie, which is about an hours plane flight due east into the outback.  There are two more of these stipulated trips payed for by Notre Dame later in the semester, and the goal of them is to take us to places we otherwise might not go in Australia in order to gain some insight into the local culture of a non-city part of Australia.  After we all get on the plane it is a short hop. skip, and a jump over to Kalgoorlie but somehow they managed to find time to serve us a breakfast on the plane, which I was ever grateful for.  The reason being that the breakfast provided by Martin and Jane, the two adults charged with instructing us and who organized the whole excursion, at 8 seemed more like lunch to me.  It was termed a "barbecue" breakfast.  We stopped at a park after exiting the airport (most nice parks in Australia have free electric grills at them) and cooked up some sausage and bacon (ham) for sandwiches.  At this park there was a playground as well and while we were waiting for our food, the logical thing for college-age kids to do is play on it--a theme that continued throughout the weekend.  It also had a great tree for climbing which I took full advantage of. After the park it was a drive into the mining town that is Kalgoorlie for a wander around the town and then three successive talks with various organizations regarding different aspects of life in this area.  The town itself reminded me a bit of an old out-west town.  One was an conservationist involved in trying to keep the land healthy, one an Aborigine who explained as much of their culture as possible, and one was an anthropologist working to get land claims for the Aborigines.  The combination of a lack of sleep and viewing powerpoints had a certain effect on a majority of our group at one point or another during these talks that culminated in a lot of head bobbing with their eyes closed, chin on their chest, or in some extreme cases head on the shoulder of the person next to them.  Watching this provided the entertainment when the conservationist's talk became pretty dry....

After that it was on to the SuperPit.  We had a two hour drive out to this mining site with a giant hole in the ground.  For the whole weekend we had a older coach bus drive us around since all the sites we went to were spread out so it was roughly an hour and a half drive to all the different locations.  The pit itself was pretty impressive in a physical sense.  The productivity of it since the goldrush days however has decreased significantly.  They now consider 1.5 oz of gold per ton a rich supply.  I still don't understand why the world arbitrarily put so much value on gold and made it worth tearing up that much of the earth for it.   We eventually headed up to Moropoi, our lodgings for Friday and Saturday night.  This was the true outback experience of the trip.  Moropoi is a little traveler's station literally out in the middle of nowhere in the outback.  Sidenote: the dirt is soooo red/orange in the outback.  I had heard it was but actually seeing it was awesome.  The drive to this place and the country we passed looked exactly as the stereotypical image of rural Australia.  The sunset on the drive there was immaculate.  When we pull into the dirt road entrance to Moropoi the sun had set and it was already dark out.  This place was run by an aboriginal family which added to the authenticity of it.  We got served a delicious meal of some green soup (supposedly pumpkin soup according to Martin), kangaroo meat with vegetables ad rice, and then a apple pie type dessert with ice cream .  This meal was served to us and the nicety of the meal contrasted so much with the run down houses/trailers that made up the station.   We then spent the night around a campfire, which was throughly enjoyable since I have been itching for a fire for the longest time.  Per usual I got designated as the fire-tender; I guess it doesn't matter what group of friends I am in, I will always be in charge of making/maintaining fires.  It doesn't bother me since it is a job which I love.

This is where I will leave you for today since I do not want to condense information into the rest of this post or make it to long.  The rest of the trip tomorrow, followed by a top ten list of things I am going to miss at Notre Dame this semester. Adios.

The First Chapter Comes to an End

It is Thursday evening and I am basically done with school for the third week, excepting my 9 am Vertebrate Zoology lecture, which means that I will have been here a month by Saturday. It is crazy how fast time goes while you are in school compounded with being in another country trying to enjoy it.  The purpose of this blog is to just give a general highlighting of what has transpired over the past month, skipping over everything I have already talked about.

