Design is a SEXY profession.

First, let me explain the title of this blog. This was a direct quote from the chair of the Design department. Love it.

Sorry it’s been awhile since my last update, but the weather has finally decided to be
nice, and the sun has been shining and the air has been hot, for the most part.

Monday 2/16- we decided that since it was finally sunny and hot we’d go back to Bondi for another serving of skin cancer. But once we’d all gotten ready to go and reconvened to leave, it was pouring out, go figure. So plan B was we walk over to Gumal and use the free wireless on the rooftop, which is partially inside, so no, we didn’t sit in the rain with our pretty laptops, I’d never do such a thing to my Apple. After sitting up on the roof for hours, and once it decided to finally stop down pouring, a few of us took a walk to Chinatown to get some dinner. Luke M and Chuck decided they “totally knew where they were going” but I’m pretty sure we ended up taking the most roundabout way possible. But it was actually nice out so I enjoyed getting to see more of the city. We couldn’t really decide on somewhere, so we ended up going into a Chinese mall and eating in their food court. I felt like every single “restaurant” in the food court was serving the same thing, and the menus up on the wall were literally just pictures upon pictures of bowls of different Chinese food that looked the exact same to someone like me who didn’t know what she was looking for. So I settled on a Make You Own Noodle Meal at one of the places, which ended up not even being too good. Bummer. While we were leaving Chinatown, we noticed an Asian guy across the street wearing nothing but boxer shorts, sitting on a milk crate, pretending to fish. He was literally doing all the motions of casting and reeling and everything. Pretty weird. Then three guys came up to him to take a picture with him, and he FREAKED out. He started swinging and kicking the guy and so his friends came to his rescue, which turned out to be not much help, with the imaginary fisherman ripping one of the guys shirts completely off, and shortly thereafter throwing his bag into the street, in turn scattering his millions of papers across the whole street. Meanwhile, everyone around has stopped to watch, a security guard was actually standing right next to us, watching as well, doing nothing. So there’s a taste of your safety in this county. Kidding, I’m not sure what he was security for, but it just seemed funny. Then finally after being jacked in the face and pushed onto the pavement, the fisherman got back up, walked over to his crate, sat down, and casted his invisible line back into the street.
Once we returned we got ready and went out to Scubar. Once in there, I came to the conclusion that I really am not a fan of this bar. It’s fun, but incredibly too small and crowded, making it smell like a runner’s armpit
And while I’m on the subject, I’ve come to find that people in Australia really stink. Honestly, back in Chicago I’ll walk by a homeless person and their stench will make me flinch, but I understand because, well, they’re homeless. But here, it seems like A LOT more people stink, badly. And they are in fact, NOT homeless, so I’m not quite sure what the deal with that is, but if they’re alright with their terrible B.O., I’m not going to bring it up to them, they seem content enough. 
Anyways, back at Scu, we all sort of spread out since there really is hardly enough room for us to all stand together. You get bumped into and spilled on every 20 seconds it seems too, really fun. Tessa and I spun the shot wheel, which landed on Brain Hemorrhage, which freaked me out! But turned out to be a great shot with Bailey’s and butterscotch flavored vodka and grenadine. Yum. Emily and Kelli showed up later, which was awesome because I hadn’t seen them since I left Mizzou after my first semester. I hung out with them for awhile, met some guys from Boston and Chicago, and we were dancing with them for awhile, then out of nowhere a guy stepped in front of me and jacked the guy next to me in the face! The bouncers had to break it up and pull them upstairs, this was the first bar fight I’d seen in Sydney, but the second fight of the day, hardly seems like an acceptable ratio. After this I decided I was ready for bed, so a couple of us walked home to UniLodge and called it a night.

Cool picture of Scubar sign behind the bar.

