I LIKE RANCH

I like ranch, lets ponder this, one could say it as a statement, I like ranch, or one could say it as a passive sigh, ahh I like ranch. On the other hand my friend Rene says it when asking for something, for example, we were at subway and they asked what sort of sause he would like on his sandwhich and he simply stated, "I like ranch". I regret busting up laughing, and later let him know its "I'd like ranch" or I would like ranch. but I still sms him fun messages like "I like ranch" to tease him about his "poor english" as he would put it. Its brilliant.

Anyway today I'm here to tell you about this past week. well its been fun as always and full of many adventures. The biggest one was traveling with friends from church to Yanchep National Park about 30 minutes north and camping for 3 nights and 4 days. The best thing EVER!!! The things we did included, swimming in the Indian ocean, body boarding at 6 am, attemptingn to sand surf, have wrestling matches on the beach at midnight under the crystal clear sky, play volleyball(my team won), play ultimate frisbee(no comment haha), relax and just have a blast! I saw a giant lizzard!!! It was like 1.5 feet long and I almost stepped on it coming out of the bathroom or as they call it over here the toilet. I also went running a few days earlier and saw a baby turtle and helped it on its way a bit cuz it looked so dry, it was the cutest thing!! It was about the size of a 1/2 dollar or the dial thing on an Ipod. We saw kookaburras, parrots, and all sorts of stuff!!! I had some great conversations, lessons, and realizations over this weekend. It was amazing. Oh if you get the chance try bread with french fries called chips over here and sauce or ketchup and chicken, its pretty much brilliant! I gained some good friends and will never forget this weekend. I love camping. This week I embark on another adventure. well first, tonight Jazmin and I were hanging out just for fun and Rene walked into my room!! OK this normally wouldn't be that big of a deal but he had been gone for a week!!!! So it was pretty exciting. Ok back to my adventure, tomorrow I leave for 3 days on a bike trip on the Mundi biddi trail with 3 awesome adventurous girls. And thats not all folks, we end our journy on Sunday around 12 and get back around 1, and then at 2 I will be picked up and transported to Fairbridge camp for a week long camp. good times are comin. I will then finish on Friday and be transported back where I will collapse and not move until monday. Just kidding. I will probably do laundry and write all my fun adventures in here. so stay tuned. I am trying to think of a funny story from this weekend but I like the ranch one to much. Oh Rene and Jazmin were trying to teach me German and I was trying to sound out the words on Jazmin's phone and they were just laughing at me and my bad pronunciation. Speaking of Pronunciation Australians emphasise weird parts of words, like in Massage we say MassAse where they say MAssage, ok just ask me to say it, same with Weekend they emphasise end instead of Week, and of course there is the famous nooie or I knowee with saying e on the end, its so weird. Well good luck with that I look forward to hearing your interpretation of these funny sounding words. Until then...

