Yellow Jelly beans and Rod Stewart

I didn't think I had much to write about last week and its pretty much the same this week but we will try it anyway. I will just give you the highlights except fo the next sentence. I have been studying quite a bit, missing out on Rottnest Island and the beach. I went to Fremantle on my own which was a blast and stalked some missionaries, haha not really. I loved the markets, that atmosphere is so relaxing and fun to be in. There was a sweet kite shop which made me think of my mom. I will put the picture in here oh and there was a lady outside singing "lets go fly a kite!!" My group that went on the Bike trip and I gave a presentation on Wednesday and we rocked it!!! It was so fun and we made it really funny. I also met another American (Christen) from guess where?? Washington!!! She is from the east siiiiddeeee though. She is still cool. Her mom married an Australian so they moved here. She is preparing to go on a mission and isn't able to work so we have been hanging out lately. Christen, Nichole and I are making a Christmas box for children that are less fortunate. I went to a welfare expo today which was cool and we got free ginger bread cookies. On Thursday Christen and I went to buy my bus ticket to travel up north to Exmouth on November 10th and we got to talking and I invited her to travel with me. She said she would have to think about it and ask her rents. We then went climbing which was a blast than met Nichole for late night shopping. I was dead tired. I am really missing ultimate. I love my nalgene. Anyway so she talked to her parents and they decided to give her an early Christmas present so she is going to travel with me!!! I feel good about this and think it will be a good time. I have a Prac portfolio due on Monday which is 30+ pages long and my supervisor from the actual prac hasn't gotten the info I need to me!!! So basically I"m freakin out. I also have a 1,000 word paper to write and present by Tuesday, haven't started. Thursday I am planning on taking my final marketing exam to be done with the class, started studying today. So yeah, I have quite a bit to do.
It's weird thinking of saying goodbye to everyone over here. I am really going to miss my roommates, Frank, Rene, Sarah, Richard and the lot. Sofia and I went to the lake to study today, it was so beautiful and hott!!! We ended up talking for like 2.5 hours about everything it was so cool.
So they don't celebrate Halloween over here, how sad is that. Ok they celebrate it but its like only parties, no trick-or-treating! Sad I know. I am going to do something, I don’t know what but its going to be good. I will scare people all day or something.
I hope everyone is doing well. Oh yeah there was a 70's or movie star's party I went to, I dressed in all of Sofia's clothes, it was alright. I wish I had gone climbing which was my original plan. Oh well. I am missing wwu a lot and I need to get it into my head that it isn't going to be the same when I get back, it will have changed and so have I and I have to Adjust to it.
I am ready to travel and to try something new I am tired of waiting for it and preparing to say bye to everyone!!! I also exchanged quarters for a bunch of Indian, Malaysian, Thai., Chinese, Hong Kong, and some other money, they are super cool!!! I am going to get some pence, and euros as well. I started packing and as many people know I LOVE packing for some reason. I hate unpacking though. There are a lot of things I am going to give to Good Sammy’s it’s weird not having them. My wardrobe has really changed since I have been here. I like it though. Well it’s a total eclipse of the heart. Missing and loving everyone! P.S. I might have gone Absailing (repelling) and I also might have gone kayaking and met this famous guy that has done a trip all the way around australia and the mississippi and got third in a race down the yukon. Yeah he is the man. He also gave a book away for free and guess who got it? yeah me!!!

Do Do's and Whoa Ohs

This week was full of stress, sickness of two sorts, real sickness and homesickness, and laughs THE END.

