Chapter 19 – I've Seen Things, I've Seen Them With My Eyes ....

In which our hero sees things, often in disguise .. .

Now I warned you, dear reader, that once classes got going that I'd probably not be posting as often. And yet, it's been just over a week, and you've all been saying “Where's the blog?”. Some of these are valid, as they're Mom and Dad actually wondering how I'm doing, and they don't do FB, so they don't get the little things from there. Some others are certain other people, who shall remain nameless, who've launched wild accusations at my person claiming I've gotten them addicted to my little stories and then cut them off. Well. Those certain other people can go jump off a dock, because I'm pretty sure I've already done more posts than they've done ever, especially when they were off experiencing fun and adventure and really wild things. So there. Blah. (I'm sticking my tongue out at you.)

Here is a chicken that I saw, thinking it might come into my room.  The screen was down, though, so it couldn't.

Anyways. So yes, it has been a while. The last thing I mentioned was having lots of trouble with vectors. They still cause me trouble, but not as much. I'm kind of getting the hang of it. It's all getting double-re-enforced, though, because I'm learning it in electromagnetics, where I'm expected to mostly know what's going on, because it's a year 3 class, and then a day later for the “first time” in maths, where we're not completely expected to know what's going on, because it's a year 2 class. Also, I got the vectors lecture notes from year 1 maths from the book shop, and worked my way through about half of that. It's all going much better.

So I guess I'll go chronologically, from when last we spoke. I spent my Friday evening doing homework, I think. I probably watched The Block while eating dinner, then got to work. I've taken up reading A Dance With Dragons, which is fun. I'll have to be careful to not get too involved, to a point where I do that and not school work. I've also taken to sleeping with my French doors closed, because the rain is just so loud on the awning outside. And the cockatoos make some kind of God-awful racket too. So that means I can have a light on without buggies coming in through the hole in the screen. Which means I can read in bed.

Saturday I slept in, then did homework. Lots of maths. All maths all the time. (It's maths here, not math. And sport, not sports.) It basically rained all day, and I did homework all day, except for the occasional tea break. Then there was some dinner and watching of Game of Thrones. The Blu-Ray player can play things directly off a USB, which is awesome. That might be normal. I have no idea. But it's awesome. I wish my Dad had one of those (*cough* *hint*). I should have mentioned that the munchkins were away at their Dad's all weekend, so it was very quiet. And it was raining, so basically all there was to do was study.

Sunday Wen Ying and Sarah and I went out to Harbour Town for a bit, which is like an outlet mall deal. We just wandered for an hour or so, then came home. Then more studying. Then The Block was on, and Sunday nights is when they do the room reveals, and we find out who won for the week. Last week was the week for the formal lounge, hallway, and storage space. Two teams turned their formal lounge into a third bedroom, and one of them won. This week they're doing the kitchen and laundry. I missed it on Thursday and Friday though. Anyways. A mostly uneventful weekend.  Here are some things I saw at Harbour Town.

One of those generic sort of sporty t-shirts, but it says South Dakota.  How cool is that?  South Dakota hardly ever gets a shout-out. Unless Mt. Rushmore is involved, and even then it's not mentioned really.

Sour Gummy Ears.  It's not that weird, right?  We have those gummy lips, after all.

This is a bubble bath disguised as a frothy fountain.

 

To prepare for electromagnetics on Monday, I decided to copy down the slides that are posted online, rather than print them, so they'd be more in my head. It certainly made me feel more like I knew what was going on. I then found a computer lab and did my online Lab Induction, which is necessary for entry into the lab classes. It took me forever to get the stupid thing printed, though. Apparently it doesn't work off Firefox, only IE or Chrome. Whatever. It worked in the end. I went and did some grocery shopping on the way home at the local shopping centre. Then it was like 5:30 or 6:00 by the time I got home, and I hadn't brought a lunch because I thought I'd be home immediately after class, which ends at 12. So needless to say I was rather hungry, having not eaten since like 10 a.m. Then The Block, then bed. Tuesday is one of my 8 a.m. starts, so I wanted to go to bed early. 