Boo Ya Asparagus

Adventures all over the place this week. Monday Sofia and I biked to the beach and talked about a whole heap of stuff, America, Hurricane Katrina, France, their president and nucs., and Africa. I feel like I don't know what has been going on in the world until now when I can step outside the selfish U.S. bubble and see.
Anyway, Tuesday was pretty uneventful until it POURED down rain, Rene, Jasmin and I decided to play frisbee in the rain and we just got soaked!!! It was awesome, really reminded me of Western. Speaking of WWU, I hear school is about to start and people are moving back in, I really do miss being an RA, but I definently enjoy having more time to myself and being able to pursue the my dreams. I miss the people so much though, stopping in my room, yelling my name, those random conversations on rounds, having interesting dinner conversations, and not to mention random FRISBEE!! In Leisure Leadership and programming we were talking about approaching a challenging situation, and she asked for some examples, I couldn't think of just one to say and no one else was saying anything. After class on Tuesday I also went to this drumming, uhh circle I guess you could call it, we did a bunch of clapping and then I got to play the sambarine, (I dont know if that is right). It was a blast, it really made me think and it was challenging.
Wednesday I had early morning class then got a sim card for my cell phone that Fraser let me borrow, I also called my parents cuz it was their anniversary, but they celebrated it early so my dad could go hunting. I was telling my friends here about hunting and first of all, they couldn't believe my dad has a plane, then they couldn't believe he has a gun. Whatever.
Thursday I worked on projects and finished a whole paper not due till next Wed I was so proud of myself! Friday was great, laid out in the sun, went to the library, told stories about hells hole, canoeing the Gulkana, and some rafting adventures. Most people are pretty keen on visiting me in AK, bring it on!
Friday night I went climbing with Kim, Fraser, Dave, and a couple other people I can't remember their names, but they were cool, Kim and I raced up this wall and she beat me by a second! I was so tired afterwards and we went out for Indian food, I have never had this before, it was super good!!! I didn’t like their yogurt, it tasted like it was rotten, but their sweet rice was amazing.
Saturday I met my ride for training at Fairbridge at 10 am at Stirling train station, let me tell you this was the biggest nerve racking hassle ever!!! Plus I was really sore from climbing, But I finally met Chris and we drove to Fairbridge, the camp I am doing Practical work for and had to go for a training weekend. I met some awesome people and the training was like 1/10 of what I had for RA training so it was really easy. There were two girls that I just got along with great, Di and Amanda, they are so sweet, a bunch of us went for a walk around Fairbride at night just to check it out and Amanda and I got separated from the group and we ended up sitting outside this beautiful church talking about religion. Sooo awesome. Anyway, I didn't get the memo to bring bedding for the weekend, and it was freakin freezing!!! Luckily there was extra blankets so I had like 4 over me and 1 under me and I was toasty warm, I didn't even want to get up on Sunday, and when I got home I took a 2 hour nap.
Then received a text message from Kim asking if I wanted to go camping this weekend, of course I said yes, ok check this out:
Mon-Fri - school, chill, assignments
Friday night-Sun morn - camping
Sun afternoon-Friday afternoon- volunteering for Prac at Fairbridge
Friday afternoon-Sunday afternoon - bike ride for adven. rec. management on Mundi biddi trail.
Yeah its full on!!!! I am excited though. I can't believe I am already in week 8!! It is weird having to think of food that is going to go bad in those 10 days or library books that need to be returned. Speaking of that, I am reading this book called, Kijana by Jesse Martin who sailed around the world, but the book is about another sailing trip he took with friends over 3 years. It is really good so far. I am also reading a book about Sea Kayaking for a future trip from Alaska to South America. Well, my friends, until next time, boo ya Asparagus.

John Forest National Park

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!
FOR ALL THE SEPTEMBER 11TH VICTIMS, YOUR MEMORY WILL LIVE ON FOREVER IN EACH OF US.

This week has been really relaxing, untillllll I realized I have a TON of projects due next week!!!!
So I have been juggling....

Project 1: With group create and run a program on campus, ours is martial arts exhibition
Project 2: With group plan and initiate a 2 day 1 night hike.
Project 3: With group plan and initiate a 3 day 2 night bike trip.
Project 4: With group plan a marketing strategy for a certain product.
Project 5: Attend a Prac training session and Prepare for Prac. (practical work)
Project 6: Submit a 1500 word essay on a leader. (Lance Armstrong)
Project 7: Write 2 1,000 word essays about an outdoor disaster and leadership in the outdoors

I have heaps of projects to work on as you can see, quite a few are due this week but a few next week as well.

I did a couple of exciting things though, Watched Harry Potter Thursday night!!! SOOOOO fun, except that I had to get up early on Friday to do our Micro Theme Tour this was 40.8 km's for all you Americans that’s freakin 25.35 miles. Now this may seem like not to much, but after 20 km uphill let me tell you, it's hard, but it was 20.8 km downhill as well so that wasn't to bad. In 4.5 hours I was dead tired. I was dirty, tired, and hungry. After a shower, food, and nap I was bouncing off the walls! I had so much energy! I went to hang out in unit 14 and the English bloke Richard to tried to swallow the gold fish awhile back and I started playing little games like thumb war, flip the coin, the slap the hands game, and we leg wrestled, then we ninja fought. I won almost everything, except for leg wrestling. It was fun, then I decided to get to work and worked on projects forever!!! Then hung out with Rene and his friend from Germany, Jasmin who is here for 9 months traveling and working!
Saturday Rene, Jasmin and I went to Fremantle or Freo to shop and it was a good time. I had MEXICAN FOOD!!! It was super good for being in Australia! My knees hurt from the day before but we got around alright. It is like the Seattle Market, super cute with a bunch of Australian stuff. We were really tired when we got back and a little ornery so we all took a nap, then I watched, Jack and the beanstalk: the real movie, it is quite interesting. Then Worked on more projects, then watched "The Time Machine" dude, that is a sweet movie, I really liked it. It really makes you think about time and how small we really are but how the choices we make effect the future. I really had a hard think about it all.
Sunday I went to Stake Conference, the couple that bring me to church have 4 children 2 sons and 2 daughters and I have met 1 son and 1 daughter, well today I met their other son, Fraser, he is the man!!! We got on great from the start and he invited me to go over to his friends house for lunch, I met a bunch of people and hung out for a long time!! Then Fraser and his best friend Kim came over to my place and we were just talking. They are so hardcore, they run and bike and climb and just have a ball!! I'm so glad to finally meet people that like to do things I like to do. They invited me to go climbing with them on Friday as well!
Sofia and I are going biking tomorrow morning to Burns beach if it is nice. It better be. Well I haven't been sleeping well so I am going to try to get a good nights rest and work on all my projects tomorrow. I hope all is well wherever you are.