Classes:  After having three weeks of classes here, I can officially say that this semester should be easier than any I have had at Notre Dame so far, but far more interesting.  Vertebrate Zoology emerged from the depths of first-perceived boredom as a darkhorse for my second favorite class due to interesting class material behind Psychosocial Aspects of Exercise Science.  That class is possibly the single class that has captured the most of my attention thus far in my college career.  I mean the lecture material is interesting and I have to take a ballroom dance tutorial in conjunction with it where I am forced to dance with multitudes of beautiful Australian girls. Rough, I know.  I have now also worked with cadavers for the first two times in my life in the last two weeks of my human reproductive lab (first week male, second female).  Popular Music and Culture is actually a fast hour fourty-five minutes every Thursday.  The material is pretty interesting and for 40% of our grade we have to go to a pub or club and write an ethnography paper about our observations (I mean it is a bit more academic than that but I had to make it sound kinda cool).  Which brings us to one of the greatest things about the University of Western Australia: Lectopia.  Lectopia is an online website that stems from their main student page.  A decent amount of classes use this system, including the "Behavioral Psychology" class (aka. Intro Psych II).  What is Lectopia exactly you ask?  Lectopia streams a recording of every lecture online that you can listen to and view the slides simultaneously in the comfort of your room or library.  All the benefits of going to class without actually going.  I have never been one to skip classes but my two Psych lectures are at the inconvenient time of 10 am, and this allows me to get other stuff done and catch the lectures later.  Awesome.

Friends:  I just thought I should give you guys a little reference on some the people that I am living with and becoming friends with in case I mention them is subsequent posts.  That way if you ever get introduced to them when we get back to Notre Dame, you can base your all your opinions of them on the couple of sentences I give them before you even meet them.  Not even close to everyone is mentioned since I figured you'd make it halfway down the list and get bored so do not take offense if you haven't made the list at the moment (I don't even think anyone on this trip reads my blog anyway, but disclaimers are always good).
Alan:  Most of my readers already know him, but if you don't think engineer is one big goofy guy whose super fun to hang out with and has a love for The Cat Empire and 'Pumping' boxed wine in a water bottle.
Derek:  Lives the floor above me in Tommy which is very conducive to late night cribbage games, which are awesome.  One of the nicest guys I have ever met.  Major flaw:  Vikings fan.....yeah.

Erin:  Again, most already know the legend that is Erin.  One of the single nicest human beings alive on the planet.  Her only flaw is a glaring one however.....Bear's fan.
Kelly:  Formerly from Wisconsin, this geology major now calls NC home.  She loves to play frisbee and is terrible at making many decisions.  Major friend plus: Bleeds green and gold
Kevin:  A geology major.  Pretty similar (so therefore good) sense of humor to mine, loves playing can-jam, and is quickly picking up the greatest card game ever invented.
Mary Kate:  A California girl that loves life, is almost always in a good mood, and always looking to go camping.  One of the kids I am traveling up the west coast for spring break with.
Spencer:  The most unconventional kid around. My old roommate's freshman year roommate.  Recently went to an Anything But Clothes party in a suit of armor made from boxed wine cartons.
Will:  Crazy kid.  Likes to skip his geo classes a lot (which happen to be all the classes he's taking) and hang out with Aussies a lot.  Knows everything about Australia.  The other kid I am going on spring break with.
Zack:  A Texan through and through; loves his Rangers and Cowboys.  He picks up Sheepshead very quickly and loves DC++.  So far I'm pretty sure he holds the record for most download files.

The Joys of Fantasy Football

This week was overall a typical school week.  I attended all my lectures and labs, actually had to start doing homework, and reading for classes.  So in that respect it was a pretty normal week.  Yesterday in the absence of any classes in the afternoon, Kevin, Erin, Will, Kelly, Zack, Mary Kate, Alan, Jacob, and I went to the beach to hang out for a couple hours.  Everyone else had been going earlier in the week when all of us had classes so we felt compelled to go.  Playing frisbee, swimming for some, and attempting to hit and kick around an Aussie rules football was a quite enjoyable way to spend an afternoon.

But the most exciting news of the last couple weeks were the two draft lottery results of my fantasy football leagues.  I will admit that despite my reinvigorated enthusiasm that arose because of the two emails, I have not had the time to start really looking at any of the fantasy material yet.  Luckily I have couple weeks until the draft days.  I know there are plenty of reasons for not liking fantasy football (changing the collective attachment to a team to single players and vice versa, hoping certain players perform poorly week in and week out just because a rival in the league has them) but I am going to offer three of my reasons for falling in love with this game over the past three years.

