ONE WEEK...!!!

I have one week left.
one week.
I really can't even believe it. Been having an awesome last couple of weeks. Gender bender at shorty pub was hilarious. I dressed up as part of the "barbershop quartet" group with a couple of girls which was great-mustache and all! Josh squeezed into my little skirt and wore one of my tanks and a stuffed bra--HOT.
My favorite part of the night has to be when we came back. Jake, Amy, Josh etc were all hanging out and suddenly a VERY drunk Conal comes back. He was like a 5 year old on acid-jumping all over the place giggling like a little kid cause he won a costume contest. Check out the video i put up on facebook. SO fucking hilarious.
Definitely getting down to the wire with my assignments... almost done with one but now I have to study and write another paper all before we got to Port on friday. But... of course I have been procrastinating all week. Just hanging out and avoiding it at all costs.
It has been SO hot here--it was almost 100 degrees and humid one day. So weird that it is in the 50's at home! I am not going to get used to that for a while!!!

I <3 Australia

Melbourne was amazing... just like everything else! A bunch of our friends from Australearn packed a lot into the three days we were there which was good. We spend one full day on the great ocean road with our sweet Mercedes-Benz glass top roof van and awesome tour guide Brian. The great ocean road is sooo cool. Got some amazing pictures of the 9 apostles and other sites. And the water--so many different colors of crystal clear blue. I have never seen water that pretty in my entire life, really looked right out of a movie or something.
Melbourne is such a fun city. The first night there we found some awesome night life (but with a horrible all-girl band!) None of us could believe how expensive the drinks were though-- 7 dollars for a TINY drink (probably half a normal size). But it was still fun out being in the city with everyone.
The girls and I did a ton of shopping on the Victoria Street market (which is similar to one in Sydney) with just a bunch of everything and anything you could imagine for pretty cheap! We all got some pretty amazing aboriginal artwork/digareedoo's and stuff which was really cool. My favorite part of the trip was feeding the wild parrots and other colorful birds! They just land right on your hand or even in your head! We got some hilarious pictures of everyone (except for Corey who shares Farida's unusual fear of birds! hahaha)
Now I am really down to the very end of our trip and I am getting really sad! We just had a block dinner tonight (roasted lamb,pork, potatoes YUM YUM!) and it is so weird that I am going to have to say goodbye to all of my friends here. They are like family now. I feel like I might be half australian and now I am going to be going home!
I am just making the most of my 2 weeks left here. Hanging out every night, bugging conal and jake, watching movies with them, adding to the quote board when we say stupid things, partying random nights, not worrying about my assignments, going to the beach, dancing in the rain with conal, sneaking into the pool at night, dreaming of wedges, sour cream and sweet chili sauce with amy...

I am taking advantage of every second.

unless conal and jake actually DO call a bomb scare at the airport and I don't have to leave...

ERA ball and "recovery" day!

First off, the events center where we had the ball was nicer than where my prom was held! It was absolutely beautiful and we had a live singer to start off the night. We all started hanging out and drinking around 5 after getting ready. It was so fun to see everyone so dressed up and excited in the quadd! The night was awesome. Drinks were really expensive but I had a little too much before we left anyways so it was all good. It was so weird to think about the people I am going to have to say goodbye to in about 3 weeks! It is insane how fast time has gone, and a lot of the night was spent remembering the past semester and events of the semester. There were a lot of good and hilarious videos and presentations that were really awesome.
After, all the buses dropped us off at Customs (most popular bar right in town on the beach). At this point it was about 11pm so I was already pretty tired from about 6 hours worth of drinking but we all continued on... a couple of my friends stayed out until about 4:30am swimming in the ocean baths!
I however did not quite make it there... my friend amy and I were kicked out of the bar (this is like the 3rd time for me... whoops) They are really strict here about not acting really drunk in bars. If anyone sees you stumbling or anything you get asked to leave. Each time I am kicked out I am not even that drunk which is pretty funny.... once I just lost my voice and was laughing because of it so I got the boot. This time Amy just took off her shoes and apparently "talked back" to the bouncer. I guess we americans like to cause trouble or something. lol.
If last night wasn't excciting enough today has been "recovery day" and by "recover" I mean with another... drink. Basically you get woken up at 10am to really loud party music to eat some breakfast and start the festivities all over again in the quad. I couldn't even think about drinking but it was pretty funny watching a lot of people being crazy... and they had a sweet bouncy house.... what more could you want? It was also SO hot today. It is so weird that I am going to come home to a New England winter and it is a balmy 85 here right now!
So...that is what I have been up to. I STILL have not done any work. But I figure I am certainly not doing any tonight after this weekend... I have all next week to start. hahaha. Nothing like procrastination.
In the meantime I am off to hang out and watch movies!