Really I just told you everything you need to know. On Sunday I woke up sick, and so did Rene, weird. I laid in my bed mostly all day watching General Conference, reading and writing. It was nice to take a break and relax. Monday was no better, the whole village is sick right now, some people with what they call Gastro, Hay fever, bronchitis, or whatever I had which was basically a head cold with drowsiness. Monday I woke up early like I have been doing because of camp and I went shopping, It was really hard to walk that far, and its only 15 minutes away!! Class started at 12 because some guys had to implement their event that they have been planning for the last 5 weeks and wow surprise, they didn't have anything, it was suppose to be a basketball shoot out and no one had a basketball or a ring or anything, the lecturer showed up and was really UNIMPRESSED. They ended up doing it at the beginning of class in the gym where we were suppose to do potted sports, this is basically circuits like you do in elementary school or primary school as they call it here. I had no idea what this was so I had thought of some games but nothing like the lecturer wanted so we made some stuff up and were lucky that our group was last and we didn't have enough time to do ours. Then we headed in to our usual room for a lecture about theory which is basically the lecturer reading off of the PowerPoint. I hate that, I feel it insults my intelligence. I think I went home and took a nap, or watched a movie, or laid around like I did all week this week cuz I felt like crap.
Tuesday, went to class, then for the afternoon class we headed off to go dingy sailing. It was a beautiful day so I was in shorts and a t-shirt but when we got on the water I was freakin freezing! We went back and forth tacking which is turning, it was really cool, we rotated being the skipper, Rene and Vanessa and I were in a boat together. Then we headed out to go across the Swan river. Basically for Dingy sailing you have to hold the rudder strait and move it side to side to go which ever side you want. The sails are pulled in or let out depending on where the wind is coming from and how much they are flapping. Well Rene was holding the sail really tight so every time we hit a wave the boat would rock more than my liking and I was holding on to the main mast pretty tight and getting soaked by the waves coming over the front. Yeah it was good fun. We came back and I was freezing for about 2 hours afterwards. I think I was feverish the whole week as well so that didn't help.
On Wednesday I had a 9 o’clock class that had Mike Wood come as a guest speaker, this guy is super cool!!! He is owner of the company Mountain Designs, which is like REI or Patagonia in America, yeah he is the man. He climbed Everest in 1993 where there was a disaster and 3 guys died out of 8. He showed us slides of this event, he also talked about his history, what he has accomplished and he gave great references for adventure tours or people to work for. He is the man. I had to leave an hour early!!!! I was soooo bummed!! Ok so I left because my group had to run our event on campus which was a Capoeira Martial Arts demonstration!! It was awesome!!! The people in my group are great and worked really hard to make this happen, it is a 30 minute demonstration. Anyway, We handed out fliers, and got a speaker and microphone from the library, Steve was suppose to do the announcing but when it came down to it he was a bit shy so he handed the microphone over to me and I made a fool out of myself as always. I really have gained confidence in public speaking from being an RA and taking the comm 101 class. It was a blast, I was laughing and people were laughing at me and we had quite a crowed show up. The Capoeira guys were awesome, they had students play instruments, I got to play the bells, well all I did was hit two cow bells with a drum stick. It was really fun though. I came home and took a nap for 3 hours, it was a good day. A lot of people are having their birthday this week so I went to a few birthday parties, this was alright. I don’t' really like just standing around small talking to people, but it was cool I talked to Mac about foreign policy, the end of the world, and global warming. Aww yeah. Rene and I were walking from somewhere and ran into Brian from Canada, I don't know if it was his accent, my sickness or homesickness or a combination of all three but I just started crying. I didn't realize how much I missed hearing the "American" accent. Brian offered to let me use his camera to talk to my friends and family so if anyone has a video camera or speakers I can talk to ya! Well I will have to figure it out but let me know! Later Rene and I were watching a movie and I just felt like crap and was really homesick and tears were just coming out of nowhere so I had to leave the room and have a little cry. I made myself go back out to hang out or else I would wallow in my own self pity. But later I made a video because I wanted to document this tragic event haha. Then I made a video for my family but it is to big to send to them. =( Wow ok Thursday I worked on assignments and then Thursday night we watched a soccer game on a lap top Germany against China and Germany won. It was pretty funny though because Frank from China and Rene from Germany were beting on who would win and Frank claimed Germany before Rene so Rene had to cheer for China. It was a kind of boreing game and the loser was supose to make everyone dinner so Rene went up to make it cuz someone slipped and told us the result! After this we had a push up contest, it was pretty funny because we did 10 than 20 but only 2 people did 20 and Rene was gone so we decided to pretend we had all done 20 and were on 30 and it was my turn and when Rene walked in I was on 25 but it started from 18 and I made it to 27 because I was laughing so hard. Then it was his turn and we made him do 27 as well. Jasmin told him later what we did and he called me a mean gurl. It was really funny though. Oh and the picture of the dude standing as if he was a statue is Adam or Adsie. Sofia cut his hair and it looked really nice so I took a picture. this guy is the craziest guy ever. He is so hyper all the time and can never be serious, and he loves to surf.
