First Day in Melbourne was truly not a shock. I saw many pictures from my friends and tour books, so I expected to see things. Oh yea...I forgot its SUMMER and its 85 degrees. Ashley is really funny and we had a lot of fun on the plane. We were sadd that Wednesday didn't really exist to us. The shocking things were the aeriel views of Australia. There is just so much land untouched and truly vivid with color. There would be one house and it would be surrounded with just tons of land. The plane ride was amazing, although I slept most of the time. I took lots of pictures of the sunset, clouds, and the plane that was flying with us. Going through the airport was a hassle and slow process. We were in customs for close to two hours. There were two sections we had to go through. We finally got out and looked for the man with the sign saying "Victoria University: Harlan Tours". He was a short little man who was in a rush because he had to get us to the Student Village and then come back to the airport. The first step out the airport was a breath of fresh warm air.

It was a clear day and the temperature especially, was to my liking. We loaded our stuff in the little van. I was hoping for a limo. Riding around Melbourne brought back memories of riding around in London. I told Ashley, "We have to get use to thinking and looking opposite for cars." We arrived at the Student Village. The surrounding buldings, houses, and apartments were similar to those in Phoenix, Arizona. I was realized to see some graffiti (hip-hop is all around). Where we live is like the Projects with nice trees all around and Cacti growing. We had to carry our stuff to reception. We were greated by an Asian guy and an Indian girl, with a little Beyonce and Lil Wayne playing from the radio behind them. I thought to myself, "this song is really getting annoying and I have heard it at least 4 times so far since the airport." We did all the check-in processes and I was escorted to my room carrying all my heavy luggage. The lady rolled one of my bags. My building name is Fraser and I am on the second floor. Yeaaaaaaaa!!! A View!!! I went into the room and noticed we have a "lounge" if you want to call it that and my bedroom is number 2. I think I have a roomate here already since there is stuff sitting in the bathroom, but I find out late that I don't yet.

The mall is up the street so Ash and I go take a walk up there. Of course, I take pictures on the way of some apartments, houses, and some cars. We enter the mall and it is huge. We have to get a lot of stuff, mostly cosmetic items. We have to visit travel agencies to get information about tours and trips to the East Coast of Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, etc. After walking around and looking at all the high prices we decide to go to the food court because we are starving. We look at all the Asian restaurants and then we look around to the other side and notice KFC and Subway.

Subway is the choice. Ashley orders first and the man asks her what type of cheese she wants and she says, "American". This was the funniest part of the whole day. The man looked at her and was very confused. She said American again and he still didn't understand what she was saying. I told her, "I don't think they have American here, we call it American cheese in America." The man said Ashley wanted Cheddar, and thats American. After we ate, I went to use the phone to call my mom, Donald, Tosha, and Ashleigh. It was like 11 pm, Wednesday in Pittsburgh and afternoon here in Melbourne. So I need to call around 11 or noon to catch everyone at a good time.

We then go to Target which had to be the worst Target I have ever been to. It was very clean and all. They just didn't have anything that we wanted. We found a couple things that we needed. We were very disappointed in the selection of hangars. The cheapest price was 10 Aus dollars and we weren't going to spend that much for 5 hangars. That is just ridiculous. So we decided to wait on the hangars. We shop in there for a while and then we back and plan to go to the city for the night. We chill for about an hour and a half in our own rooms.

Getting ready to go to the city...so I freshened up a bit. I go across the yard to get Ashley because she was supposed to come to my room. I get to her room and find out that she fell asleep. I told her butt to wake up, it's time to go. We get the bus passes and we go find the busstop up the street. I use my expertise and experience from traveling around London. The train systems are very similar. We get to town from a bus then catching a train. It was easier than I thought. We went pass Footscray Campus of Victoria University on the way so we know where that is. We get off the train and go out the station and start taking pictures of everything. There are landmarks all around. Its getting dark as we walk around. It's almost 8:30 so we notice everything is practically closed. We decide to just go up one street for the nite and browse everything that we can before we get tired and its too late. I end up eating at McDonald's since most of the places on the street are closed. I eat while we are on the tram back home. This was our first time catching the tram and they go to different places than the buses and trains. I decide to get off when I feel like we are close to StuVille. We take a walk for about 5 blocks. I didn't know where the tram ends so I got off early. It might to closer but I didn't take that chance. We separate and head in for the night. I am dead tired and I was falling asleep on the tram. I head into my room and notice I still don't have a roommate. I close all the windows cause its pretty cool. I still haven't seen a TV in Melbourne and I won't see one tonight. It's bedtime.

I woke up today kind of early. I guess it was because I was freezing my butt off and I couldn't sleep as long as I wanted. I am definitely going to buy a blanket today. That is priority #1. I took some new pictures of my room and outside my room. I also did a quick "Krib Video", introducing my room. The only thing different with this video is that I did it with my room not cleaned. I'll clean it later on when I have visitors. I took my first shower and it was amazing. I can't wait for my next one. The pressure, temperature, and sunshower head are perfect. I chilled around my room for awhile and then I decided to go take a walk around and take pictures.

I finally saw Charlene chatting with her roommate, Stacey. What a mix! Charlene is from Ireland and Stacey is from Canada. It looks like it is going to rain today. I hope not, but if it does, a warm day with rain is better than a cold day with rain. We are all supposed to meet up at 7 in Block E. Ash and I need to go back to the mall to check out another store.