A shot on campus with the sun shining, but the rain clouds looming.  If you recall the earlier pics from the campus tour, I'm standing beside the bike lock-up with the paintings.  I'm also in disguise as a uni student.

 

I woke up at 6:10. The alarm was supposed to go at 6:00. When I looked at it, it indicated that it had gone off. I figured I'd either slept through it, or I'd turned if off in my sleep, which has never ever happened to me ever in my life. So I made my breakfast sandwich to go, and ate part of it on the way, and part of it after my class. Tuesday was Club Sign-On day. I signed up for Griffith University Young Engineers (GUYE), GERMS (something to do with help with resume and cover letter writing), and Griffith University Skeptics and Freethinkers (GUSF). They had a poster of Stephen Fry, so naturally I was drawn to that kiosk. Basically the idea is they sit around and talk about various topics, some controversial, some not, some believable, some not. It sounded interesting, and the membership fee was only $2.

That day I also had two free sub coupons that I'd acquired during O-Week, and that expired that day, so my friend from Denmark and I went down to Subway to cash them in. (Three cheers for free lunch!) Then I got back just about a minute late for my first ever maths tutorial, in which I knew there was going to be a quiz. The problem was, though, see, is I thought it would be at the end. It wasn't. It was at the beginning. And I was late for it. Augh! I was all flustered and discombobulated, and I thought I'd done well, but then when we took it up I realized I'd made really stupid mistakes on all of them. There's no excuse for the integral, which was the first one, where I screwed up the limits. It's always upper limit minus lower limit, but I did the other way 'round. Then the other two were vector things, dot product and cross product, for which my excuse was I was flustered and I'd only ever heard about them for the first time ever the week before. So there we go. First ever academic evaluation of my university career, and it was an epic fail. I'm not too worried about though, because it only contributes something like 1% to my final mark. I'll just do better next time. 

I saw a Burger King disguised as a Hungry Jacks.

I saw an ant-eater disguised as a bird.

It's trolleys, not carts.  In the background there is an elephant disguised as a car. (It's a very good disguise).

 

I did a bit more grocery shopping on the way home, and got some pre-made pizza bases from ALDI, so after a bit of homework I had pizza for dinner. Tasty. Pizza's the best. Speaking of tasty, the cheese I got on my first day is only just about finished. It's called Tasty Cheese. It's kind of cheddary. Maybe like a medium or old. It went on my pizza, along with mushrooms, green pepper (or capsicum, as it's called here), and olives. Best pizza ever. I don't know why people even eat pizza with anything besides those three things on. I guess some people are just weird.

Here is a bit of Australia disguised as South Dakota.  (I see this every day, then I dream I'm in SD sometimes.)  Like I said to someone, there's bits here that look like bits there, which makes me want to be there.  (I miss you guys.)

There's pine trees and also palm trees.  It's a bit confusing. This isn't my house, it's just one that's on the way home from the station.

Both Monday and Tuesday they played episodes of Big Bang Theory right after The Block, and they were ones I'd never seen before, so I watched those. They're a bit behind the broadcast, but it's OK. I don't mind. I'm resigned to the fact that I'll basically have two years of shows to catch up on when I get home.

Wednesday was another late start day. It was also the first day it was not raining in the morning, so I rode my bike down to the station. Unfortunately I encountered my first Aussie road-kill on the way. Not really an even I was looking forward to, not like pavlovas or koalas or something. It was something light brown, with dark rings on it's tail. Larger than a squirrel, but smaller than a raccoon. Maybe a possum, or a bandicoot. Spell check doesn't seem to like bandicoot. Oh well. Anyway. The poor thing was fairly well pancaked, and covered about half of the bike lane I was riding in. The next day I forgot it was there until I nearly rode over it. Minutes later, on the bus, I saw a road-kill roo in the median of the motorway. Blarg. What a day. I was hoping my first kangaroo would be alive and kicking. Well, maybe not kicking, unless it's far away. It must have escaped from the nearby golf course, which advertises golfing with the roos. 

