Traedogg Down Under

So the blogs are getting less frequent, (I appoligize), but Im assuming there are only a small number of people still following along anyways, and those are probably the same people I hear from by email on a regular basis! I wanted to wait to write this one until I had some definite information about the internship to report, and I think I finally do! So here are the academic and social updates for the week.

This week was week six of school and between my first big presentation and second big test, and trying to get things solved with the internship, it was a busy week! The test and presentation went fine in my eyes, but we’ll see what the professors thought of my efforts;) I finally spoke with Marc Howard at One Basketball and it looks like I will be there for sure. I am meeting with him on Tuesday at 3:00 to discuss hours, expectations, and to hear more about the company. Like I mentioned before, “One Basketball” is an organisation (australian spelling of the word.. sorry;)) that houses all of the basketball leagues in the country. (Like their National Basketball league (mens and womens) as well as youth leagues/camps). The offices are at Sydney Olympic Park (the site of the 2000 olympics) which is in Hombush Bay, one of Sydney’s many suburbs. It would probably be a 25 min drive from where I live out there, but since I dont have the luxury of a car (not sure I would want one anyways with the price of gas these days), I will have to take a bus into the city to the train station, and take a train out to the placement. It sounds like a pain, but really, it will give me time to get my reading done, and will force me to explore more of the area then I would have otherwise. So I am very excited to get started! It seems like a great place to work!

Other then the internship and class, this week I spent a LOT of time with my roomates just hanging out. We did not have a major “sight seeing” event planned for this week, but there are pleanty of those left to come. The pocket book needed a break. We did, however, order Thai food from this awesome resturaunt a block from our house (Thai food is my new favorite food) on Tuesday night and brought it back to our house where we watched friends re-runs on one of my roomates computers for the night! (Remember, we don’t have a TV!) Yesterday, I spent the day in the city with some of my roomies and then went to Youth Group for this church I found online, Hillsong. The youth group was INSAINE. There were so many people there (like hundreds), and a live band led praise and worship (with a combination of hard rock and rap songs;)) and then a great youth pastor delivered an awesome message (my favorite part), but the whole experience was just a little bit too intense for me. I did like the message that was preached and it had many important implications for my own life, but I think I will just attend the Sunday morning services from now on, which are a bit more traditional. It was great, however, to see so many young people excited about church and worship, and what was even more interesting was the ethnic diversity of the group. There were lots of different Asian groups represented along with Australians and Americans. I am just looking for ways (other then the bars 24/7) to get out in the community and participate in Australian culture. Its very hard to meet and get to know people in the bar setting, as we all know well;)

This week (week seven of school) is GREAT because I am in one english class, and all english classes are cancelled for the week because the english professors consult with the freshman in their intro classes about big papers they have to do. So I dont have my english lecture on Monday/Wednesday or my english tutorial (discussion) on wednesday. So even though I start work (which will DRASTICALLY shrink my freetime), not having English for the week will help in the adjustment;) And, Jen, Bree and I (who also have english classes) intend to make the most of our Wednesday off… we’ll have something up our sleeves I’m sure;) It is also only 3 weeks from spring break where I’m taking a 10 day trip up the east coast (where its warmer) to hit up all the main tourist hot spots including the great barrier reef. We will be white water rafting, sailing the whitsunday islands, going to frasier island, seeing steve irwin, cliff jumping, the GB Reef, and probably bunji jumping. (its already included in the price of the trip, so we’ll see if i have the guts to go through with it!) http://www.extremeadventures.com.au/ The trip I’m going on is called “One fish two fish”… it should be a great time!

Anyways, I swore I was going to be productive today, but funny how that never happens as planned! Look foward to hearing from all of you soon!

This entry was posted on Friday, September 2nd, 2005 at 9:37 pm and is filed under In Australia!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.