We go there and buy stuff we didn't buy yesterday. It turns out that we shouldn't have went to Target. They had their own "Walmart" up on the third floor. We didn't go there yesterday for some reason. It is called Big W, and we got everything for cheap, even those hangers we really needed. I noticed a lot of women taking a second look at me. I know what's running through their minds. Is he a basketball player? It was confirmed when some girl asked Ash in a store if I was a basketball player. We laughed when she told me and showed me who it was. I told her that I thought that girl was following us because I saw her 3 times before that time. We left out the mall and I stole a cart from the back of Target outside because I had heavy bags that I didn't feel like carrying back. I got back and took a nap.

Naptime was real long because I didn't set my alarm and never woke up to meet up with everyone else. I wasn't alone because Ash overnapped and called me about 40 minutes after we were supposed to wake up. We met up and decided to walk around where we live at. There was a party going on but we didn't join. We went to check out the computer lab and it was better than good. We couldn't go on the internet because we didn't know our usernames. We just checked out what they had on the computers and it was just like on SRU's campus.

We walked around some more and I found out that my kitchen and lounge area was right under my room and I didn't notice it until tonight. The fridge was really packed so I don't know what I am going to fit in there. I am in the main building, so everyone stores all their stuff in one fridge from 3 other buildings. I watched a little TV for the first time in Melbourne tonight over in Ash's lounge which is right across the hall from here. We went back to my room and watched half of Kill Bill 2. We were too tired to finish the rest of it. We both took a nap today and now we are dead tired. Bedtime!!!

G'Day Mates...Well I got up around 10. I slept real good last night. I'm looking out the window and its raining today and a lil' cool. Ash and I have to go to the mall and get Internet cards and browse around a couple more stores. We pick up the Internet cards at Symone's and go into a couple stores. We check out a big store that we haven't went into yet and find out that it was a supermarket called Safeway with brands we were more used to. Once again, we found a better store that we wish we would have went to first.

We catch the tram to town. It was a long ride but very informative. We got to see some places to go to later on. We get to town and go to Myers which is the humongous department store, which has many arcades connected to it making the whole place a couple blocks long. I smelled Cinnamon Swirl which pulled me into Myers' cookie shop. The scent was unbelievable, the cookies weren't that awesome though. We went to Chinatown and browsed many stores. We saw a funny fight which I videotaped. We didn't know what was going on but a dude got punched and was about to get jumped. We saw a lot of horses and buggies. Souveniors were bought and postcards. I made a video of the cheapest place we saw so far to buy souveniors.

I found a couple of my favorite stores. Foot Locker and NIKE:Melbourne. Let's just say that I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the shoe prices. You know how Jordans might top out at about $170. Like the new Jordans that just came out. Alright, the price on the ones here was $350 Australian dollars. Which is like $310 American dollars. I will not be buying any shoes in Australia, unless they are some Kangaroo slippers. They had Adidas classics on sale for $80, which were originally priced at $130. My white Air Force One's were on sale for $160. Yea, on sale my butt. I am about to sale some of my shoes. I did a video about the shoes, too. Check me in the summer to see it.

We finally got on the Internet in our rooms. My speed is OK for DIALUP. I feel like I am back in 1995. I feel bad for Ashley because she can't even connect over 14.4 kbps. That really sucks for her, but I am good with my speeds. She will probably be using the computer lab to connect at broadband speeds.

Tonight Charlene, Ash, and I went to Highpoint to go to the movies. The movie Aviator was not playing and that was the only movie that we wanted to see. We were looking for Finnigans Pub which turned out to be switched to the name, Ruby. It looked dead in there so we didn't go in. We ended going to get some pizza at this shop in the mall. We talked a while while eating and then got up and left. Yea that's right we left without paying. We passed some security guards outside the place and about 4 more steps a lady hollered at us telling us that we didn't pay. We totally did not realize what happened. We were use to getting the check at the table but that did not happen. We paid and left. Walked back to Stu'Ville and chilled in my room. Bedtime once again.

Looking outside this morning looks to be another cloudy day. The sun usually comes out bright later on in the day. I was freezing last night, once again. I am going to have to get a real cover to sleep with. I made some phone calls and got on the Internet to chat with some friends. Showertime was great until my hot water started running out. I took a picture of my souveniors that I bought. Im hungry so I call Ash to see what she is up to. She ain't doing anything like usual. She wants to go eat too. I come all the way to Australia and I end up having to fix computers anyways. She wants me to check up on her Internet. There probably isn't anything that I can do, but I'll check it out anyways. If it's slow and working, that is better than not working at all.

Another conquering day at Highpoint mall. Ash and I browsed in more stores. We are pretty good at this shopping thing. Oh wait, we didn't buy anything. We were hungry so we went to eat at Nando's. It was across from the place we ate last night. Both were on the bottom floor of the mall. I wanted to go there because I noticed they had ribs last night. Nando's is definitely the place to be. It was crowded for lunch time. Other places only had a little bit of people. We sat down and our food came quickly. Boyyyyyyyyyyyy was I disappointed!!! I ordered ribs and fries. Check out the picture of my food. Ridiculous!! My fries were bigger than my ribs. The picture of the ribs on the sign looked so big. In real existence, an infant could have had them for a snack. Then they had a bone on them taking away from the little meat that was there in the first place. Let's just say everything was good, but I needed more. I put my Tomato Sauce (Ketchup) on my fries and "went to town" on the food!!!