Tooth Flesh

Last week was largely devoted to a paper, whoo, I'm just glad its over. I will never look at the book, "The Adventure Alternative" by Colin Mortlock again. Anyway, when that was done I went shopping and watched Wedding Crashers with my good friend Frank. He is the best. Australian guys are not as gentlemenlike as I have seen in America, but Chinese and especially Germans, are for sure. I can't believe what’s going on in New Orleans and I hope America is coming together over the tragedy. It is front page headlines over here. I have mostly just been hanging out watching movies really. This week was wicked though!!!
Mon and Tues I just had class but on Wednesday I decided to change that, I got up early and biked to the beach. It was surprisingly only 20 minutes away, I stayed there for 2.5 hours then headed back in time for class!!! It was beautiful! So I think I will do that more often. While I was there I decided that I would have a new adventure everyday and so far I have.
Thursday I went biking in John Forest National Park, I was one of 5 in my class to make it up this hill without putting my foot down. We went through this tunnel as well and it was so trippy, it looks like the end is closer that it is and in the middle of the tunnel you feel so disoriented! It was wicked. One girl ran into the wall! You couldn't see anything except the hole in front of you. After the bike ride my group that I am going on the 3 day 2 night tour with got together and we planned out most of our trip. The I got dropped off at the train station and rode the train to the Joondalup station. There I went shopping for food and headed home. Fell asleep for 2 hours then found my running partner and went running. My running partner is David from Sweden. He is 24 and is a computer science major, he is really smart and is learning english, he speaks it really well. He is psyched about running!!! We planned for every Mon and Fri.
On Saturday a friend, Vanessa from one of my courses invited me and Rene (from Germany) to go to Lancelin which is an hour north. We went with my friend Vanessa, her daughter, her niece, her mom, friend, brother, and 2 other guy friends. Ok so Lancelin has SWEET AS big sand dunes and its right by a gorgeous beach!!! So we had a picnic or sausage sizzle, then headed out to the dunes after renting two sand boards. We sand boarded all day!!! The sand boards are like skate boards without wheels, really short, with straps on the top to hold your feet on. You have to wax the bottom every time you go. It was a blast. I have videos of Rene and I going down the dunes, it was awesome!!! I got better as the day went on and made it all the way down this HUGE dune without falling!! Then after we got bored, tired, thirsty, and hungry, we headed to the beach, which was AMAZING. I decided I was going swimming even though I didn’t bring a swim suit. I had extra clothes. Rene threatened to throw me in, well it was more like he picked me up and was walking toward the ocean and I had to plead with him not to. Anyway we ended up swimming out to a sweet boat. I wanted to go to this island that was farther out but after we got to the boat and I had swallowed enough sea water from the waves I decided no thanks. (We weren’t really going to anyway). This was my first time in the INDIAN OCEAN!!! It was wonderful. Then Rene and I just stood on the beach looking at how beautiful it was and contemplating life. I would live there, or at least go back any day of the week. I wore 30+ sun screen!!! My family would be proud remembering the blisters I sustained on a certain trip to mexico. I still got burnt a little bit but definently more golden brown like my Minnesota mum. On the way home we were tired, hungry, and dirty. We jammed out to Black Betty, American Pie and Top Gun, it was TOTALLY WICKED AWESOME. So that was my most recent adventure.
Today, Sunday, is father's day here, so Dad, HAPPY 2ND FATHERS DAY!!! I watched the Old Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory on TV last night. It is still pretty good. Later today Rene came over to get the pics I took and we talked about deodorant and toothbrushes, and he said tooth flesh, instead of gums, which I thought was pretty funny.
I don't think I will go to Thailand even though I really want to. My dad’s right, I should wait till I graduate to save money and maybe go to Thailand as a graduation present. I guess I will travel around Australia. I mean there are sweet places to go here and I can still go to the beach and it will cost less and it is cleaner and its not monsoon season. So its all good and Rene said I can travel with him and his friend when he gets here so that is an option too. He is traveling for 3 months over the summer around OZ, Lucky. But then again I get to go to Hawaii so I am pretty lucky as well.
www.gowesthandbook.com its all good stuff. Till next time......