Rain rain... go away

T.O: Wed Aug 11, 6:18am / AUS Wed Aug 11, 8:18pm

It has been raining for days. Not light rain either. Night before last it was coming down so hard it woke me from my sleep, it is a difficult thing to do, waking me from sleep. And last night it rained so hard that the level in the pool here at rez almost came up over the edge and all the pathways bewtween units flooded. It finally stopped today, but it was still overcast. And cold. I want the sunshine. I want the warmth. I understand that it's the dead of winter here right now but it is not what the vision of Australi is. Every Canadian here that I know, is cold and did not pack enough sweaters. I fear I will come home more pasty than when I left. Something is not right about that.

I have just done my first load of laundry since arriving. A very thrilling adventure. I had to walk my stuff over to the machines, refuse to follow the rules when I noticed a sign that said: Powder Soap Only - No Liquid (of course yesterday I bought liquid...). Everything came out of the dryer damp. I'm not surprised. Everything here feels damp, all the time. Instead of paying another $2 to run the dryer for another 40 mins when all it needs is 10 more, I've got my clothes laying out over my bed with my ceiling fan on Turbo Speed in hopes that they dry a litle bit more. I hate damp jeans. Uhhhhg, such a gross feeling! Oh, random fact: Aus doesn't have dryer sheets. Most people don't even have dryers. When it's actually nice here it's customary to hang your clothes outside and let them dry au natural. So as damp as my clothes still are, I'm thankful we have the option of dryers at all.

It was a big day in terms of school. I submitted my math assignment, which isn't even due until Fri (look at me go!)and I had my first presentation. My EDU610 tutorial leader had us put into groups and each group has a week where they have to use techniques to manage the class as though they were at different age levels and then present a case study to the class as though they were our peers. I honestly thought it was going to be a nightmare - the group I had to manage were "preppies" our kindergarden equilivant and the people in my class certainly did a good job at pretending to be 5, i had two girls under the table one boy looking out the window and the other one wandering about. It was good practice to get them to settle down - I'm not sure how people do it with a classroom of actually students who are all over the place and won't shut up! This management and facilitation of the case study weren't assessed but we got good feedback from the class and the T.A. Yay!
Things are really starting to pick up, it's going to be a busy weekend - next week I have a presentation/lesson plan due, an essay, a unit plan, and a maths lesson plan due - plus i have two group meetings. There might be something else that' I'm forgetting but I hope not.

Last night we had a 'girls night' here at my place. I put 'girls night' in quotes b/c my roommate eddie and our friend clinton wanted to join in. we watched sex and the city 2 (which was awful) and ordered pizza and leyla brought really yummy icecream. it was fun to have everyone over, and the pizza was delicious! I haven't had pizza since I got here. We ordered it from this place down the street called Capone's. A little family run place. We got 4 pizzas for $27 so everything threw in $3 and we had a great dinner. One of the pizza's was a meat lovers but they had it made with bbq sauce instead of tomato sauce, it was really strange at first but I decided after that I really liked it.

A group of people are going out to Byron Bay this weekend, it's a 4 hour drive from here but the spot is aparently amazing. It typically attracts a lot of backpackers so there are many hostles, a great beach and a lot of pubs. I would like to go b/c everyone else is going but I have a lot of work to get done and I think all of the seats in the cars that are going are taken anyway - probably best. I would like to go to the zoo though - a bunch of other Canadians were there last weekend and everyone has just loved it! They have a deal right now too that if you go in the month of Aug you get a membership for the remainder of 2010 for free! They have a section of the zoo where you can go and hang out with the kangaroo's for as long as you want and you can hold a koala, I think it would be so awesome!

Ryan and Laura are getting married this weekend!!! I'm really sad that I'm missing it. We had discussed having a laptop at the wedding and using Skype so that I could see parts of it and talk with people but it's not going to work out because of the time change - it would be around 6am for me and that just wouldn't be pleasant for anyone.

Anyway I'm signing off, I've got laundry to fold and 1000 pages of readings to do on top of all my assignments :)