Friday I felt A LOT better and actually went running instead of the pathetic jog/walk I attempted while I was sick. Then I met my friends from Fairbridge camp and we looked at portfolio, this gave me some good ideas and I was actually excited about doing it. I came home and got sooo much work done!!! I have 4 assignments due next week and I got 1 done and ½ of the other two done. On Saturday Rene and I went shopping, ok Saturday was the hottest day it has been yet, it was like a end of summer day in Washington, I guessed about 75-80 degrees. It was hot to say the least. Oh we got a beach volleyball from a sports shop and came back and played for 2 hours outside just in a circle with a bunch of people then only 3 of us and this was a blast!!! I worked on more assignments and then Jasmin came to visit and we went to watch Dukes of Hazzard. This is quite a funny movie, I didn't think it would be but it really is. Then we came back and played volleyball in the dark for an hour then watched road trip. Wow we watch to many movies. That will change now that summer is on our doorstep. That’s about all that happened this week. THE END.

Aww yeah, big booty big booty big booty

Wow finally time to sit down and think. Alright let me give ya the run down of my crazy life. Friday September 30th left early in the morning to bik MONSOON POURING. We got all our gear together and spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out where the trail really started, went the wrong way, turned aroune the Mundi Biddi, when we got to the trail head it was POURING DOWN RAIN, now I don’t mean Valdez pouring, or Bellingham Pouring, liked, rode on a road, stared at a map, and got SOAKED. Finally we started, we only had 13 Kilometers to go but it took FOREVER, one of our girls had to check her blood sugar every 15 minutes or so and we stopped A LOT. We finally got to our shelter around 3:30 pm and got settled hanging out all our wet clothes and such. Around 5 these 4 guys rolled up, they rode like 70 Ks that day!!!! Well 50 then they forgot their cards in Jaradelle so they rode back to get them then realized they were in their backpack the whole time. Wow these guys were cool, they were all in there 30-40s and this one guy and I had the best conversation, he is living exactly what I want to do, work for awhile, when you want doing whatever you want but making money then spending the rest of the time doing sweet trips. he semi-retired at the age of 28 and has been doing awesome trips, he went to school at U of O or University of Oregon and guess what else? HE PLAYS ULTIMATE FRISBEE!!! He even brought his frisbee and we threw until it was to dark to see. It was amazing!!! So he hooked me up with the website to check out Western Australia Ultimate, he said there is a team in Perth and such, one of the other guys who plays lives like 2 houses away from one of the girls I was with so that was random and he said we could get a ride from him!! Super cool. Ok so we went to bed, they were exhausted and we stayed up playing cards and writing in our journals or reading. Finally laid down for sleep around 9:30, at midnight I wake up to loud yelling and a car pulling up to the shelter, it totally freaked me out, there were these 4 drunk guys and Vanessa, one of the girls I was with was really mad and started cussing at them which just made the mad so one of the guys that was asleep got up and was trying to talk them down. Vanessa wanted to go to the toilet and Michelle wouldn't let her go by herself and she wasn’t feeling well so I said I would go with her, I have never been so scared for my life, I was soooo glad those other biker guys came. Anyway Vanessa got their licence plane number and we are going to report them. They said they were staying the night but the biker guy convinced them to leave. They spun of when they left and threw rocks at the tin of the shelter which freaked me out even more. All of us didn’t' sleep the rest of the night, every time I dosed off I had dreams of them coming back and killing us, or other things. It was really scary. Anyway it finally got light and we got up with bags under our eyes and took off around 8. We rode around 37 K's and were DEAD TIRED. We had to ride on this road for awhile and came to a family with like 10 kids who were heading to the same place we were so we were glad we wouldn't be alone. This was at about 30 k's so we had only 7 to go and it was ALL UP HILL!!! SO wearing, I don't know if it was from biking around AK or what but I beat everyone up every hill even if it was super long. I just got in this mind set to go. Anyway we got to the shelter finally and it was up a kind of steep hill and there was a gate so we weren't to bothered about someone coming in the middle of the night and the family that came was 2 adults and 5 kids, it was so fun. I played cards and Cricket with the kids. They were a lot of fun and they LOVED my accent. they were so cute trying to copy it. Then we took off in the morning about 7 am to bike the last 17 K's making it 67 kilometers all together. We got to the meeting place around 9:20 when we were suppose to meet at 10 so we waited around and Vanessa's bro was suppose to pick us up but she was worried about him sitting and waiting at the end of the road so we biked an extra 8 k's making it 75 ks total and he finally came, we were dead tired.
