So I made Kartoffelpuffer for dinner tonight. Which resulted in 4 chirpy girls from all around the world running through the house shouting "Kartoffelpuffer!" incessantly (they're always so proud when they learn a new German word ;o)). And then the horror started. First they all listened to me and ate it with sugar and apple sauce and then they decided to become creative and to "merge cultures" as they called it - and ate it with salt and tomate sauce. Yuck! So much for authentic German food...lol ;o)

Got the digital camera from uni today (I went over to Werrington just for that) and that thingie is a joke. It looks like it's 20 years old and can't even do all of the stuff my camera can. Plus, it takes about 30 seconds to save 1 single picture (because it doesn't save them as jpgs, but as Office Docs). So yeah, so much for that. I guess I'll rather use my own then. Even though I still don't really know how to work it without the presets.

Still haven't done my scriptwriting exercise. Argh. I don't have a clue anymore what was on the video, so I pretty much have to guess. Hmpf. Maybe I should watch it again when I go over tomorrow to bring back the camera. Let's see if the room's gonna be free.

And by the way, yay for me! I'm getting the tuition fee I paid on Monday back! I complained to Wendy (well, first to Cathy, but she couldn't really help me) and she talked to the ESFI people and it turned out it was a mistake that they sent me the reminder. Knowing me and my luck I'm probably gonna get less back than I paid thanks to exchange rates, but at least I'm getting it back! =)

Where do I start? Amanda has confiscated all of our bras. We were only allowed to keep one each (cuz we have to wear something tomorrow), the others will have their first big stage performance tomorrow...lol ;o) Obviously she's supposed to perform a comedy routine tomorrow as part of her assessment and it's centered around bras. I saw it earlier and to be honest, I didn't really get it, but well. That's performance students for you. ;o)

Hannady's not answering my messages. Which makes me a little nervous, cuz if I can't take pictures of her on Monday latest, I'm gonna have a big, fucking problem, since my next assignment is kinda due the Monday after and I don't really have any ideas for the other stories. Had to turn in my first assignment yesterday and I guess it didn't go too bad. There were others with worse pix than me and she liked how I printed them, so I guess that's a plus.

Had a blast in pr today. We were talking about focus groups and had to role play and my group...well...let's just say they should never consider becoming facilitators...lol ;o). We were talking how you had to ease the participants into the discussion (in our case: a homeless shelter in the area where you live) and Sia played facilitator and was like: "Hey, I'm Sia, I'm your facilitator today and how the hell would you feel if you were homeless??" Yeah. Talk about being subtle here...lol ;o) Roumen (our lecturer) tried explaining the difference between validity and reliability afterwards and I really think he needs to get his definitions straight, cuz he was talking crap. He tried explaining it on this weird example, it was something about your friend telling you that her boyfriend broke up with her and because you know her you know it's valid or something. We were all just looking at each other like "What the hell is he talking about??" He went on rambling for like 20 minutes after he himself realized he didn't really make sense, trying to get his examples straight, but I think we all kinda tuned him out after like 10 minutes. At least that's what we all looked like. I guess he realized it, too, cuz he stopped rambling and was like "I guess I'm gonna let you go now before I confuse you even more." Thank you. Most sensible thing he said all morning. ;o)

We're having a dinner party Sunday night. With like 25 people or something. Which is gonna cost us lots and lots of money. Great thing Amanda and Erica invited all the people already before even telling us. I don't even know where we're gonna put them all. And Thursday we get a footie table for the living room, which is pretty much gonna take up all the room that's left there and is probably gonna mean that watching tv will be impossible because I can already predict that the guys will be over even more then). Great. =P

Somehow I prefer Amanda not being here on weekends...lol ;o) She's got waaaay too much energy for staying at one place for 3 days without anything to do. So she's been messing up the house all weekend, which culminated in blaring music this morning and baking pancakes (by the sound of it, she smashed half of our dishes in the process) - using up the last milk. Since we don't have any bread left either, breakfast's looking kinda dreary tomorrow. As in: there won't be breakfast, cuz there's nothing left to eat. Diana and I got more groceries on Friday, but we were counting on 4 people being here, not 6. Dammit, we never get it right.