We browsed some more stores. I came upon a great store for punk, Hip-Hop wear. I wanted to buy this Negro Leagues cap, but they didn't have my size. I was disappointed and it was also $50. In the dressing room we noticed ads for a concert coming up that we will definitely go to. Roc Tha Block Tour with Ja Rule, Chingy, Fabolous, Mario Winans, and 112!!!! Talk about a concert. I'll be there, with all the other Aussies in Melbourne on Saturday, March 5th at Rod Laver Arena.

Overslept Again!!!! Stupid watch alarms won't wake me up. I'm not allowed to take a nap cause it will go over. Ash and I wanted to go to the movies and watch Aviator tonight and guess who blew it, ME!!! Movie was at 845, yea, I don't wake up until 830. I am not going to take a nap the next time we are planning to go to the movies.

Nothing to do tonight so I talk to Ash for a while. We have to get up around 8 something and catch the bus at 915 to go to Victoria University for Orientation. Hopefully we won't be there that long, we want to go check out some things downtown. We are meeting Charlene at the busstop, so it will be a little reunion in the morning since I haven't seen her all day.

Bedtime....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Well today was an excellent day if I should say so myself. Woke up pretty early since I went to sleep early. Caught the bus with a whole bunch of International students. There were lots of Asians and that's who made up most of the group. We have to catch the 406 bus to Footscray Park campus.

We get there and I am excited to meet people from many different countries and there is supposed to be food and Morning Tea. We get off the packed bus of students and wait for someone to greet us and take us to where we are supposed to be. We get there and chill outside. And I mean "chill" literally. They had us waiting outside on benches when it's chilly in the morning. We go in when the food is set up and guess what? There isn't no tea here!!! There is water, orange juice, cookies, and crackers. I am starving. This is nothing but a Morning Tease. Now I couldn't wait to go eat somewhere for lunch. Orientation was cool though. They talked to us for a while about different student services and the best part of all, trips and sports. That is all I was worried about because we already did all our papers and stuff before we came. We have to pick our classes out on Wednesday though.

After grabbing all the goodies they were giving out and signing up for trips to the beach (Big Friday Torquay Beach Trip) and getting information on sports (Basketball/Badminton) and parties Stacey, Ashley, and I went to check out the free food they were giving out. Well, let's just say it wasn't what we were expecting. Rice and beef was the best selection out of two. It was a little nasty but I was hungry so I ate all of it. I was hungry after but I said I will wait till later to eat again. We left after lunch time because the other sessions didn't pertain to us.

Back to the room for a quick drop off and freshening up. We are headed to the mall once again. I can't wait to shop some more. I have some more important things on my shopping list (cell phone, stamps for postcards, plasticware, and some lunchmeat, etc.). It is only us three, still. Charlene and Craig are back at the school still handling some business. I buy this Sony Ericsson phone for calling around Australia. I thought I would need it and it was cheap anyways. No worries!!! (That mean's no regrets or no problem...)

Tonight is supposed to be "Block Crawl" starting in my block, "F". I guess I will get to meet up with some of the students I met at orientation. I don't feel that well. I think I got too much sun today because my eyes are hurting and it is making me feel sick. Hopefully I can last out there with everyone.

Well I had to get my phone registered on the network so I can use it when we go to the beach tomorrow (St. Kilda Beach). I turning in so early just because I don't feel good. I'm missing out mingling with everyone else who is out Block Crawling to "E". It's 10 o'clock and I am hittin' the sack.

Sleeping, dreaming about you know who. :~)

Waking up again around 730. I am use to this morning thing now. Back home, I would be waking up around 11. It's beach day and we should be going around 11. It is going to be a hot day. It is hot already. My cell phone is working now. My number is 04 3737 4474.

The funniest day by farrrrrrr. We left for the beach around 115. We get on the bus across the street from where we live. I was first to get on and I go to the back of the bus. There was 6 of us, so the back had the most room and it seemed to be the "safest". Boyyyyyy was I wrong!!! A little into the trip to Footscray Station, Ashley was talking about her new roommate moving in and how she is a freshman and everything is new to her. Ashley said, "It's her first time!". She was trying to explain how her roommate was getting use to the room and stuff. We were confused and started laughing. Ashley meant, "It was her first year". But the joke was already said. We started talking about some concession cards which you get if you are an exchange student, and not a study abroad student. The man that was sitting with us who was already on the bus, started lecturing and telling us all about Australia. Nobody even said anything to him!!! He started talking about some other crazy stuff, but I can't put it here. He showed us his camera phone with girls he took pictures of (stalkerish type). But I know I said, "It's his first time", and he didn't know what he got into when he just kept on talking. Definitely an inside joke because all of us were cracking up at him. That is what we call a funny busride.

We get downtown after catching the train. We have to catch the tram to St. Kilda now. It was a nice ride to the beach. We got off and we started clicking the cameras once more. The beach was amazing. We saw a lot of people, some women topless, and mostly all men topless. We walked the boardwalk almost to the end to find a good spot to chill. We found one and slapped on the sunscreen lotion. Everyone laid out a towel, but somebody didn't buy any yet. Yep, that would be me. Tomorrow, I plan on buying like 4 towels because I'll be back at the beach because I need to get a little darker. We saw some nasty sites. Dead jellyfish remains, pot belly men, pot belly man massaging himself with sand and mud in the water while kneeling like he was on the toilet, and dirty things in the sand. I collected some sea shells before we left.