Here are some squirrels disguised as chickens.

 

I had my first ever lab on Wednesday, too, which went heaps better than my first ever quiz. (By “first ever” I mean in uni, not ever in my life). Because it was a lab day I had to wear closed-toed shoes, despite it being the first sunny day in a while. My feet got kinda hot. I wish there was safety sandals. The lab was good fun, though. Both Hugo and Andrew were there to supervise, so we got the thing all set up properly, and then used a probe thingy and a voltmetre to see the lines of voltage moving away from the electrodes in the little tank of water. Then we marked them on a grid. Pretty basic stuff, but interesting. Apparently there's one in the future where we get an electric field metre of some sort and walk around campus measuring the electric fields around things. I'm looking forward to that one.

Here are some very large things of curry powder I saw in an Asian grocery when I returned to Harbour Town on Wednesday arvo. (That means afternoon). (You don't really say the "r", because you say it with an Aussie accent).

Here's some jim-jams I saw at Harbour Town too.  I don't need to explain why this is weird and unique and interesting, do I?

Rissoles! Reminds me of that one episode of "Are You Being Served?" where someone gets food poisoning from the rissoles.  I still don't know what they are though.

Thursday was another early start, and I actually brought a lunch because I was going to be there all day. Thursday evening was the first meeting of the Skeptics and Freethinkers Club. I was very tempted to not go, because I was tired and hungry and was sure I wouldn't belong. But I did. And it was good. There was free beer, because it's subsidized by the Student Guild for club meetings. I was planning to buy my dinner from the UniBar, but they were only selling potato wedges or fries, and also they didn't take cards. So I was quite hungry. I met some nice people though. It was an eclectic crowd. A few people in psychology, one with a bachelor's of IT and working on a masters in secondary education, one guy from marine biology, a couple from engineering. It was interesting. Hard to hear ourselves talk, though, cuz of the music playing. I got that scratchy throat thing that happens when I talk too loud for too long, and eventually just start coughing. Around 7:30, one of the waitresses came around and said if we stayed till 8 there'd be free pizza because the footy was on. Apparently “footy” refers to Aussie rules football as well as rugby league. I watched some of it. Those guys are huge.

Anyway. I decided to take up the marine biology chap on a ride to Helensvale, so we basically stayed for the pizza then left. It was like 9:30 by the time I got home. I was glad, though, and it was fun. Plus, I don't start till 12 on Fridays, so that's alright too.

So Friday I awoke at 7:30 to a reminder text from Sarah that there was no power that day due to maintenance work, so don't close the gate when I leave. I then went back to sleep. I awoke again at 8 to my alarm, which I turned off and promptly went back to sleep. I awoke again at 10:20 to some texts from Vodafone, which was lucky, because there was about 25 minutes until I had to leave for the bus. I'd left by bike at the station the night before because it was dark and rainy, and I just got the marine biology chap to drop me right at the house. So I had to walk. It was another lab day, so I had to wear my shoes again. It was even hotter. I got quite melty on the way down to the station, but I got there on time, and ate brekkie on the way, so it was all good.

New Kit Kat Chunky 3 Choc Mint.  It's mint as.

Now it's Saturday. I slept in again. Then looked at some cake books with the munchkins, then now I'm doing this. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is on later, and we're planning on watching it. At least, we hope to. Sarah hasn't approved yet. Raiders was on two weeks ago and we switched the channel during the bit with the big Nazi and the air plane propeller, just cuz it was a bit gory for kids. They watched the snakes, though, and the skeletons. And there was no reports of night mares, so I guess that's good.

I have lots of work to do, and lots of notes to add to from the online slides. I'm hoping to get all the writing stuff done today, then it can just be math practice tomorrow. Aw, nuts. There's a lab report to do too. Blarg.