Reading Room

So I finally made it down to the fancy reading room at Uni Adelaide. It was the original library, but as the university grew they built a bigger library on top of it! So now its down at the bottom of the library.

Also encounter some pretty amusing graffiti down there too!  

Anyways, I felt very fancy.

Passover Post

Soo... I don't know if I brought this up before, but I am literally the only Jew at St. Marks. Maybe in all of Adelaide. Anyways it's been odd, coming from the valley. I've been asked questions such as "do you eat meat? and others about Judaism in general. Which I have been happy to answer, clear up any misconceptions. The fact that I don't eat pork (Not because I'm Kosher... because I don't like it) has thrown people for a loop.

Anyways, I don't know you're thoughts on divinity (I not tooo religious to say myself) But I think I can say that I've come as close as I've ever been to having today. I can say, in my own way, I have received a direct message from the man himself.

I know it sounds crazy, but here me out.

So I was at the thrift store today, having a quick browse as it turns out tomorrow is Thrift Store pub night. As most of my clothing comes from the thrift store anyways, I wasn't too concerned but it's been a stressful week and I thought I could use the break.

Anyways, as I was browsing I happened upon this.

A sign of my people here in Australia, no here in Adelaide, no here in the thrift store right round the corner of my room. I even had been mediating on my lack of passover and jews for the past couple of days.

Also considering the fact that there are oh no Jews here, I had to take it as a sign. (a 3$ sign... but I'll take it) Made me feel a bit better about missing brisket and passover with the family, like a "don't loose hope" sort of a thing. Anyways, I thought it was pretty cool, bodes well for our Debating Match tonight (which I am a part of .... reserve of course keeping up my record)

Happy Psah from your friendly Australian prophet... lol! Mozzies (aka Mosquitos) here are a pain

ALSO should mention I finally got myself an official St. Mark's "jumper" or rugby shirt.

My Preppy Journey is complete... for now

Swimming

So we won Swimming! Yay! It was so fun, we all went on the bus to the aquatic center in our colors. Thanks to Glen for the photos btw.

A lot of people showed up!

The winged lion (our emblem) 

Even the Master wore here colors.

Everybody did so well, but nobody really knew we won until the very end. The Girls and the relays really sealed it (a la olympic come from behind win in the last relay) The team was pretty stoked

 And so was all of St. Marks!

All and All I can say my first viewing of a swimming match was a success! They had all of these silly events (cannon ball contest, wet shirt relay) to keep us busy during the interim's. We then had a pub night at Flinders (another college...and second place in swimming) which was interesting and fun.

Sidenote

My room is coming along nicely. My wall of accumulated pamphlets is coming along nicely. But I have to confess I did buy one decorative item.

It's a handknit, bran new "knee blanket". It just makes the room so much more cheery and it was only 15$. There several other options (this person whips out blankets I guess) but I went arbitrarily with the biggest one in hopes of it covering the bottom of my vast queen bed. Not quite... but I still love it. I mean a hand knit blanket would be such an effort if I did it... Anyways this is sort of a useless post, but hey not everything in Australia is avoiding killer snakes and drinking large vats of alcohol.

Garden Party/ Beach BQQ

So people here in Australia take costume parties very seriously. Contrary to the Mean Girls "I'm a Mouse" costume, people here actually dress up. I went as random garden woman/ little miss muffet/ miss paddington. It was a bit cold and rainy but this day party was still pretty fun. Only bummer was towards the end of the party I got hit by drunk people on a swing and lost my hat (May it RIP) and got a mighty bruise I am still dealing with a week later. St. Marks sponsored free cider/beer on the lawn. Enough words.. just pictures

More on FB if interested. 

Also forgot to mention that a couple weeks ago, St. Marks arranged a beach BQQ on Henley Beach (some snags on the barbie of course). It was a bit cold, but it was so nice. I actually went into the water despite large fears of this being just another way Australia was trying to kill me. Seriously EVERYTHING HERE IS OUT TO GET YOU. Even the ants are big purple and scary. Not ok. At the beach we played beach cricket, people jetty jumped (aka jumped off the dock) and played volleyball  Here are some pictures courtesy of a buddy.

 I took these two.

Will write about Swimming Next!

Food in Adelaide

So South Australia (historically) has been one of the few places in the entire world where Coke products are not the top selling drink. Instead it's Ice Coffee. Except it's not the iced coffee we know and love (aka Coffee and Ice). But instead it's this sugary, frappachino thing that you buy in these big bottles. At fancy shops I heard there is even ice cream. But true to my adventurous spirit, I decided to try one.

It was pretty good. I wouldn't go as bonkers as they do. Sorta just tastes like a starbucks frap but bigger and a little more high quality. While I'm on the topic of food, not only is Vegamite a thing here but also Tim Tams. They're super cheap because they are actually made here and it's such a phenomena that an entire box of them came in my welcome bag (along with a jar of vegamite.) They were very melty the first time I tried them, but after a good camp out in the fridge (where they still remain) I tried again. SO GOOD. They're pretty much like chocolate covered gram crackers, but better (and with a chocolate gram cracker).

Also despite the CRUSHING blow that there are no cheese its here (friends?), I have found a worthy substitue. Shapes. They are a baked cracker and have a chedder flavor. I have gone through WAY too many boxes already, but to be fair they're a relatively small serving size (like everything here.) They do have a large variety of different flavors that I may look into. Though it turns out that Australia has a greater obesity problem with America, which is sorta hard to believe. As we decided after discussion that Australia has more mildly obese people while America puts all it's eggs in one basket so to speak. ALSO they has Great gummies here. They have Killer Pythons which pretty much are a couple REALLY long gummy worms. Very satisfying. 