We go back to town to catch the train back to Footscray Station, but some funny things happen on the way. Near town, Charlene and Colley decide to hop off and go to the pub that his friend works at. It was so sudden and we didn't even know that they were getting off. Colley gets off first and Charlene is stepping off of the tram and starts telling us where they are going. Well, smart people know not to stay in between the doors of a train, tram, or anything that has closing doors. Guess what happens? Charlene gets smacked with the doors that didn't seem to have any sensors while she was in the middle of saying, "Guy's, do you want to go to the pub and...", when she got an Irish smacking from the tram doors. She was a little boggled and her sandal fell off since her foot got smacked also. I hurried to push it to her outside, so it wouldn't be left on the tram. Well we (Craig, Ash, Stacey, and I) just laughed at the whole incident and rode to town.

We entered Flinders Street station and pulled out our trans cards to enter the station. We all entered without a hitch or so we thought. We were halfway through the station when I said to Craig and Stacey, "Aren't we missing someone!?!". We all realized that Ashley was no where in sight. Then she came running from the entrance saying, "Guys, wait up, my card didn't work!!!". We were totally clueless to her troubles getting in, but this "wasn't her first time (inside joke)". We were all in a rush to get back for the hot dog party at the Stu'Ville. We were all starving. We get back and get in the back of the lonnnnggggg line for hotdogs. We finally get the large hot dog rolls (buns) and put the long weiners in them. We grabbed the Tomato Sauce and Mild American Mustard. We all had two hotdogs, cause we Americans are greedy. I put some bacon bits, that were really ham bits I think, on one hotdog wit some mustard and mustard on the other one. I had Heinz Ketchup waiting for me in my room for me to use. The hotdogs were great and now its showertime. Got to get all this sand and suntan lotion off.

Tonight, we met some more people and saw a lot of people we met before. We chilled outside, then went in the billiards lounge, then back outside, then to Stacey's room. We are supposed to go to Ruby's for Uni-Nite, but I'm not going. I don't have any money because I forgot to cash my Traveler's Checks. I wasn't going to tease myself with seeing all the food and drinks. I am going to go to my room and go on the Internet, type this journal entry you are reading now, and make some phone calls. A movie might get played if I feel like watching one. After that is sleepy time, I have to go sign up for classes and get my Vic U student card in the morning.

Talk to you later...

Today started great. I planned on going to the mall after I get my classes and get enrolled at Victoria University. I was going to go buy some beach towels and sunbathe. It is hot out today. Hotter than yesterday. Ashley and I go catch the bus to school around 940.

We get to school and let's just say that this is the worst day we will have in Australia. It can't possibly get any worst.

It started out with us just going to the assigned room. This seem easy enough and we found the room easy enough. It was on the bottom floor of Building E. Ash and I go in and we see Stacey sitting there already, since Charlene and her caught the bus before us. The lady talks to us about stuff to pick up and about places to go after we have completed picking out classes and filling out all of our papers. We think that this is going to be easy like at SRU. At SRU, we can just get on the website, print out a list of courses that are offered, and then log on and register ourselves. That sounds really easy doesn't it? We are scheduling under the ARTS faculty. We get the course timetables for Victoria and our faces turned "Victoria Bitter".

I feel sorry for Ashley because they didn't have any of the classes that she needed. I just needed a physical education class, an interpreting literature, a history, and one class that dealt with multimedia. That was really simple in my head, but getting it done was a whole other story. I had to pick those classes that were only at Footscray Campus, because that is the timetable I had. Before writing down any of the classes, I had to go to a whole different building to get a gym class because each faculty is different and I couldn't get a gym class just by writing one down. This was where the trouble started. Ash and Charlene also needed classes in the department that I was looking for. We all left that room and started to look for the department that had our classes and nobody knew. We went building to building and orientation person to orientation person just to find out where the Human Development faculty was housed. Let me just say I don't know how long that took, but it must have been at least an hour of running around. We finally found the place after we me some rude people (faculty members). Everyone was so nice until we met up with two ladies in particular, who oversaw the registration of the students signing up under the HD department. All we wanted was a timetable for that department, but nooooooo, they had to be dificult and send us to another spot. We then went to the main office where we met the secretary I think. She was the most helpful person by far. She tried hard to find me a gym class. Ashley and I wanted Bushwalking, but that was full. So she gave me a couple other options like gymnastics and something else. But I ended up just wanting to take Golf. I was set when I got a copy of the timetable which is all we wanted in the first place. Charlene and Ash were a different story. Their classes didn't even exist because we had old course handbooks back home and they were going by the new one. Let's just say they were there a lot longer than I was searching for classes to put on their schedule. Charlene had already registered and enrolled, but now she wanted to add a class that she didn't put on her schedule.