Tuesday 2/17- Still not your typical Sydney sunshiney day. There was a BBQ lunch at school at the tower building, but I’d just eaten before we all went, so I didn’t have anything to eat. But even if I hadn’t eaten I don’t believe it would have mattered, the food did not look good. Oh and sidenote, they don’t believe in buns for meat here. No hotdog buns, no brat buns, no real burger buns, they pretty much just use good old sliced bread and stick the meat in between. Later I think the whole crew ended up going to Broadway for pizza and drinks. Later thereafter I got some sad news about a childhood friend who had recently passed on due to an overdose, but I figured being out with friends would be better for me than staying in alone. RIP Johnny. Tuesday’s in Sydney means you go to Scruffy Murphy’s. So we all made our way down George St in the light drizzle, and got in without any waiting, always an exciting time in Sydney. The place was PACKED. It’s three levels, I didn’t go upstairs, but the main floor had a dance floor and live music playing some pretty solid classic rock, American obviously, progressively getting louder as the night wore on, until I was partially deaf upon leaving. Funny thing about the music they play here, it’s 95% American, and its 95% from the early 90’s. Apparently they’re two decades behind, but it’s actually kinda fun to hear them playing Backstreets Back and seeing the Aussies belting out Sweet Home Alabama. The basement seemed kind of what I would assume a bad rave would look like. Blacklights and weird grafitti wirting on the bare cement walls, but large projection screens projecting music videos. The amount of sweat dripping off the people down here from the all the dancing could have put the Dead Sea to shame. I stayed upstairs for the most part, and was having somewhat of a hard time having a good time after the news I’d received earlier, but some of my friends swooped in to the rescue and helped me out. Then later on in the night I was talking to Emily and Luke V and someone jumped on me from behind, and I turned around and it was one of my best friends from home, Erin. I was so happy to see an actual familiar face, once I’d known since Kindergarten, especially tonight. We attempted to catch up, but like I mentioned, the deafening tones weren’t helping the cause, so we decided to get together the next day. 

Meebs united in Oz, Erin & myself at Scruffy Murphy's.

Once we decided to leave since one of the IU boys was kicked out multiple times for being too drunk, some people tried to go to another bar, but Guido, Scott and I just grabbed a cab home.

 Now let me try and explain my frustration with this subject. Cab drivers in America for the most part know where to take you when you give them your destination. Sometimes an intersection is necessary, but they can get you there. Here, you get in a cab, tell the cabbie, “UniLodge”, and they look at you like bugs are crawling out of your eyes. “Uh, its on the corner of Bay and Broadway?” Bugs are still crawling apparently. “Um…Broadway? You know, the street we’re on now, George, it turns into Broadway, take it south?” Blank stares. “Across from the Broadway Shopping Center?” Finally something they recognize. It’s seriously madness. And it isn’t like America where the cab drivers don’t speak great English, these drivers are all Aussies, so it isn’t as if there is a language barrier here, they just honestly don’t know where anything in their town is! Very weird. I’ve attempted to stay away from taking cabs for this reason, along with it makes you seem touristy, and they charge by time rather than distance, which pretty much means they’ll be taking my first born child at some point in return for payment. Once we’d directed the cab home, we made delicious paninis for the late night then they went down to their room and I went to bed.

Wednesday 2/18- This morning I woke up and took a jog over to University Village, where Erin is living. We caught up on our lives over the past two and a half weeks that we hadn’t seen each other in. We then walked back to my place so Erin could get in touch with the rest of the world, since she didn’t have internet or a phone. We then went to the mall and she got herself a cell phone. Good work Erin, you are now back to being part of society! She then went home to catch up with her friends to go to the beach, and I met up with the girls at the mall. We grabbed something to eat in the food court (Sumo Salad for me, load on the capsicum please!) then went back to get ready for our UTS hosted International Student Cocktail Party in the Great Hall in the tower building. We got there and saw that there were tables with lines of champagne flutes, glasses of red and white wine, and bottles of different beer. Oh and did I mention it was all free? And provided by my educational institution? Yep, that’s Australia for you. So we all drank for free for two hours and mingled with other international students. We met a group of four girls who are really fun, they go to University of Ottawa. 

Once the cocktail party was over we all jumped on buses that took us up to The Rocks, the historic district of the city, for a pub crawl. The Rocks is just a short walk from the Circular Quay, which is near the Opera House and the bridge. I don’t recall the name of the first bar because it was German and some unpronounceable name. But we got free food the whole time we were there, which was wonderful, again. But after being there from 7-10, I’d had enough of this bar, so Christina and I decided to round up the our group and head to the next bar on our own, The Argyle, which was literally right next door. This was a much more posh establishment, with a red carpet layed over the cobblestone to the entrance, and really awesome lighting when you walk in. The foundation was made of wood, and it was just a really neat looking place, bathrooms especially! But at the time we were there, it was a much older crowd, so Christina and I decided to check out Sidebar, where a bunch of our other friends who didn’t go to UTS were planning on going. I asked a guy I met if we could walk to Sidebar and he said definitely not. We did . Three miles later we get to Sidebar only to find the line down the entire city block, so just kept on walking and went to LandsDowne for awhile before I attempted to call it a night. But once in my room, Guido and Scott decide to drunkenly come in and eat all my food, so I insisted we go back to their room, so they could drunkenly eat their OWN food. Guido went to bed and Scott and I played the TV Theme Song game and listened to music for two hours before his hiccups annoyed me enough to go back to my room and go to bed for real this time.

Free champagne, beer and wine...at school, paid for by the school?

The girls, plus a few new ones...?

