Chelsea's Australian Blog

This is a blog for the people who are wondering where my blog went. I will try and give you bullet points of the last three months and if you have any questions, feel free to comment and I will answer. Sorry for the lack of detail in advance.

- I am enjoying my internship. I only have two weeks left. I am learning a lot and, once again, have no clue what I am doing with my life.

- It is fall time in Sydney and it has been rainy and windy. Not necessarily cold which is kind of annoying because I hate feeling like the humidity under my rain hood is 123%.

- Classes are going well. I am writing a paper on how media creates imagined communities and another one on how vocality distinguishes different types of music. I also have an assignment due in math tomorrow. Yay!

- Spring break was amazing and I wish I had blogged during the trip so I could share more about it. It was great to see the family (minus kyle ☹) and Carrie and I loved getting to see New Zealand together.

- I did the bridge climb when the parents were here and I am SO glad I did. It was an amazing experience that I will remember forever. For anyone afraid of heights, just do it! Sorry to draw on Nike for inspiration, but it is definitely not as scary as you may think it is.

- Gloria Jeans is still my coffee place. I get coffee every morning still and it is my main expenditure, which is a little depressing but oh well.

- It is weird to look at my countdown on Facebook and see that I only have 30ish days left. It feel like time has flown yet not. I am ready to come home, I miss America, my family, and Robbie.

- There are weird commercials here. Seriously, you watch them and go “WTF!!!!” They make no sense. Some are funny, some are just weird. For a funny example, look up “Cadbury eyebrow commercial.” That one is good. For a not so funny one, try “Bushnell’s Australian Breakfast Tea.”

- I have a new favorite TV show. Master Chef Australia. It is on almost every night of the week and it makes time fly. Sunday night is the fun night to watch so all the roomies will get together in the living room and watch. So much fun!

- Our dishwasher is still sitting in the corner of our dining room. Don’t ask.

- Our oven was fixed yesterday. Don’t ask.

- There is a problem with our dryer. Don’t ask.

- The mailmen deliver the mail on little motorized bikes. It is funny to watch them come down the street delivering the mail. They don’t walk but then again, I am not sure how we deliver mail in the city in the US. Us country folk get it via a Jeep. Haha, it sounds so much more rough than it really is.

- I have found that if I go to Starbucks after work as well and drink my coffee mildly quickly I can catch the train to Wyong, which is SO much nicer than the other trains, and there are usually ‘fewer’ people.

- Rachel went skydiving today. I hope she is okay, still haven’t heard from her.

- Grey’s Anatomy has caught up here to where it was when we left the states! Yay! (Anybody who watches Grey’s will see how I made the connection between this comment and the previous one).

- ‘Jai Ho’ is now on my playlist.

- Rove is my new favorite TV host.

- I don’t like spelling organization ‘organisation’.

- People don’t pick up their garbage here. It is very weird. You are at a coffee shop that has a garbage ON THE WAY OUT and they still leave there cups on the table. I am sitting next to this lady who just sat down at a table where these people did that and she took their garbage, put it on the bar, not in the garbage, and went to get her coffee. Where you pick up your coffee is right next to another garbage. People are weird or rude. I have not decided yet.

- I went to see “17 Again.” Zac Efron should not be allowed to take his shirt off. People get distracted. Really good movie though!

- I miss the Woodburn Outlet malls.

- We have found that Australians refuse to say French words without saying them the way they would be pronounced in English. For example, fillet (like a fillet of fish) is pronounced fill-it. Yeah, explain that one. Not that the word advertisement is French, but the pronounce it ad-vert-is-ment. The ‘is’ in the middle is pronounced like the verb would be. Very interesting.

- I also find it quite disturbing that most Australians do not know their own national anthem. I have heard the US anthem on TV but not the Australian. Kind of weird. I would hope that about 75% of the US citizens would know the anthem. Maybe that figure is a little high, but perhaps not.

- Kevin Rudd is the prime minister of Australia. I only know this because I watch Rove. Sad.

- In my Australian media class we were talking about “Summer Heights High,” which is possibly the most FUNNY show ever made, and my LECTURER said that Americans would not find it funny because we don’t know the public/private high school construct. My lecturer said that! Are you kidding! We have the same problems with how the private and public high schools work. Personally, I think Australia needs to stop comparing itself to Britain and the US and just bask in their own glory for a little bit. They have a great and diverse country but for some reason they always feel the need to draw comparisons.

- I met a girl from Greece in the library the other day. She was super nice. She grew up outside of Corinth and I was super jealous. She moved to Australia ten years ago to get a better education. Interesting.

- Australia has no bill of rights protecting basic freedoms. But they have a form of rights that allows them to do things that the bill of rights does for the US. But they can be revoked more easily. I found that surprising.

- “Poker Face” is quite possibly my new favorite song.

- This guy sitting next to me at the coffee shop has a piece of paper that has the words “Hillary Duff Yesterdays” written on it. I wonder…

- I have been getting good use out of my gym membership. Carrie and I go a lot together and we enjoy the time. Our favorite class is Ab Blaster with Liesal. I now have the strongest abs I have ever had. Grr! (Insert mean face here)