I went back to the Arts Enrollment room and started to plot down my times for Lectures and Tutorials for classes that I had picked. I thought I was good to go until I needed a signature and permission to take a course that was offered by Human Development. Yes!!!! I needed a signature from the secretary on the other side of campus to be in the gym class. So I went back there as quick as I could just to get a signature. This was getting horrible now. I come back and I needed to figure out which Multimedia class I wanted to take. Well, that took about another 45 minutes just because there were all these stipulations with being in the degree track, but I settled that out. After that time, another problem came up. I couldn't get in the Multimedia: 3rd year course until I emailed the teacher for it telling them that I would have learned everything back at home that was taught in the first and second year multimedia course. I am starting to really get upset about how Victoria does their scheduling. By this time Ash and Charlene are back in the room upset as ever and just want to "kill themselves", I was thinking let a kangaroo pounce on them a little. No pun intended Ash and Char. The lady gives me another sheet to fill out about getting the course later after the teacher signs me off on it. It is 10 at night when I'm typing this journal entry and I still haven't sent an email to the teacher. I guess I will do that later.

I finally sign all the sheets and stuff and I now have to go to the room next door to sign into my Tutorial sections. Of course something was wrong and I had to switch some classes around because of time conflicts and going to St. Albans campus for my literature and multimedia classes.

Everything was good to go after I signed into my Tutorials. I am supposed to go to enrollment now which is in yet another building. I take about 10 minutes trying to figure out where the room is and I stand in line for another 10 minutes. I realize that I am in the line to get my picture taken for my card. Yes, once again I made a mistake. I stood in the wrong line for 10 minutes. I then go into the data entry line and take my enrollment sheet to the table to get verified. Guess What!?! There is something else I have to do. My faculty lady forgot to sign the classes off and sign the whole enrollment sheet. I have to go back to the building that I was in and get her to sign it. She left for her office and that means going up to the fourth floor on steps, instead of the first and tracking her down.

I get up to the fourth floor and guess who I see once again. Yes, Charlene and Ashley. They look so tired and angry now, but so do I. I get the lady to sign tmy paper and she apologizes for forgetting to sign them, since she was worried about me getting that golf class I was talking about before. I go back to the line for enrollment, and the lady verifies my sheet. I wait in that line for about 10 minutes and I go take a seat so another lady can enter my data into the computer. By this time, I am just happy to be at this step. But you know what happens. More problems!!! It seems that I had a different student code and I was using someone else's. Then the lady made me a new one and found that I already had my old and different data in the computer already. It had my address from when I was living in Harner Hall. But the more disappointing part was that we couldn't use that one that was already in there and just change it. So the lady had all types of problems getting it to overwrite. She asked a couple people time and time again. I sat there with my hand holding up my head and stared at the wall. I think I was sitting there for about an hour and a half, thinking that this is the worst day in Australia that I will have. She finally uses a new number instead of trying to overwrite the other one. I think she typed in all my information about 15 times. It was so annoying.

I finally got into the line to take the picture and get my Victoria U ID card. I waited in that long line for about 30 minutes. Dont ask me why it takes so long to sit in a chair and take a picture and wait for your card to get printed. I get my card after I thought that I took a brilliant picture. Yes, once again, something is screwed up. My pic is all red and I am in the bottom right corner of it. It looks like the Terminator was looking at me through his red eye. I will take a new picture another day. Another step I didn't want to take. I meet some new friends in line, Lau Wei Tak, Prasshanti Marimuthu, and Kiki. We all exchange information and I advertise my website of course. We all go to get our Medibank insurance cards upstairs. I get there and they don't have my card at the office yet, but that is no surprise to me because everything is going wrong today. I tell them I will talk to them later. It is time to get food because my stomach is yelling at me to feed it.

(7 hours spent just signing up for classes and getting enrolled)

History 1A: Australian History 19th Century
Reading Contemporary Fiction
Golf
Multimedia 3A

After the worst day because of the scheduling and enrolling. I do what makes me feel good. Going to Highpoint. I have to exchange my travelers checks for cash, get something to eat (McDonalds), and get some beach towels which I will get across the street at the discount store. I do all that in reasonable time and go back to my room. I saw some of my friends at the mall and they say they are playing basketball at 8. I will nap till then and see if they come and knock on my door.

It is 10 and I'm doing this journal and I guess your figured out that I didn't go hooping. I napped until 750 and stayed up until 810, then I napped some more until 10. I think I am just going to chill in my room tonight and watch a movie on my computer. It was a hard day and I am looking forward to going to the beach sometime tomorrow, but if I dont have time, Friday is beach day at Torquay.

Check out Charlenes page about her - Her link is the last one on the page
http://srufaculty.sru.edu/mark.zeltner/newmedia/international/RSI.htm

I slept in today. I didn't have anything to do until later. I set up my Vic U email account. If you want to email me with that address you can. It is a long one so you can just click here (david.jackson7@students.vu.edu.au).

This was my day on my own and I intend to use it well. I take a walk to catch the tram about 8 blocks away. Instead of catching 2 trams I just walked to the busstop where I could catch the second one. I get to town and I take walk to find the first Hungry Jacks that I see. I am starving and I want to try out their Whoppers here in Melbourne. I find one after like 10 minutes of walking. I get my Whopper Large Value Meal with a Coke. I dig in and it is as good as home. I am so happy. The whopper is messy as usual and I am loving it. Hungry Jacks is definitely going to be a great quick stop for food in Australia.