Awesome lighting at the entrance to The Argyle

 

 Mad cool sinks in the M/W bathroom, that thing in the back is a urinal!

Thursday 2/19- Once everyone woke up we decided that it was b-e-a-utiful out, finally, so we all headed to Bondi. It took awhile to get everyone rounded up since the entire crew wanted to go, so we vetoed Luke M’s formidable desire to go to Manly. But Bondi ended up being great! The sun was out the entire time, except for a short while when I was positive we were going to get dumped on, but the cloud passed over and we were left graciously dry. Once arriving and setting up my massive beach blanket, lathering up in 30 SPF and settling in with the new Fray album on my ipod, I was ready to tan. After just a bit I sat up and saw the IU crew of boys set up just a few feet from us. The waves were out of control, and the beach patrol had to announce some warnings throughout the day about strong currents and such. The water was thankfully not as frigid as the first time I was here, and so playing in the waves was much more enjoyable this time, minus the salt water…but you already know my feelings on that. Though while in the water, I did run into Evan, who was with Jenny and Caroline somewhere else on the beach. And later, Liz was attempting to find the Canadian girls we’d met, since she found out they were there as well, and as it turns out, after Liz went on a 45 minute walk of the beach to find them, they were 10 feet in the other direction of us. Seems like everyone had the same idea since it was so awesome out.

A cool shot of Bondi Beach, looooove it.

 After breaking up into smaller groups to eat and shop and such we all headed back on our own, Christina and I came back together, then went home to shower and met back up at Broadway for dinner. I think I’m going to make an official tally of how many times I eat here, because the number already seems quite outrageous, but let’s get serious, it doesn’t get much better than $5 gourmet pizza…does it?

This is written right outside Broadway Cafe.

 On my way over, I was getting in the elevator and there was a guy standing there and asked me if I went to Miami, realizing I was wearing a Miami of Ohio hockey t-shirt, he followed with, “because I go to the REAL Miami.” He explained how in Florida they didn’t really see to many Miami Ohio shirts. The Gumal girls decided they wanted to bake cookies, but I wasn’t really in the mood, so I decided to go to a party at USYD with Evan, Guido, Jenny and Caroline, as well as Stephen (REAL Miami boy) and his roommate Ameet. It was at USYD’s union bar (apparently all the student unions here are filled with bars and flowing alcohol) called The Manning. It was actually pretty fun, met a couple more people living in UniLodge from different places, including a kid named Cliff who goes to NIU. Erin showed up, again unannounced, which I love. We all talked until security threw us out and so we walked through Victoria Park over to LandsDowne. During the walk, I saw a squad car in the park, which may or may not have been the first officer I’ve seen since I’ve been here, there aren’t cops ANYWHERE it feels like! But weirdly enough I still feel pretty safe.

Friday 2/17- Myself and a few of the other girls who are in the DAB faculty, which in America would be called a department, went to a lecture in order to get a better feel for the design department and to meet some of the faculty, which I’m not sure what the people who teach and run the department are actually called considering the department itself is called a faculty. If that doesn’t make sense, disregard it, because I’m not sure I even know what I just attempted to explain. Oh, and DAB stands for Design, Architecture and Building. This was semi-interesting, learned about the new state of the art studios they're currently finishing up in the design building, which should be finished in a couple weeks, which will be awesome. We had breakout sessions for the different courses, which in America would be considered disciplines, but since I’m taking classes in three different disciplines, Emily and I decided to go meet up with the Luke’s outside the tower building to check out O’Fest, the last day of Orientation Week. O’Fest is a huge party with live DJs, food, and drinks, sadly ones you had to pay for this time. Since it had just started, we decided to go home and eat and drink on a cheaper budget, then return, which we did. There were a lot more people there later on. After this, we decided to head up to the roof, where there were a bunch of people hanging out, and just chilled up there for awhile, the Canadians stopped by for awhile too. After this we tried to go out, but once we walked to the bar we were planning to go to , Luke wasn’t allowed in because he was wearing flip flops, and I realized I didn’t even have my ID with me, so we just walked back. Luckily it wasn’t far at all.

  

A pic of some of the girl at O'Fest, loving on UTS

Erin, myself, and Brittany, two of the girls from Ottawa.