1)  I never grew up on video games.
     -For every 30 kids who were raised playing the new versions of Madden every year on N64, Playstation, and Xbox there was always the one that wasn't.  That kid was me and I really don't regret it at all.  Fantasy has given me another outlet, besides just watching and following the sport, to to interact with football, my single favorite sport to watch.  It has made my lack of video game skills irrelevant since fantasy converts the movement of thumbs and pointer-fingers into knowledge of the league (and once in a while a bit of luck).  Competing with my mind suits me much better than with my finger dexterity.

2)  It is a great source of friendly competition between friends
     -When it comes right down to it, friendly competition in between friends is one of the most entertaining and essential parts of friendships (especially males').  As 98% of fantasy football players are male, I am not trying to exclude females but it naturally just applies to men more.  We are by nature a more competitive creature and fantasy football provides an outlet to showcase our knowledge to each other.  There is nothing better than listening to banter between owners throughout the season, from draft day blunders to playoff appearances.

3)  It is a great way to keep in contact with people
     -Even now that I am halfway across the world, fantasy has already provided a mutual experience, that my friends from back home and I can still share.  It has been a great way so far in my college career to keep in touch with my best friends from high school that I do not get to see on a regular basis during the school year.  By providing a ground for common experience despite physical distance between people, fantasy football is great social tool as well.

That being said, I am hoping that our volleyball team gets a league going, and I cannot wait for August 30th and the BSFL draft.

Talk Derby To Me

Due to lack of football on the second weekend of the academic year, the group of us had previously decided to purchase tickets to an Australian Rules Football game as fore-mentioned in this blog.  Zach had planned for the group of 25 or so of us to take the bus down to Subiaco Oval, where the game took place so we would arrive about a half hour early.  We had walked a kilometer or so down to catch this bus and as it pulled up, it let one person off, promptly closed it's doors and sped away, leaving the group of us very confused as to why it did not pick us up.  We then did what animals have done for years: adapted.  Since out tickets granted us free public transportation, we headed back down to the bus stop we normally take into the city and caught the bus to the train station.  The train down to the Oval was waiting for us as we walked up to the station, the first of many impeccable timings that occurred for my group throughout the day.

As we approached the stadium we had about five minutes before bounce down (the equivalent of a tip off in basketball except that the ref throws the ball as hard as he can at the ground, it bounces up, and the players tip it).  Right as we sat down into our seats in the first and second rows of the western corner of the oval the game began.  Within the first five minutes a fight broke out right to the left of our section, and it was at this point I knew I would like this game already.  The Fremantle Dockers, sporting their mainly purple uniforms (short shorts and a tanktop that had a white anchor with one green and one red shoulder) dominated from the very beginning.  The West Coast Eagles, Perth's team, wearing an almost all white uniform with a giant eagle's head in the middle, were completely outmatched.  The final score ended up at 160-85 Dockers.  We then proceed to walk right up to the train and subsequent bus with out waiting and got back to Tommy More in time for dinner.

 I will now try to describe the basics of this very entertaining game that seems to be a mixture of soccer, American football, and rugby.

Scoring:  Kicking the ball through the middle gap of the four posts gets you 6 points.  In the two outside gaps is one.

Movement: You can advance the ball by three methods.

1) Running with it. Every five or so meters you have to dribble it once.

2) Hand-balling it. This is the equivalent of a pass but you have to hit it out of one hand with your other, usually a fist.

3) Kicking it. You have to drop the ball and kick it, cannot kick it off the ground.  If a player catches the ball you kick, regardless of what team, they have two options.  They can either get a free kick or continue running.  A good way of scoring is kicking it close to your opponents goal and getting one of your players to catch it resulting in a free kick at the goals, such as this one.

Some fans had those very large pom-poms that were pretty interesting.  You are allowed to tackle the player with the ball, though not by the shoulders (to prevent injury) and no slide tackles. Thats about it for a good outline of the rules and structure of the game.  It is a very high scoring, high actin sport with a lot of bodies colliding, a couple of fights breaking out, and constant motion of the players.  Players' salaries range from 40k to 120k.  Oh yeah and the tickets we got were only $20.  Bear in mind this is a professional sporting event and it provided transportation to and back from the game for us.  If an Australian came over to the US and wanted to go to an American football game, they would be paying out a lot more than we did. Overall a very enjoyable spent at the Derby (what they call their rivalry games down here).