Alright well by now this title is a misnomer... it is indeed 3/4ths done, already. A month and 3 days from I will be exploring the intimate features of downtown Sydney.. but you'll have to wait til then to hear about it!
This week has been lovingly devoted to one thing: my research proposal paper for Psy 212, a statistics and research methods class. This paper was 2500 words (roughly 10-13 pages) and required 25 sources. It entailed investigating the past studies conducted on my topic and synthesizing them into a logical history that makes an argument for why I would be doing the study that this paper is proposing. This paper transformed me (and my friend and fellow psych undergrad Leigh) into a library hermit from the hours of 7 pm, Wednesday, to 3 pm, Thursday, break taken only for potty, snacks, breakfast, and 8:30 am lecture. Not for sleep, as you may have conspicuously noticed. Turns out that, in fittingly psych staticians' words, the amount of tipsy-level symptoms of behaviour increase proportionately as an increase in amount of hours sleep deprivation. Interesting!
Outside of this joyful event, the weather has been warming up to us all like a friendly neighbor. My various jobs (bartending, reffing, and helping out with the kids' day program) are simply excellent and provide nearly instant gratification; pay goes through within a week in general here, as opposed to the two-week delay we're used to in the States. My bedside wall is filling up with post-its of things I learn every day and my favorite photos from home. I just finished reading Obama's The Audacity of Hope (really excellent, regardless of what party you claim... he is very knowledgeable and provides an easy-to-read overview of our country's political state) and am still working through Sylvia Plath's journal compilation (absolutely brilliant, and equally dysfunctional) and Ravi Zacharias's thought-provoking Christian book. Not having immediate access to a laptop or a TV compels one to much more reading and artsy things, I've found... I like it!
I've become the unofficial Village haircutter.. at least for the fellas. Word must've gotten around that I can manage to decently clean them up for free because I'm averaging two haircuts a week these days. Mom and Dad I hope this works as reassurance that, if both of my majors and other skills absolutely fail me, I will at least have a cosmetologist future in stowage.
Next Tuesday is the Sports Awards ceremony for UniGames, an event that raises widespread excitement less because of the awards and more because of the two hours of pro bono happy hour on behalf of the Vice Chancellor. Rumor on the street, however, is that our girls' basketball team has been nominated as the Team of the Year... and that we have a good shot at getting it!! I certainly feel like we deserve it, what with such a helter-skelter roster including a Mom of 37 and training equipment that would be more accurately described as junkyard decor and an undefeated record.
Some golden music nuggets I've discovered/been introduced to lately:
the John Butler Trio (basically the Jack Johnson of Australia)
Metric
the Be Good Tanyas
Mumford & Sons
Obadiah Parker's Hey Ya cover
Brother Ali
Florence and the Machine
Halloween fast approaches and legitimately snuck up on us Americans this year... its just not advertised!! There's an event in the Village and people do, apparently, dress up with eagerness, but I was disappointed to hear there will be no trick-or-treating. Not even for little kids, much more taboo for teens and twenty-somethings... what a shame :(. Some costume ideas I'm toying with: The Nothing from The Neverending Story, an Oompa Loompa, a geisha, some sort of inanimate object, Steve Irwin (+stingray barb?), a backpacker, or a black person. Any clever recommendations, let me know!
I hope that is an adequate collection of the random goings-on in my days... they are consistently full and always pleasant. But I am sick for home.
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