After I eat, I go on a little picture spree of town on streets that I haven't been on yet. I walk in the rich parts of town with the expensive hotels. I find a Gucci store and Louis Vuitton right across the street. These two stores alone hold down this corner. I go into Louis Vuitton and look around at the shoes and watches. Too bad they dont have prices around and I can't take pictures of the merchandise. I grab a merchandise and watch book though. A couple people in the store noticed I was American and thought I was really going to buy something. They must be smoking something. I just wanted to take pictures. I leave and head down to the Yarra River.

I go walk on the riverfront of the Yarra and take pictures of the bridges and buildings. There were some rowing practices going on, so I took pictures of that. The sky was great and the tall buildings mixed perfectly for pictures. They will definitely be great wallpaper photos for friends' computers. I have kangaroos on my desktop until I replace it with my own photos of kangaroos that I see here in Australia for myself. I head up through Flinders Station and onto Flinders street.

I stop into Flinders Street Victoria University Center to check up on the orientation and to pick up my Medibank insurance card. I go up there and I see Samantha Thompson, the person I was looking for right in the lobby on one of the top floors. It was really ironic that I ran into her first. We talk a little about Australia stuff, classes, and SRU students that are here with me.

She tells me to go into the room behind her for Orientation for Study Abroad and Exchange Students. I try calling my SRU friends that arn't here, but I had no luck with that. I go chill in the room and there is a good number of people there. There is a reception after this and I heard there is free food and drinks. I am excited. We introduce ourselves and we have a sheet with everyone's name on it. Everyone has to guess which country each person is from our introduction without saying actually where we are from. It was kind of hard. There were so many countries students were from. I got about 18/38 people right. I thought I was going to win the prize she was giving out, but this Italian mate had about 24 right. Of course I advertised my website when I did my introduction and I received a hugh amount of giggles and laughs. I think they thought I was kidding about it, but they will find out later. We talk about stuff in Victoria and learn about different Australian stuff.

We all head up to the reception which is on one of the upper level floors. I go in and I see wings on the table. I am so surprised. I haven't seen wings that look that good in weeks. This is the first time in Australia though. There is a balcony right outside the room overlooking Flinders Street. Everyone is taking pictures including me. It is a bit windy out but that isn't phasing anyone. I go in and get wings and there is also a lot of other food being served. I only cared about the wings though. Beverages were laid out on another table. There was free pop (soda), beer, and wine. I grabbed a glass of wine, a can of Sprite and Lemonade pop (soda). I took many pictures and did some video of everyone that I could and also collected E-Mails and screen names. The University wants to use some of my pictures for their publication, so I will make a CD and bring it to them later.

I stay a long time but leave in a rush because there is a van leaving for the Stu' Ville and I want to be on it. I met a lot of new friends at the Orientation and now I will be able to keep in touch with them. I talk with some more on the van and I realize I don't have my list on me. I think I left it on the table in the reception room. All I can think of is them throwing it away. I call Anup since he was there when I left, but he says he didn't see it and he is back at his place. I just hope Samantha or someone has picked it up. I guess I will just have to wait and email them when I get back to my room.

I get back to my room and email them about my lost paper. I am supposed to go to this big party tonight, but now I don't even feel like it. There is just too many parties going on all the time. I just pick and choose which ones. Some friends of mine wanted me to come over their place, so I will probably do that. They want me to play some basketball later, too. I end up doing that and then coming back around 1230 and talking online and sending some emails out.

Bedtime...

Torquay Beach trip today for Big Friday. I woke up at 6:35. I got an email from Sharon Boyd who is the International Advisor telling me that she found my email address paper. I am so relieved. I go to the busstop around 720. Charlene, Craig, Stacey, and Ashley all are hungover. They come sluggishly to the stop where I was waiting. It is such a cool morning. It is cloudy like every morning, but I think it will rain today.

We get to school and go behind Building M. That is where we are supposed to be to wait for the buses. We are supposedly leaving at 815, but there is no one here yet not even the buses. Craig and I wait awhile, and we thought the girls waited inside since it is cold out. I get a call from Stacey and they tell me they are lost. We didn't even know that they stopped following us, but they come down and soon more people start showing up. The buses are here, but we arn't boarding yet because we haven't checked in. It is like 820 now and everyone isn't here yet. It is raining and we are very upset. We are hoping that it isn't raining where we are going. Torquay Beach is an hour and a half away from the university. The bad thing is all of us are starving and we could have stopped at McDonalds since we came so early for no reason at all. Time to get on the bus.

The bus sucked badly and we should have gotten on the other one. I have 2 broken seats. A little bit into the ride, everyone had to introduce themselves, and tell where they are from and stuff. There are a lot of youngees studying to be Paramedics. There are also many Canadians and Europeans. I am sitting with Tara Kowalchuk who is Canadian. All we saw on the way to the beach were Hungry Jacks, KFC's, and McDonalds. This was really hurting me because I was starving so bad. The bus ride was kind of quick and we got to the beach and it was definitely beautiful. The views were amazing and there weren't that many people there. There were a few old men kite-surfing. I took lots of pictures of the beach and all the students that came on the trip.

We did a bunch of icebreakers and games to get everyone associated with each other and they turned out to be a blast. We made a lot of funny pictures and crazy things happened that I do not have time to type here. But the pictures are definitely funny. I met a lot of girls, since there were a lot in my groups. Everyone calls me KoolDave so it is all good. That means they will be visiting the website as soon as possible.