Saturday 2/18- Slept in until about 1pm and may have slept longer except for that Emily came and banged on my door to wake me up. Herself, Luke V and I went across the street to help Luke FINALLY get his cell phone since he just received a credit card in the mail from his dad. When we got back, I was determined to make his internet work, though I’d tried multiple times since we’ve been here, to no avail. But I’d had enough of the fact he had to walk all the way to campus every time he wanted internet, so I continued trying, and finally prevailed! He was a happy camper, cell phone AND internet all in one day, after having neither for three weeks. Later a couple of us went to, yep, you guessed it, Broadway for dinner. A couple of the Gumal girls had been sightseeing all day, and didn’t feel like going out, so went to see Slumdog, but since I’ve seen it three times already, I wasn’t about to shell out another $16. So a couple of us went to Bondi Beach, which I was opposed to the whole time, but went along with it anyways. We got there, it was dumb (sorry Luke, but you know I’m not really), so we left. Took the bus back to The Rocks. It took about 30 minutes before a bus showed up, and it wasn’t a nice smelling bus either. It seemed the bus driver was apparently in training because there was a man standing up next to him telling him where to go, and my neck’s whip lash could also prove he hasn’t had much experience driving. Once we got off, Evan and I walked awhile and met up with the IU guys at The Argyle for awhile, then proceeded to again, WALK home the three miles. I suppose that’s one way to get exercise. At least it’s nice out, though it doesn’t make your feet feel any better if you’re wearing four inch wedges…

Sunday 2/19- This was the most fun day I’ve had here yet. We decided to wake up early because Tropfest was today. Tropfest is the world’s largest short film festival right in the Botanical Gardens in Sydney. Luke made me a wonderful omelet since I’ve been bugging him for awhile. We then went over to Cole’s to get picnic food for the day, and came back and made sandwiches and packed up the food in record time. And when I say we, I actually mean that the guys did and Emily and I watched. Then we met up with Gumal girls and hopped on a bus that took us right near the Gardens. We didn’t’ go the correct way, we actually took the longest walk ever, but I didn’t care because the gardens are absolutely beautiful, most amazing place ever. I took so many cool pictures, and just loved being there. Oh and did I mention it was beautiful weather as well. God clearly wanted today to be a good day! Once we found the actual place Tropfest was being held, The Domain, we staked out ground and just hung out. We got there around 3pm, and the films didn’t begin until 7, so we really just lounged around and picnicked and watched the sun begin to set and the rest of the grounds slowly fill in.

Now something I found to be probably just the smartest idea ever, was what they do with garbage bags. They walked around and handed everyone three bags, a black, a white and a clear, and told us which was trash, which was recycle, and which was biodegradable trash. And just by giving these to everyone, the trash left on the ground when the festival was over was overwhelmingly less than what you’d see at something like Ribfest back home. Sure they still have to pick up trash, but he fact that it’s all contained in bags, and sorted, it’s just easier!

Guido and Scott met up with us with Scott’s two roommates from back at IU, one who is also studying here, one that was here visiting for a few days before heading to Byron Bay to visit his girlfriend studying there. Some of the Gumal’s roommates came and sat with us, including Elliot, who when saw me doodling with markers, insisted I use them to tattoo both his arms, in their entirety. He honestly wouldn’t let me end until I’d used every color. Then later Liz and Chris met up with us, and even later on the Canadian girls came and joined us. Once the films started the entire place got quiet. It was so weird, because I feel like in America there would be no way that everyone there would shut up.

 

Me across the harbor from the Opera House and bridge.

A shot of the crowd at Tropfest, still early in the day

A shot of St. Mary's Cathedral while walking home from Tropfest

In terms of the films, they showed the 16 finalists, of the over 650 entries. I thought most of them were very good, some were really stupid, and some were just downright amazing. The overall winner was a short called “Be My Brother”, about a man with down syndrome making friends with a woman at the bus stop. Once it ended, we all gathered up our stuff and headed back, sort of breaking up again since there were so many people. The man in the short also won best actor, which he well deserved. My favorite one best original score, so that was exciting! Ha. Around 11, it ended, and we all broke into groups and headed home. And why break my streak now, I walked home the three miles again with Evan and Jenna. I’ve discovered it’s a lot less work with flats on, though that’s probably common knowledge, I’m just throwing it out there. We arrived home just minutes before us, and they took the bus. So I suppose it was worth it. Julia was back from her vacation with her family, finally, so Luke M and I caught up with her for awhile turns out I’d really missed that lady!


From now on I promise I'll try and update more often instead of updating like this. I assume it'll be easier with school starting today. Yep, my first class, Printmaking, starts at 5 today. Jenna is in it with me though, so that should make it a little less scary. Welp, back to the Oscars. And personally, I'm sick of Benjamin Button winning so much, but entirely happy that Slumdog is doing so well because it was honestly an amazing movie. But honestly, the Academy Awards normally keep my entertained for awhile, then I give up, but this year, they are putting on a great show, perhaps because an Aussie is hosting...? :)

(ps, pics up later when I have a faster connection at school)

Miss you all.