We booked our spring break tickets on Friday, too. 10 days Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands. Which will cost me almost as much as my 1 month Asia vacation did last year. Hmpf. Travelling's kinda expensive here. Seems I have to re-think all the stuff I wanted to do in November and December cuz I most likely won't be able to afford it. Which sucks, but I can't exactly go home broke, seeing as I have to pay tuition fees right when I go back.

Talking about tuition fees, I still haven't gotten an email back from the Financial Office and my account's been down since Friday night. Damn. I don't wanna pay before I know what it's for, but my deadline's already up and they're gonna cancel all my access if I don't pay. Including my email. Talk about a rock and a hard place here. Let's see how long it takes them to process my refund request for the SAF. I'll probably never see that money again, either. =P

Sahori just told me that Jim will be on vacation (or wherever else) for the next 2 weeks. Yes! Means I can take the bus in the afternoon without worrying about sexual harassment...lol ;o) Okay, I admit, I'm exaggerating. He's probably really just trying to be nice. Still, it's gonna be good not having to see him for a while.

Didn't really do a lot today. Studied a little, did my laundry, cooked dinner (which everybody pretty much scorned, cuz we had a party going on in the living room by the time I was finished - which nobody had told me about). Today was chocolate night, too (did I mention that? Since we don't buy cookies anymore at the grocery store on Mondays, we have "choc night" now on Wednesdays, which means we go out and buy lots of candy. I don't know where the difference is between just buying it Mondays or buying it Wednesdays, but whatever makes them happy...;o)). Problem was, since we had like 20 people in the living room, the candy that was supposed to be for us, never made it to us. Not even the chocolate cake Amanda made survived for more than half an hour. Hmpf. So much for that. It's scary how addicted I'm to candy, by the way.

Hannady called earlier cuz she had a problem with her camera. So she calls me. ME (I have to stress that, I mean, I'm the one who was complaining about that camera for a week straight - not exactly the kind of person I'd go to for advice...lol ;o)). Next problem was: I don't know the English names of all those camera parts. I barely know them in German. And I had a general problem with conversation today. So most of the conversation went like this:
Me:"And when you can't...you know...like cock that thingie anymore...ya know...the one you have to cock to take a picture...then your film is full. I think. And then you press the button on the bottom and...kinda...pull out the handle thingie...but not too much, or the door will open...and then you rewind it until you can't feel any...ya know...let me look up the word...(pause while looking up word in dictionary)...resistance (hmpf. Should've known that without the dictionary)...anymore, you're done."
Hannady:".............I see. I think."
Yeah. So please don't come to me for advice in English. ;o)

Fahad was over earlier trying to ruin my appetite, telling me weird stories about people having sex on my kitchen table and counter and stuff. And since I was such a great conversationalist today, I didn't even have a witty comeback. Actually, I didn't have a comeback at all, I just sat there looking at him (now he probably thinks I'm even weirder...lol). Then he asked about a lake in Bavaria that supposedly has "sex" in its name (good lord, that guy never thinks of anything else)�, but I'm guessing he was trying to shit me again. Men.

Money don't make the world go round. Ha! I beg to differ. I got an email today from the Financial Office (a "friendly reminder" as they called it) to pay 419AUD tuition fees until Saturday or my account's gonna be blocked. What the fuck? I already paid like 6400 bucks, that wasn't enough? Now they want more? And the most interesting thing: I've never heard about it before! Nobody even mentioned that I have to pay anything else, let alone more than 400 bucks. AT THE END OF THE MONTH, I might add. With NO WARNING AT ALL. In FOUR FREAKING DAYS!!!! Obviously, I was supposed to have gotten an invoice, but then again, maybe I didn't (they couldn't really make their mind up about that in the mail). ARRGHH!!!!!!! Are they crazy or what??? Where the hell am I supposed to get that money from? And why couldn't they at least warn me? I'm going to the office tomorrow (where they sure as hell are gonna tell me to go to Campbelltown, cuz the International Financial Office is over there - WHICH I SURE AS HELL WON'T DO!) and let them tell me what the hell those 400 bucks are for. So, as you can maybe tell: I'm pissed off beyond belief at the moment. So my mum got a really nasty email, too, cuz she's the reason I don't have the money in the first place, cuz she obviously still thinks I'm 10 years old and she can just use my account however she likes and make transactions on it whenever she likes, even though she doesn't even have authorization (which the bank obviously doesn't care about). So I'm gonna write them an email, too, telling them what I think about that. Those are the moments when I reeeeally need something to punch. =P