YAY for NOT doing work when you are supposed to!

So... basically I still have not started ANY work that I am supposed to. But I figure that is okay since this week has been pretty darn awesome. Went shopping with Adrienne and Amy yesterday for the ERA Ball. Of course, we started out saying okay we are only going to spend about 50-60 dollars. In the end we all spent about 150... whooops. But we def. have some really cute dresses for the occasion!

My block is SOOO quite right now. Sarah moved out, not that we really saw her all that much but Eric is now also not here during the week because he has prac (basically an internship). So it is Conal, Jake, Josh and I basically. Although it is weird, it is also kinda nice cause we are basically having a great time together. We all went to the inter-college (inter-dorm) talent show yesterday night. Josh was persuaded to sing and he won for best solo voice! yaaaaay! It was pretty cool hearing everybody sing and stuff. A lot of fun!

Today I am going to the beach with the girls, and getting a bit of a tan before the ball. Can't wait to post on how the ball goes... should be pretty EPIC.

Miss you all!
ps. can I just say how much Uconn sucks? Not really... i love uconn... I just mean the administration. So I am trying to figure out where to go to grad school and gage what I have to do to get in. So I emailed Uconn about 4-5 weeks ago about the Psychology program. I JUST got on answer and it is brief and does not answer my questions. It basically is the standard email they send out to anyone who emails the graduate psych department: saying basically look at the website if you have questions. yea did that. great. thanks.
However, the head of the graduate psych department at Assumption college (a college who has no idea who I am) emails me directly back, with a lengthy personal email answering ALL of my questions and more AND just sent a follow-up email offering a personal meeting and tour when I get back to the states.
Yea... so basically Assumption is looking pretty good right now...

New Zealand

It has been forever since I have posted! I had been away for two weeks but its mostly cause I was laaaazzyyy!
New Zealand was amazing! I can't believe how fast it went by though. We did so much! The flight over was about 3 hours, and when we got there we got picked up by the car rental company and paid for the car and took off! It was a little scary driving on the other side of the road at first. Josh went into the wrong lane a few times... whooops. But he really got the hang of it and by the end of the trip was a pro. First off, the south island is basically deserted! The "main highway" most of the way there was like a back road. There was one section where we were driving for about 4-5 hours on a "main highway" and passed only about 15-20 cars the entire time! Most of the south island is exactly like the pictures: snowcapped mountain after mountain after sheep after intesnse forest after sheep after mountain after forest after huge river after sheep after snow capped mountain.... The scenerey was amazing. We did a lot of good hiking--about 3 days of all day hiking up some pretty intense trails. We went on a jet boat ride through this awesome canyon which was sooo fun. These are the best jet boat drivers in the world so they take you as close to the cliffs as possibile in order to freak you out. We went to these natrual hot springs which were sooo nice. It is still really cold down there even though it is coming up on summer because it is so close to antartica. But these springs are natrually heated and they basically feel like a hot bath. We pretty much stayed in there one full day!
NZ booze is much more like the US... they don't anally measure a shot into each drink! So finally we got some good strong drinks...
My favorite thing that we did was swimming with wild dolphins! They took us 45 minutes out to sea and then we went in the water to snorkle with them! It was FREAZING mind you, only about 12 degrees Celsius which is only about 52 degrees! We had full body suits on so that helped a bit but my hands and feet were frozen by the time I got out. The dolphins were amazing though. They are totally interested in you and swim all around you close enough to touch! I bought an underwater camera which worked really well so I have some awesome pictures. Basically it is a childhood dream come true so my life is pretty much complete...
Now that I am back at uni, its back to reality. I have a ton of work to do but only about 3 1/2 weeks to do it in! I only have 25 days left in Australia! I really can't believe it. Time goes by so fast it is crazy. I am really going to miss being here, but as much as I love it--its not home and I really miss all my friends and family! I am so excitied to come home and have thanksgiving and christmas with my family then get ready for my last semester!!!
I just decided I want to go to grad school for psychology. I have been thinking about it for a while and have figured out thats what I am going to go for. The whole reason why I liked my English and Comm classes were for the parts that explored peoples behavior/attitude/thoughts etc. I am actually really excited about my future for once instead of confused so I figure that is a pretty good sign. Unfortuantly that means loading up on a ton of psyc courses next semester and then taking some continuing courses during the summer after I graduate. Hopefully I can get started next fall though either part or full time. I am glad I have a plan now and am excitied.
In the meantime I am going to enjoy the rest of my time here, and I still have fiji to look forward to! This Saturday is the ERA ball which basically means drunkfest 08. Pretty stoked.
I'll try to put up some pics asap... I am just so lazy and I have sooo many. It is a daunting task right now....