Also they have this Natural Confectory which has very tasty gums in several different shapes. Personally I am a fan of the Dinosaurs (duh). 

On another note they have a shop called Valley Girl here, which is amusing in the context of this blog.

I'd been wanting to go (because of the name). Turns out it just sells crappy cheap clothes. 

That's all for this random post. Will write about Garden PArty next. 

(Also sidenote, got a turkey sandwich the other day. The woman behind the counter even suggested cranberry sauce. You speak my language..... BEST THING EVER. Oh Blue Table... I do miss you)

Tennis and Future Music

Soooo! Its been an exciting weekend. Starting out, I was on the first Kitchen Duty of the semester. To save money the College hires less people on the weekends and has students help out once or twice a semester. I was on Brunch and it wasn’t too bad except did I smell AWEFUL at the end. Bacon might be a nice smell, but not on your body. Also, through out the week I tried out for the tennis team and made it! So we had workouts everyday for a week, until Sunday. So at St. Marks what happens is that teams work out a lot for a short period of time, have a tournament against the other colleges in one big huray and then move on to the next sport. This was the same with tennis. Turns out I ended up being the Sub and didn’t actually play on the big day, which turned out to be rather nice as it was pretty hot and was quite a high pressure situation.  Unlike Pitzer EVERYBODY comes out for the sport teams head to toe in St. Marks attire.

So I got to spend the day sitting in the grandstands (in the shade, in workout clothes) and cheer! Plus I got to ride over in the Gassy with the rest of the team. The Gassy is a 1966 (I think?) Milk truck like thing painted St. Marks colors (and crest of course) with wood benches in the back. Sort of a cultural item of pride over here. Of course we had a BQQ at the courts with sausages. We did pretty well, but unfortunately we lost to Aquinas ( our arch rival whom, according to our chant, has VD).  Which was a bummer but at least I got to meet some nice girls and get a 6 pack in the process (for the moment at least).

Then on Monday, it was a national holiday in honor of the horse races. I went to the Future Music Festival.

 Quite an experience… we started drinking at 10am. It was SO HOT. But got to see some great acts like Fun. Madeon, Ellie Golding, Hardwell, Avichii and Psy (who played Gungam style TWICE. One for the cameras and once for the crowd.)

Yesterday went to go see a couple of St. Marks kids perform at Adelaide Fringe, which was pretty amusing.

Anyways finished Uni for the week. Looking forward to the Garden Party this weekend and getting internet back. 

Preppy Polo

Got my official St. Mark's polo today. Feel like I really made it.

Also went to my second day of classes. Today was American History. Quite a funky class, it's based on reenacting the past. AKA reenacting the Trial of Anne Hutchinson and The Revolution. Everybody is assigned a character and it's pretty much like a murder mystery class.  

Thrift Shop Success?!

So went to the thrift store to get some sweat pants. Came back with a briefcase. My life is lol

 Also a stupid sunhat and some other stuff. Though the stupid sunhat is technically for a costume party, I might just start wearing it out because i'm sort of obsessed.

More O'week

So I just finished quite a crazy week. They woke all the Freshers up at 7am for "morning activities" and  we went out every night. A Pub Crawl where we had to find the badge for our nickname. This had to be put on a tie that had to be worn at all times lest you be ponded. We had a toga party where they took us on a river booze cruise (of course after making us roll down a hill and elephant walk all the way there) There was quiz night where every table dressed as a country (some were pretty offensive though) and then we all studied for a Fresher Exam on the handbook that ended up being a fake! Then it was onto formal dinner where we all had to wear our hogwarts-esk formal dining gown and the college provided free drinks. No getting up until the president rises and no sitting down until the Master sits at the high table.

One of the days was a drop off. This means that they blindfold you, ducktape a dollar to your arm, take all your belongings, put you in a funny costume and drop you somewhere random. Our job was to get back. For my dropoff, me and three other girls were buried up to our necks in wet sand (while the blind folds were still on!) at Henly Beach I was in this way too small chinese dress so it sorta just stayed open (I had had the forsight to wear an undershirt). Once we finally unburied ourselves from the sand, it turned out one of the girls I was with had a friend a couple blocks away. We went and knocked on her door and luckily she gave us money to catch a bus. Now part of the challenge is to bring back "cool" stuff to get bonus points. Well on our walk to the busstop we found an abandoned shopping cart. So we managed to convince the bus driver to let us take it on the bus with us (quite a feat). But Considering what I wearing (too small chinese dress) the condition we were in (covered head to toe with sand) and now pushing a shopping cart, I looked pretty odd. It got to a point that I couldn't go into the stores with the other girls because from the looks I received people thought I was actually a crazy person. Two women walking past me to get into a store were heard mumbling after giving me the once over "well isn't that special". Great. Not to mention one of the wheels was bum, which didn't help. The funny part was that our floor actually went back to Henly for dinner that night. I could finally grab a picture. Played some beach cricket, and got some fish and chips.

   

Today we ended the week with a service. We all walked in our formal robes to the cathedral with a great banner. It was A LOT of pomp. I recently joined Choir and we didn't do too bad of a job with our song especially since we had only practiced a couple times. And then it was yet another BQQ and sausages except this time I was better prepared with some tips on how to make my sausage fit better on the bread provided. All and all a more satisfying experience. Then it was onto a tennis tournament which though fun was quite long. It's funny they just set up courts right on the lawn. Sets you up for some very strange bounces.

Onto university classes tomorrow!