Our shower's closed down. Had a problem with the drainage since last week already, reported it Friday, were told a plumber was gonna come today, and what happened? Clayton came. Clayton. As in RA Clayton. As in "not plumber"-Clayton. He just poured some acid down the drain and locked the bathroom, cuz he obviously thought we were stupid enough to still try and take showers (of course we're girls, who cares if the whole first floor turns into a swimming pool every time we try taking a shower, we're certainly dumb enough to try it again!). Which he could have done Friday already, by the way, but Clayton's a busy man I was told. Doesn't matter that he gets paid being an RA and all so that's actually his job. Argh. So we're all running around with greasy hair (since none of the sinks here is really suitable to wash your hair in) and smelly. Really great. If they don't send a plumber tomorrow I'm gonna kill someone at the office.

Went grocery shopping again today (of course, since it's Monday) and on the way to Penrith Amanda (and Erica) gave us a speech about not buying cookies anymore, cuz we need to cut down on our expenses and all. In the end, we ended up buying kilo-packages of raisins, about 5 packages of crackers and chips - interestingly enough all the stuff Erica and Amanda like (while they aren't too fond of cookies). When I mentioned that I thought we were supposed to cut it down I got a simple "Well, we tried, it's a slow process." Yeah, right. In my opinion, if we cut it down, we cut it down, and don't just switch to other stuff.

They're having more and more German tv commercials here. At first I thought I was hallucinating, cuz I was always hearing German voices, but turns out I'm not. They have at least 4 different commercials here where people talk German. And I don't really get why. The Braun razor commercial for example (where the woman tests how well 3 man in a lab shaved) is in German with subtitles. Why? Would it have been so hard to dub it? Well. Who cares. That way I get my daily dosage of German. ;o)

Tried to rekindle the Dutch-German relationship today, too...lol ;o) Talked with Saskia about how after all those years a lot of Germans and Dutch still don't get along. Hannady was really fascinated...lol ;o)

K, gotta head to bed. I need to get up in like 7 1/2 hours. Yuck.

12:10 AM [GTM+10]

Whole bunch of new pictures up in the Sydney Gallery, so go have a look HERE!

And since I posted the pictures, I should tell you about the day. Went to Sydney (duh) yesterday with Sahori and Sabine. Sahori and I ran sooo late, cuz our train decided to stop a few times in the middle of nowhere, so it took us 1 1/2 hours to get to the city instead of just one. We wanted to get off at Circular Quay (cuz that was where we were meeting Sabine), but of course our train only went to Town Hall, which is still a 10 to 15 minute walk from Circular Quay (we realized yesterday, by the way, how fascinating it is that a month ago we could barely find Sydney on a map and now we can navigate it ;o)). So we stopped at QVB to get my new favorite ice cream (white choc raspberry) - at like 11:30 in the morning - and then met Sabine.