I eat a muffin and have a drink. Then we go back to playing more games. I knew some of the games like "Have You Ever?" and I forgot to mention that we played the Toilet Paper Game on the bus. The last game we played was definitely the funniest. We played Dodgeball with a Huge Ball and it was knocking people over left and right. Good Times...The rest of the time was up to us.

Craig, Stacey, and I decided to walk to coast and take pictures. We went to the Surf Beach and took pictures there also. We then went on a search for the pub that was up the street. I noticed a Fish & Chips shack on the way and I had to go in there. I got a burger and fish & chips meal. Stacey got a fish & chips meal, also. We then went to the pub, that had a restaurant and wouldn't let us in that part. We went around and found everyone else that was on our trip and snuck our food in with our bags. We went out on the patio so we wouldn't be seen. There was a bunch of us out there and we all talked about out language differences and made fun of each others English words. Check out the word list that was mostly compiled from our conversations out there.

After the English language competition we all headed back to the buses to pick up the other students, like Charlene and Ashley that were at the shopping stores. We all headed back home and I fell asleep I drooled on my shirt a little bit. I wiped it up and slept in a more comfortable and neat position.

We are finally back at the Vic U and it seems like it was sunny all day. But we know it wasn't. I head up to the Arts Office so I can add another class to my schedule. I stop pass at the International Student party and say, "Hi", to a couple of my friends. I continue on and go up to the office and sign a paper to add a class. I grab some other information about Vic U's Multimedia Program. I go back downstairs and go to the busstop. I thought the SRU crew had went back to the Stu' Ville, but Stacey calls me right when I am about to get on the bus and she tells me they are at the International Party. I tell her that I would come back after I change and stuff. I get back to my room to change, check my email, and type in this journal. I go back to the Party and chill for a little bit with them. I wanted to go to the Casino tonight, but that isn't going to happen. I will have to see what I am going to do later on. We leave the Party at 730 and head back to the Stu' Ville.

I wake up to the sound of knocking and all types of music. It is Scavenger Hunt today and I don't feel like getting up. I'll just keep gong to sleep. I finally wake up around 1045 and it is definitely chilly today. I guess I will be wearing a velour suit to keep a little warm. I need to do laundry because it is piling up in my bag.

I really need a convertor for my trimmer. I turn it on and it goes extremely fast. I shape up my mustache and the trimmer smells. I have to shpae up my hairline and mustache and beard real quick so I don't use the trimmer that long or it will get hot.

I am going to go to the theatre for the first time in Australia. I want to see The Aviator. I think everyone else is downtown, so I am just going to go to Hoyts Theater in Highpoint Mall.

I leave around 3 and go to the mall. I stop at McDonalds to get some food (3 CheeseBurgers, small French Fries, and a Vanilla Milkshake). I go to the theatre booth and get a student movie ticket for the 440 showing of The Aviator. The discounted student tickets are $11. I go chill in the game arcade for a while and eat some of my food. It is almost time for the movie and I put the rest of my food in my bag so I can sneak it into the theatre. I go into the room and pick a seat that is in the upper middle. Mostly everyone coming in are old couples. I dip out to buy a drink before the previews start. I pay $4 dollars for a bottled drink of Sprite (horrible price). I go back in and catch part of the "In Good Company" preview trailer. Every trailer that they show I have seen already. The movie starts after 20 minutes of trailers and commercials.

Fantastic Film...It was longer than I thought. It was well worth it though. Leo was amazing as usual. He is definitely one of my favorite actors and he is one of the most talented. Mr. Scorcese produced another masterpiece.

I leave the mall and stop at the store across from the Student Village and pick up some drinks for tonight. Back at the room again. I feel like napping, but I will work on my website for a while. Muhammad comes to get me to play basketball, so I do that till 12. There were some good runs with 6 on 5, 5 on 5, and 3 on 3. I come back and make some phone calls and chill out a bit for the night. Bedtime...

Well I was supposed to get up at 8 so I could meet my community at 9, but that never happened. I woke up at 1025. We have a barbecue at 12 though. So I will definitely be there cause that means FREE FOOD. I make a few calls back home and then take a shower. While combing my hair I notice I have a mosquito bite on the back on my head. This is really going to annoy me.

I go out there and there is no food yet. The Volleyball Tournament and Carnival are about to start though. I stubbed my thumb yesterday and it is still hurting a little. I didn't plan on playing volleyball. I changed my mind about 30 minutes later and went to change my clothes. I thought I should represent Falcon (The F-Block where I live). It turned out that they needed me. They lost the first game, in which I didn't play that much. We won 4 straight after that and ended up losing the last two. It was fun overall and we placed 4th. I ended up eating 4 long sausages with my own Heinz Ketchup from my room. I couldn't use their liquidy tomato sauce. The sausages were great though. There was a lot going on for the carnival, but I was too involved in the volleyball so I really didn't check anything else out. I took pictures from afar though.