I made it home in time to grab a hot shower, something to eat, and pack a few extra things before I headed to the train station to meet Chris to drive me to Fairbridge for Prac by Pinjarra. Ok if that didn't make sense, sorry. Chris was 45 minutes late due to car trouble and we were late to Fairbridge but it didn’t' really matter. I really missed Amanda and Di from training and was really excited to see them, we just click. We had a bit of training and set up before then off to bed for an early start. I collapsed.
Monday threw Friday was HELL. There was a totally of 40 kids, 22 girls and 18 guys. I had a guy group of nine guys, there was also a older volunteer who was the assistant head leader's dad and another return volunteer with autism to help me out. The older volunteer decided to take a step back to deal with the difficult kids and help me out less and the other volunteer who was helping me was like another kid, It was THE WORST. Monday was alright, Tuesday was awful, another volunteer had to come help me for this awful scavenger hunt. My team would NOT work together, they would not listen, take responsibility, or be even kind of nice to one another. It was really discouraging seeing them yell at each other and not take responsibility or even try to work together, I was so glad I had sunglasses on cuz I definently had some tears roll down my cheeks. Wednesday was much better, I would say out of all the boys I had one I would love to take home, he was nice to everyone and worked together, never talked back and listened!!!! Wow from this camp I realized I do not have the patience to work with children that have problems, I had what they call DCD kids that come from foster parents, group homes, or have major problems at home. Kids had parents in jail or dead, I just didn’t' know how to deal with that or what to say. I did have more experience than many of the other volunteers like Amanda and Di, there were lots of tears at debriefs and during the day. At the end of camp I only had 7 campers cuz 2 were so bad they got sent home. The cussing was incredible!!! 10 year older were calling others the N-word. I couldn't believe it. Anyway soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo glad that is over. I got back Friday night and was super tired, did laundry, took a shower, went shopping and then got a ton of energy, danced, then watched Lord of the Rings # 2 until I couldn't keep my eyes open, this was about 11. Yeah sad huh. Every day during the week we would get up at 6 or 6:30 and wake the kids up at 7 then go to bed around Midnight. I realized I really want to do Adventure Recreation leadership for teenagers who want to be there. Take them on sweet trips and show them what I know and let them figure stuff out about themselves and who they want to be.
Saturday was a different day, I woke up at 7 and couldn’t' get back to sleep, at 10 Rene and I got picked up by a guy from class who is one of the most annoying people I have ever met. Anyway gotta love him, we went up to Guilderton and went for a walk on the beach to a light house, then met this other guy from class at a Yanchep national park and went for a 3 hour walk. I am tired and my feet hurt, and I found this GINORMOUS blister on my foot. So now of course I am tired again and I have the worst bags under my eyes, no sleeping in tomorrow either (not that I could) its general conference tomorrow, I am really excited about that though. I have a lot of projects coming up, I got to miss school for 2 weeks and now it is biting me in the butt!! I can't believe its almost done though, 4 more weeks. Gotta love it.