It Would Happen To Me!

Sorry I haven't posted lately, I have been super busy. Last week was a blur. Wednesday night we had a St. Patrick's Day party at the guys house, that was super fun! One of the guys DJed and may I say he is an excellent DJ. Not only did a bunch of ASCers come, but several Aussie's came to, so it was fun to hang out with them.

Friday all the ASC students had to be at the school at 6am so we could get an early start to Canberra, which was about a 3 hour drive away. There were enough seats on the bus for everyone to have their own seat if they wanted it, however, some people chose to share. We stopped at McDonalds about half-way and I got a 30 cent ice cream cone! It's never to early for ice cream.
Once we arrived in Canberra, we went straight to New Parliament House (this one was just built recently, there is an old Parliament House too, but it cost money to go in and see it). The plan was to be free to explore, but we found out that the Senate was debating a piece of legislation and they don't usually sit on Fridays, so this was a rare opportunity. We went and watched them for a while, their meetings are very different from the US, I think, from what I've heard about the US ones. The US Senate tends to be more formal, when one person is talking, people listen, it's rude to interrupt. But in the Australian meeting, people would interject with comments at random and were on the phone while someone else was talking or they were talking with someone else in the room. For example, a lady from the Liberal Party (here in Australia, the Liberal Party is most like our Republican Party and the Labor Party is most like our Democratic Party) was stating her opposition to a measure the Labor Party was trying to pass. She mentioned that she didn't know if it's just that they have a good federal Labor Party and a bad state one or what and one guy yelled out "they're both bad!" It was fairly entertaining. After watching them, we went up on the roof where there is a grassy area and some of the group made a pyramid. After that we went to the British High Commission (in Australia, if a country is part of the Commonwealth, then their buildings are called Commissions, whereas if a country is not part of the Commonwealth, their building is referred to as an Embassy). We listened to a Scottish man talk about Britain's relationship with Australia. We weren't allowed to take pictures at the British High Commission, but at the Indonesian Embassy, we were free to take as many as we wanted, so the pictures to the left are of the Indonesian Embassy. Then, we moved on to the Indonesian Embassy. This Embassy was gorgeous, created in a style that reflected Indonesian culture. However, when the guy was talking to us, I had trouble following what he was saying because of his thick accent, so I hope I understood the important points.
After this, we went to the Youth Hostel we'd be staying in overnight and settled in, then went straight into processing group. Processing group entailed all of us going into the leaders room and discussing what we've seen, cultural things we've experienced, etc.
Finally, to end the day, we were free to do whatever we wanted. The hostel had a "pool" if you could call it that, it was tiny and only about waist deep. I ended up playing several games of Egyptian War with a few people. We were getting pretty competitive.

Saturday, we woke up bright and early. We started off by visiting the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. We got to talk to an Aborigine and see how they felt about the government and how they treated the Aborigines. It is appaling to me to see how the government feels they can treat these people, they treat and have treated them is more like animals than people. The government has offered an official apology to the Stolen Generations, but the Aborigine we talked to felt that so far, it was just words and that's it, that it was more for show than anything. The picture to the right is the Aboriginal flag. The red stands for the red land and the black stands for the Aboriginal people.
After that, we headed to the National Portrait Gallery and had a look around. There were some beautiful pieces of art in there. Then, we went to the National Museum. This place was super cool! There were so many hands on exhibits and it was just very interesting. They had a booth set up with all kinds of money that people had donated over the years: Indonesian money, Persian money, American money, etc.
From there we went to the National Gallery, which was another art museum. There was some interesting works of art in here as well. Finally, our last stop of the day was the National War Memorial. This was my favorite place out of all the other ones we'd been to. I love history and being able to build a story and learn how different countries were involved with other countries. In all the history classes I've taken in the US, I don't remember talking about how many Australian lives were lost in wars, so it was cool to be able to see Australia brought in the picture for WWI and II and other wars. The picture to the left is of a wall at the war memorial that lists the soldiers names who died in war. People have put up poppies to commemorate these soldiers.
That concluded our weekend, and it was back to Syndey.
When we got back to school, we all headed home, some people were picked up, but some of us had to catch a bus. Well, the next bus didn't come for another like 40 minutes, so me and two other ASCers went to the local Servo (gas station) and bought some sparklers. Well, we soon realized that we had no way to light said sparklers, so we proceeded to ask everyone we saw if they had a lighter. We finally found a lady who did and lit a few sparklers, then kept lighting more sparklers using the ones already lit. It was tons of fun!

Sunday morning, I went to Hillsong again, then went home with a friend to do homework. We, well, I didn't end up getting much done!

Today, I got off the bus at school and just really didn't feel good, I felt sick to my stomcah and my stomach was cramping really bad. I figured it'd just pass and I'd make it through class. Well, I was miserable all through the first half of class, but I kept telling myself to just make it to break. So, when break time came, I booked it out of there to go talk to Kimberly and see if it was okay to ask my professor if I could leave early. She said it was fine and then gave me a ride home. It's a good thing I left when I did, because shortly after arriving home, I got sick. I would be the one to get the stomach flu while in Australia. So, today has consisted of me sleeping pretty much all day.

At the National Museum, outside, they had a giant map of Australia, and one of the things on it was the Simpson Desert, so here's a picture of me "at" Simpson. And here is a picture of the front of my school.