Australia Update

Hello!

I'm in Perth, Australia right now.  I’ve been having a wonderful time and the weather is beautiful!  It’s been in the 30’s all week, which has been really hot!  Without Ashley, my video skills are sorely lacking, but I’ve managed to shoot some stuff here in Perth.

Since I’ve been here, I’ve lost track of the days, but I vaguely remember the dates.  I arrived on the 27th, which was the same day as Greg’s birthday party.  That was exhausting.  The flight from LA to Sydney is 14 hours.  Total air time was about 24 hours.  My mom, genius that she is, got me a pair of noise-cancelling headphones for Christmas, which saved me during the flight; I actually got some sleep!

The next two days were spent doing some shopping.  There’s a nice shopping mall close to the house called Garden City.  There’s also some outlet shops at Harbour Town.  Deb and I only got through the first floor, so we still have to go back!

On Tuesday, Deb, Greg, and I meet up with some of their friends for some Thai food and a movie.  We went to this place call Han’s.  Greg was telling me the story behind Han’s.  It turns out it’s fast Thai food that sets up near cinemas.  The founder thought people would want some fast Thai food before going to the movies.  How right he was!  The service could have been better, but the food was pretty good.  After dinner, we went to see Slumdog Millionaire.  This movie is so intense!  It’s really good.  I’ll of course look for it on Amazon so I can buy it and we all can watch it!

After the movies, we all went to Christina’s house for a bit.  Christina just remodeled her house and it looks lovely!  Her backyard isn’t landscaped and she said it was because she ran out of money for turf (grass).  So, we planned an entire party for Christina to raise money for her backyard.  We decided “A Night at the Races” would be great.  I felt productive!  Here’s the good part, after party planning, Christina and I went out salsa dancing!  Yay!  It was great, a little different than salsa in Indy, but it was still really fun.

Past couple of days I’ve spent at the beach and barbequing.  Last night I watched some Invader Zim after the barbeque!  I might be going to a pub on Sunday, which should be fun.

12/24/08

It is Christmas Eve.  I haven't written anything in a very long time.  This saddens me since I wanted to write on this blog more.  Anyway, we just finished Christmas dinner.  We had to do it Christmas Eve, since I leave tomorrow at 7 pm.  It was delicious!  I love it when my mom cooks.

She also invited one of her co-workers to dinner.  That was really fun.  I hope when I grow up, I'm as likeable as my mom!

So much has happened since I last wrote anything; it would be silly of me to try to recount everything.  It seemed like such a big deal, but now I can barely remember it!  I guess the big news is that I plan on taking a job with Lockheed Martin in Denver, CO.  Eventually I'll be moving to Colorado, which I'm really excited about!  It took me a little bit to accept the company due to some previous stigmas I had.  A lengthy discussion with Ashley thankfully helped me out a lot.

Tomorrow is Christmas and that means major gift wrapping tonight.  Maybe tomorrow I'll do a special XMas Edition post with my favorite gifts in it!  Anyway, I'll hopefully be updating this while I'm in Australia.  Plus, I plan on being on Twitter and on Flickr.

11/8/08

I have lots to do, as usual.  I need to write a cover letter for Google, which freaks me out.  I’m seriously scared of screwing up.  I also need to take some sort of test thing for Bloomberg, which I’m really nervous about as well.  I feel a bout of Imposter Syndrome coming on, which is bad, but I have no doubt it’ll pass.

But I didn’t actually want to write about all that I have to do, although I find it endlessly entertaining.  I’ve noticed that in there is a lot of stuff about vampires in pop culture lately.  There is that show on HBO, a movie coming out that is based on a best-selling book, and I’ve seen tons of romance novels about vampires.  I’ve read one book about vampires and that’s Dracula by Bram Stoker.  Overall, vampires seem pretty bad with the whole sucking blood and turning people into vampires.  Main idea: bad.  But with all this new media surrounding vampires, I feel I may misjudged them.  Is it possible to stereotype something that doesn’t exist?

