Now that I’m older, the distances on maps have gotten smaller…

Song: “Heers” by Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin

Date: Monday, June 1st

Whereas, this was the last week of classes, and whereas, the last week of classes is stressful and induces memory loss, I have no idea what really went on this week.  I have a feeling there was a paper due, and some homework assignments, and probably a lab report or three due.

This was my last optics lab ever, and I hadn’t missed any, so I didn’t have to make it up.  I just handed my last lab in during class.  My physics professors at Macquarie were really wonderful.  I enjoyed being in small classes, as much as I thought I wouldn’t. 

You come beating like moth’s wings, spastic and violently…

Date: Sunday, May 31st

Song: “Moth’s Wings” by Passion Pit

Last lab report ever for optics due tomorrow!  Wahoo!  I undoubtedly woke up late, didn’t start working on the assignment until late in the evening, if at all, and then finished it exhaustingly in the morning.  Good grief.

Never trust a ho…

Date: Saturday, May 30th

Song: “Don’t Trust Me” by 3Oh!3

Today was the day of the Australearn vs. AIFS Powderpuff Football game.  I’m not exactly sure how I got involved in this because I’m not technically in either program, but everyone knew my loyalty lied with Australearn, so I was playing.  Plus, it sounded fun.

I missed out on my senior year high school powderpuff game because of a stupid college dinner I didn’t want to go to, and junior year I never got to play, so I was pretty excited to be a part of this team.

The Australearn guys (our coaches) got really, really into it.  We had practices beforehand and plays and huddles. I think there were even notecards with plays written out. 

Huddle formation:

Anyway, we played the game after it had been raining for a long time, and I was actually pretty shocked that it had cleared out for as long as it did.  There was even a cool rainbow. 

Those AIFS girls were obnoxious.  And I’m normally pretty easy going, but they came to the game drunk and actually stole some of our celebratory drinks during the game.  Uncool girls, uncool.

We played our hardest, but due to some odd calls and our bad luck, the other team won.  We were really disappointed. 

But it was a good time.  Team picture:

Nick and Jon, our fearless coaches.  And Mike, our fearless videographer. 

Anyway, in our post-loss rage, we decided that we should go our and celebrate anyway, which led to one of my favorite bus rides of the semester.  On the bus, we drank steadily, as was our custom, but this time we played drinking games while occupying the back half of the bus.  It was nuts, and a lot of fun.

We went out into Sydney, lost half of the people we came with, and went to a few places.  One of which, Niki couldn’t get into because the bouncer thought she was intoxicated (not true actually) and another on George that we went to for St. Patty’s Day.

There was a penguin involved:

I’m not sick, but I’m not well…

Date: Friday, May 29th

Song: “Flagpole Sitta” by Harvey Danger

I was sick today.  I went to class anyway, sniffly and gross, but I was not pleased about it.  I likely was up too late finishing a lab report. 

But I didn’t really care, because tonight I was going to the Sydney Opera House to see Brian Eno give a speech. 

In the morning it was starting to look cloudy, and some of the birds were going crazy.  These few are in the tree by the U@MQ building.

Anyway, but I got ready to go to the Opera House.  This was my first time going inside it and I was pretty excited about it.  It was raining like crazy there, but I brought my umbrella and all was well.

The lights on the Opera House had started as a result of a festival the Brian Eno was curating (I believe called “Luminous”) and despite them looking gorgeous actually, my pictures are subpar. The rain didn’t help, but I have a few older pictures of them looking better.

Anyway, you were NOT supposed to take pictures inside the theater…which I honestly didn’t read until after I was yelled at, so here’s the inside of the theater I was in.

They didn’t care so much about you taking pictures of the lobby, so I have a bunch of those too.  I got there ridiculously early because I didn’t want to miss anything.  Brian Eno is a very fascinating person who has led a very interesting life.  He is a master of ambient music, as well as having produced albums for The Talking Heads and U2.  He also wrote the Windows start-up music. (Ironically, he composed it on a Mac.)

I wrote a lot more about his speech in my aesthetics journal for my Aesthetics class at Macquarie, so hopefully I’ll link you to that when I remember.

Oh right, but the lobby for my opera house theater looked a little like this:

 

Here’s my ticket.

I also really liked the bathroom:

Here’s a shot of the lighting apparatus that was illuminating the opera house.

After my show, which was very interesting, I walked around to one of the other parts of the opera house, which was a gallery displaying a constantly changing group of colorful geometric shapes on a screen.  I sat there until I became bored, which wasn’t long, and then took my sick little self back out into the elements.  I walked past the Opera Bar, which is underneath the street level leaving the opera house, but had no interest in staying, except to warm my feet briefly with their space heaters.  I then headed up to the Circular Quay stops and grabbed a brownie with gold flakes.  The gold flakes added nothing to the flavor, but it looked pretty cool.

From there I tried to find if anyone I knew was in town to meet up with, but pretty much no one was.  It was a very rainy evening.  I did take a few more pictures on my walk back to the bus though.

More of the Luminous exhibit:

 

An interesting church on the way to the bus:

And then I went home and rested up.

Listen Natalie, this is your last chance

Date: Thursday, May 28th

Song: “Believe Me Natalie” by The Killers

This was a less than memorable day.  Something tells me I was doing a lot of work and not a lot of fun things.  Probably had a lab report due. 

Black fingernails, red wine…

Date: Wednesday, May 27th

Song: “Black Fingernails, Red Wine” by Eskimo Joe

After the crazy evening of before, with all the free concerts and pancakes, we got home fairly late from Scruffy’s.  BNO was good as always.

Everyone had people they knew visiting:

Bobby’s brother Jimmy was in town, and together the two were a very interesting pair.  Tara’s friend and cousin from earlier were in town, and Kat and Erin’s friend Lily.  I got a little bummed that NO ONE visited me the entire time, but it wasn’t really that big of a deal.  I had a lot of fun regardless.

The rest of Wednesday was another day in lab which has proven to be incredibly not memorable.