The Rest of the Super Long One

Saturday I had my service placement again. This time we started off by going to one ladies apartment and cleaning windows. When we'd finished she had lunch waiting for us, she was super nice! Service placement has been so good! I am really glad I was placed where I was.

Sunday I went with Amy and my host brother Anthony to the Salvation Army church. It was interesting, I thought at first I'd come to the wrong place because the person up front was reading verses in Chinese, but then it went back to English and all was good.

Monday the Indigenous section of the ASC class started and we have an Aboriginal teacher named Jennifer. She's really fun, we drew pictures of how the Aborigines believe the land got settled. i'm really excited for this portion of the class and to learn more about the Aborigine culture.

Tuesday a bunch of us went over to the guys house to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We had chips and salsa and guacamole. Mexican food is very rare over here, so it was nice to have a taste of it again. We played several games of Mafia, it was lots of fun!

Wednesday I had a New Testament paper due (yes, I do actually have school work over here) so I was scrambling to finish that up. For this paper we had to take a passage in Mark and find it's parallel in Matthew and/or Luke and compare and contrast them. It was really interesting. Wednesday night I went over to the guys house and hung out for a while. We were there until 3 in the morning and by that point none of them wanted me to walk home alone, so I went home with some of the other girls and spent the night at their house then left early the next morning to get home.

Thursday I went with Amy and Jess around the city to make a movie. We stopped at Westfield shopping center in Burwood and rode in shopping carts and such up and down their escalator ramp thingys, then stopped by school and filmed some around there. Then we went into the city and swam in several different fountains, Hyde Park fountain being our main destination. It was super fun! Thursday night was movie night, we watched The Castle, well, most people watched it, I kinda slept throught the whole thing. I want to watch it though, I hear it's really good. After movie night we went over to the guys house yet again and hung out for a while.

Friday was an interesting day. For class we were meeting in the city at a museum. Amy and I went to catch a bus to the city, but the bus was 20 minutes late. That was the first thing that went wrong with the bus. Second, we were in the city and the bus turned in one direction that made Amy and I questions whether we were on the right bus or not, we were pretty sure we were, but we decided we should make sure. So, I stood up to go up and ask the bus driver. We were at a red light at the time, but as soon as I stood up the light turned green and the bus driver floored it, jerking the bus forward. I reached out to grab the bars, but missed and went flying backwards down the aisle of the bus past about 4-5 rows of seats and landed in the back sprawled out on the floor. Don't worry I wasn't hurt too badly, it was more shocking and funny then anything. I just banged up my knee pretty good, that's all. Third, on the buses here you have to press a button signalling to the driver that you want off at the next stop, otherwise they don't stop. So, I press the button so the driver would stop at the next stop where Amy and I needed to get off for the museum. We got to the stop and the driver looked back at us and kept driving. We said "excuse me, we wanted off there" but he kept on driving and driving all the way down the road and around the corner to the next stop. By that time Amy and I were in the front of the bus telling the driver that we had wanted off at the last stop. Well, he starts yelling, yes, literally yelling, at us saying that we didn't tell him we wanted off there and he'd asked if that was where we wanted off but that we didn't answer, etc. etc. Well, if he did ask us, we didn't hear him and what the heck are the buttons for if not to signal that that's where we wanted to stop, why did he think we pressed the button, for fun? Anyway, he was still yelling as Amy and I just decided to walk off the bus. He was an awful bus driver. Despite all that, we made it just in the nick of time. The Australian museum was neat. There was a whole bunch on Aboriginals as well as other many cool exhibits, such as skeletons, dinosaurs, jewels, etc. After the mueseum, we proceeded to the NSW Art Gallery and were shown around the Aboriginal art by our teacher Jennifer. We also got to see this new exhibit that had just been put up and wouldn't be opening till the next day, but Jennifer new one of the workers who let us go down and check it out! It was cool! Friday evening a group of us went to the Opera House for the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival to watch a bunch of short films made by Indigenous people. It was free to get in and it was in the Opera House, so why not go?? It was really interesting and I really enjoyed the films. Each of them had a strong message to share about Aborigine's and their culture.

Saturday I had service placement again. I woke up and realized I couldn't really move my neck, I could a little bit to the right, but not at all to the left and it even hurt just to hold my head up sraight, I had to tilt it slightly to the right. This was whiplash as a result of falling on the bus the day before. Despite this lack of mobility, I still went to service placement and I'm really glad I did, it was an amazing day! We re-visited this elderly couple we'd seen back towards when I first started. Dick and Vivian. They are such a sweet couple; they have the kind of relationship I want when I'm older. They have been married over 50 years!!

Sunday I was going to go to Hillsong with Jess, but her bus came early and she missed it so I didn't end up going to that. Instead, I went to meet up with a few other ASCers at the Opera House for more Message Sticks stuff. This time it wasn't short films, it was one longer film called Barking Waters. It was interesting, not the greatest filming quality, but the story was good. From there we went to a local theater to see the movie callled Samson and Delilah. It's a story about two Aboriginal teenagers and their journey. It was a fantastic movie! Very strong message!