Crappy hotels don't matter when you are this excited

Just wanted to do a quick post!  We are at a hotel right now right near the Sydney airport!  The hotel is a little ghetto (we couldn't even figure out how to turn on the lights and their "free wireless internet" was really a 5 dollar internet cord and 8 dollars per hour of usage) But we are totally excited to leave!  Our wake up call is at 4:45 tomorrow morning--bright and early! 

We will get to Christchurch by 1pm and then we start our epic drive!  I am not sure how often we will be able to talk on skype/aim or how often i will be able to post but if we stop at a wireless cafe or hostel then I will try to post and stay in touch with everyone.

Well I am off to shower and then get a good night sleep before tomorrow comes all too soon!

Can't wait!

Miss you all, talk to you soon!

Jindabella Heaven

This past weekend I think has been the best weekend yet. Absolutely amazing! We had signed up for a volunteer weekend of conservation work and I was a little worried about it. I wasn't sure where we would be staying or what we would be doing. We went with a bunch of American friends. So we piled into the conservation van having no idea what to expect or where we were going.
We drove for about 1 1/2 into the deep country and up the mountains. The scenery is absolutely beautiful in the Hunter Valley. It kind of reminds me of Vermont-a lot of beautiful farm land, rolling hills, big mountains etc. When we finally pulled into the driveway we thought it was a joke! It was the most beautiful house I have ever seen on a 85 acre property with the best view in the entire world. We couldn't believe it. It is called Jindabella and a couple Ross and Marianne recently bought it to do conservation work and rent out to tourists looking for a mountain retreat. Some retreat! It was basically a resort! The most beautiful yard and garden area on the most beautiful piece of property. A complete wrap around porch overlooking the huge rolling hills and mountains in the distance.
Our job was to plant 400 trees on the bottom part of their property. The area had been choked out by a lot of unnatural/foreign plants and the family was trying to get it back to temperate rainforest which it is naturally. It was pretty relaxing work except for the fact that it was SOO HOT. It was the hottest weekend yet-in the upper 90's on Saturday. The family had the best dog named Max who just loved people, he would come up to you and whine until you pet him and just plop down in your lap!
It was pretty awesome especially because the family was so nice! They took us swimming on Saturday to this beautiful little river. It felt like we knew them forever it was so fun. Everyone was swimming and playing with the dog, Ross splashing everyone! On Saturday night Ross had everyone shooting his guns in the backyard and attempting archery which was hilarious. Then his 25 year old son had us playing "Bush Croquett" and took us star gazing. We all had so much fun, it was such a relaxing weekend. It was the first time I really felt at home since I had been there, and really immeresed in Australian life with this family.
On Sunday we finished planting all of the trees and then they took us cliff diving! We went to a beautiful national park (even farther into the country!) to some really deep pools and jumping cliffs! It was so scary when you were up there but I finally did it after nearly peeing myself! haha. All the boys were having an awesome time! Marianne was nuts, she is probably almost 60 and she was one of the first ones to jump! Josh has some hilarious video of this that he will have to put up soon!
I was really sad to have to come back to Uni; Ross and Marianne seemed sad too. They said we could come back anytime and stay with them and they would pick us up at the train station. I may have to take them up on the offer! I absolutely LOVED it up there in the mountains. That is exactly the kind of simple life I want (plus a horse or two maybe!) I have some pictures rotating of the weekend up at Jindabella now that I FINALLY figured out how to do that haha. Also, I have a ton of pictures up at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Amanda.Beardsworth

Facebook is being lame and not letting me put anything up so you have to check them out!
And now... New Zealand in 2 days! AHHHH...