After volleyball I went back to chill in my room. That was after like 6 hours. I planned on doing laundry and I went to find Stacey or Ashley for some detergent. They weren't around so Ashley's roomy offered to give me some. I took that and put it in the laundry room. I went to get something to eat at the Chicken place across the street. I got a quarter of a chicken, fries, and macaroni-cheese-chicken as a side. It was good and I had some left over, so I put in the fridge. I went to put my laundry in the washing machines after I got back with my food. The washers cost $1.40 and the dryers $1. I didn't have enough change on me for all of that but someone else was in the laundry room to help me out. I put the laundry in and went into the kitchen to watch TV. I was waiting around to play basketball at 9. I ended up going around 845. My friend Muhammad shaved his head because he got tired of his hair. I saw him right before I went to play basketball. I didn't even know who it was at first since it was dark out.

Basketball was enjoyable tonight. We only played a game of 33. No one wanted to overwork themselves since we have class tomorrow. I only shot around and played that game. I left to get my clothes out the dryer and off the clothing lines. I had to fix up my room also.

My roommate is finally here!!! His name is Adam. I actually was playing volleyball with him earlier today and I didn't even know who he was. I just thought he was in another F Building or something. He is cool though. This is his first year in Uni (College). We talked for a little about our backgrounds and stuff. I then folded my clothes and got my stuff together for class tomorrow. My first one is Australian History-Lecture at 12noon. I am going to sleep early tonight, too. I am going to have lots of sleep. I am tired from all the games of volleyball I played today and the little bit of basketball tonight.

Chat to yall (you all) later.

Such great dreams last night. More superhero ones, those have to be the best. I cut my alarm off like 3 times and I woke up around 1020. I am going to leave here around 1125 to catch the bus.

I almost missed the bus this morning. But with my long legs I was able to run across the street fast and catch it before the driver closed the doors. It came at 1130. I got to school around 1139. It was a longer ride than usual. I went to the snack machines and got a Twix bar and a drink to take to class. I am a couple buildings away in E. I am on the 4th floor. I get up there and there are a lot of people standing outside the classroom. I took the stairs to waste some time. I won't be doing that anymore. I waited outside the classroom for about 16 minutes before going in.

Australian History class has started. The teacher is nice and friendly. She is fun too, so far. Her name is Dianne Avenell. She wants the class to be fun and truthful about Australian History. I can't wait till I start learning about Australia in an Australian class. She used a bunch of terminology I wasn't familiar with when she was asking questions directed to the whole class. I didn't really raise my hand for any of them. I think one of them was when did I graduate high school, but it was asked totally differently. It was a quiet day for me in class, but it was only the first day. We received our Subject & Reading Guide for her class (syllabus) and talked about that for the whole class time. At the end she made sure everyone was in the correct tutorial groups and sent us on our way. It was a good day. That was the only class I have on Mondays.

After class I go to catch the bus and guess who I see. My Fijian friend, Naibuka. He was going to the city to get a concession card. I told him he should come roll with me for a bit. We see another one of friends and we talk the whole way on the bus to Footscray station and then on the train to Flinders Street station. We helped her get to where she was going and then we went to stop at Victoria University's International Student Office. I have to go see Sharon to pick up my email list.

We get to the office and I see a couple more of my friends and I talk to them for a while. Sharon is busy with another student so we wait a while. She comes out to get us and delivers some bad news. She tells me that she lost the paper. She doesn't know what happened to it. She says that she has everyones email on the computer though. So I go in to get that from her off of her computer. It isn't the full list of emails and I do not know who was there and not there. I really wish I had my other paper on it. It had the most up-to-date emails, some notes, screen names, and some phone numbers on it. I feel so bad. I hardly ever loose things that are that important. She says that she will try to find it for me. I talk to Samantha for a little bit and check out the Slippery Rock University stuff around the office. I say bye to everyone and leave the office.

Naibuka and I go to search for Hungry Jack's since we are definitely two hungry "blackjack's". We walk on Flinders then take a left and there it is. Good ole' "Burger King". We go in and check out the menu. I order a Whopper w/cheese meal and a cheeseburger. He gets a chicken sandwich. We go upstairs to eat. I notice once again that they do not have pickles in Melbourne. I ask Naibuka if they have them in Fiji and he says, "Naw". I am really missing pickles on my fast food. But it's cool, the burgers are still good.

After we eat we go to the travel agency down the street. We are checking out prices on airplanes to Sydney. His uncle lives in Sydney and he wants to go there this weekend. I want to go anytime except this weekend. The prices arn't to out liking so we leave.

We then go to Flinders Station so he can get a concession card. We wait in line for a while and the man says he needs his paper from school. We then get on the train back to Footscray. He trys at the window at Footscray station and they say the same thing. We wait a while for the 406 Bus back to the Student Village. We say 2 402's and another bus until the 406 came like 10 minutes later. We get back home and split back to our rooms. I see the crew chilling in Ashley's room. Stacey calls me to come join them. I check them out for a little while. We talk about our vacation plans on Easter Break. I go back to my room to chat to all of you in this journal and then I take a nap. It is sooooooooooo hot today that the sun took all of my energy.

I wake up around 1020. I am hungry so I go get some food from out the fridge. I eat some chicken and some of my macaroni & cheese/chicken. Charlene, Ash, and Stacey come right to the door when I am about to leave. They have some amazing timing. Adam was trying to fix his door since it locks him inside his room all the time. We all chat about things. The girls leave and I go get my food and bring it back to my room. I am going to watch "Ray" while I eat. It is one of the best movies ever, about an entertainer. Everyone should watch it more than once. Jamie Foxx won an Oscar for it and it was well deserved.