11/2/08

I haven’t written anything in a long time.  I feel really guilty about that.  I like writing about stupid and mundane things that happen to me.  Sometimes it just helps me sort stuff out.

Unfortunately, like everyone else in this world, I’ve been very busy and preoccupied.  I miss writing about stuff since I felt like sometimes I would discover patterns in my behavior that or some absolute truth about how I am.  That was always nice.  Right now I don’t know myself that well anymore.

I’d like to try writing more in the near future.  Even though a recent Wired article says blogs are dead.  Who cares? Not me!

The other day I made my desktop black and white.  I like it a lot. Although it’s dark, I might add in some red.  I just remembered I have a great icon set that I might be able to use!

10/4

Today was the last day of GHC, sad!  It was so much fun!  Ashley and I did the most amazing things.  We got to talk to so many great women!  I'm currently working on my desktop.  It's exciting.  Sorry this is short and boring.  I opened Windows Live Writer and didn't want to close it without doing something.

9/23/08

I think I've come to conclusion that I'm not actually a very good student.  I've decided this because I could be a lot better.  I suppose I'll try to pay attention in class more and maybe that will help!  After that I just have to get all my schedule figured out with when I'm supposed to study and do homework.  I don't like homework taking over my life, makes me angry.  Hold on, I'm really hungry and need to go eat breakfast...

...Later that evening...

Since this is my blog, I get to bitch on it all I want.  That's nice because I'm pretty sure my friends get tired of it.  I am exhausted.  I am also unsure of how I am going to get through the day tomorrow.  I suppose I could make a quick list of everything I have to do/worry about.

To Do/Worry

• Compilers project 2
• Spanish Reading & Grammar composition
• Spanish Reading & Grammar homework
• Spanish Conversation & Phonetics homework
• Car insurance/lawyer/medical bills
• Lockheed Martin (call back)
• Resume (update)
• Fix printer network
• Make packing list
• Prepare for Graphics test
• Prepare for Compilers test
• Prepare for Spanish Reading & Grammar test

AAAAHHHHHH!!!

If anyone has any survival tips, they are more than welcome!

9/18/08

I haven't been very good about blogging lately, which is probably ok since I currently live with most of my loyal readers.  Either way, let's take a look at how my life is going, shall we?

Academics
This semester I'm taking 4.5 credits.  I'm in Graphics, Compilers, Spanish Reading & Grammar, Spanish Conversation & Phonetics, Aerobic Conditioning Super Circuit, and French horn lessons.  Whew, talk about a full course load.  Everything seems to be going reasonably well so far.  That's pretty exciting for me.

When I say going well, I mean I'm not failing anything yet.  I feel like I don't understand a lot of what I'm supposed to be learning, which is very frustrating.  I skipped my PE class this morning because I was just too tired.  I started write this post two days ago and I was in a much better mood then.

Activities
Per my usual self, I'm way too involved in things and probably doing way too much!  I have WiCS/ITAP, ACM, DG, Rugby, WGRE, and the CS House which is an activity just trying to cook dinner!  I'm always exhausted (and now bruised, thanks to rugby).

Really Cool Stuff
I'm not exactly attached to DePauw as a school.  I'm much more attached to the parts of DePauw I believe in, like the CS Dept., WiCS, and ITAP (even though ITAP is a catastrophic program right now, it has amazing potential).  I don't plan on going to my graduation because I'm hoping to be going on a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon.  Let's talk about incredible for a moment, shall we?  Yeah.

Plans
I think over the next couple days I'm going to focus on writing down what I want.  I have a general idea of what I want in life and what I want to be.  But that's all it is, an idea.  When I think of it, it is just a feeling I get.  Sometimes there's a nice video playing of what I'm doing on a random Tuesday and sometimes there's a choice word that describes that one instant.  But I'm not sure how to express it in words and full sentences.  I need to write it out in a manner that I can make mini goals or at least figure out what can be done now to move along to the future goals.  Then I get to figure out how much money that costs.  That should be lots of fun!

That was a fun update and I hope that I can remember to continue blogging since I like to keep a record of my life so I can go back, read it later, and wonder what on earth I was thinking.