We had the whole day planned out, but in the end we only did half of it, cuz no matter how short all the ways look on the map, usually it takes you twice as long to get somewhere than you think. So we started out at the Opera House, then went to The Rocks and had lunch at the Australian Hotel - Kangaroo Pizza. At first I refused to eat Kangaroo (I prefer meat from ugly animals) cuz I just didn't have the heart to eat something so cute. But well, in the end they convinced me to try it and I gotta admit, it was actually pretty good. Would probably make a good steak. Next week we wanna try Emu or Crocodile. Let's see if we really do it...lol ;o) After lunch Sabine went home to get rid of her laptop while Sahori and I crossed Harbour Bridge over to North Sydney (just for the sake of crossing it, when we arrived on the other side, we went back). Let me tell you, that is one scary bridge for people with occasional fear of heights like me (...and Sahori for that matter). The whole thing is shaking constantly and the fences are pretty much see-through. But we were courageous and made it. ;o) The only thing I couldn't do was look up at all the bridge climbers. It made me nauseous and panicky just watching them. We even went up to the Pylon Lookout, which was pretty cool. You have the greatest view over the whole city up there (and it wasn't the tiniest bit scary ;o)). After that we met up with Sabine again at Circular Quay and had actually planned to go down Macquarie Street and then back through the Botanical Gardens. But since the sun was already almost setting we just took a shortcut through the Botanical Garden and went over to Mrs Macquarie's Place to watch the sunset over the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, which was really beautiful (even if it wasn't as colorful as the sunsets we have here in Kingswood). There were so many newlyweds taking their pictures there, it was almost as bad as Bethesda Fountain in New York...lol ;o) After sunset we actually wanted to go back to Harbour Bridge to watch the city from there, but we were freezing our asses off (that was the moment we all remembered: it's still winter here - t-shirt's are only for daytime), so we decided to only head over to the Opera House and then go right back home. Problem was, the Botanical Garden closes with sunset. So we had to walk all around it (and lemme tell you, that is one huge garden) and ended up having to walk farther than if we'd gone to the Bridge. Anyways, we took some pictures of the Opera House and the Bridge and then finally made our way home, where we arrived at like 9:45pm. And I still feel it in my legs. ;o)

Ugh. I gotta get up. And I don't wanna. Somebody made a whole lotta noise this morning, practically startling me awake. At least when I woke up I was sitting upright in my bed and was confused as hell. So somebody probably threw down a pot again or something. And now I gotta get up cuz I'm going to the Plaza with Ashley and Nohad (dunno how that happened, actually I wanted to go alone).

Somebody's stealing money from my account. Or at least I think somebody is. There is this weird transaction from a company I've never even heard of that I supposedly made (which I didn't) worth more than a hundred Euros. Tried to call my mum last night about it so she can check with the bank and get my damn money back, but she was at work. I really hope she'll call today, cuz not knowing what's going on is driving me crazy. Yeah, forget about that. It was my mum again.

Spent 3 hours in the dark room yesterday developing my pictures. All around me were photography students and I felt...well...sucky again comparing their pictures to mine. Well, nothing I can change about that now. I just hope the next assignment's gonna be better. Gotta start working on that next week.

K, I'm off to the Plaza. Planning on spending the weekend in Sydney, so let's see if that's really gonna happen.

EDIT: So it's 5:30pm and we just got back. We left at 11. I only wanted to get like 3 things of my list. Argh. And I don't have any money!!! And now I realize why girls like their after-shopping-revival-parties so much: Cuz they just can't remember what they bought throughout the day!!! So they have to look at everything and try it on again cuz they just can't remember what it looked like. Ugh. I gotta head to bed. I'm half dead. 10:13 AM [GTM+10]

"We use duct tape to fix everything - God used nails" - ???? I'm telling you, the guys from this Anglican church down the road get weirder each week. Everytime I think they can't top the bullshit they wrote on their billboards the week before, they prove me wrong.

Class was alright this week. Were in the darkroom yesterday developing our pictures and mine actually turned out okay (would have been better if I had realized in time that I put the negative in mirror-inverted, cuz then I wouldn't have to do it again). Problem is all of my photo paper got exposed. I thought I'd only ruined the top paper, but nope. The whole package. So I paid 30 dollars for nothing. I can still use part of it, though, just have to make the pictures smaller and take care that I cut of the right side of the paper. So I guess I gotta go back to the darkroom on Thursday to get the rest done. Phil was cute, though, today. He asked me how my pictures turned out when I got on the bus and when I told him not all that great, he tried to come up with a thousand ways how I can still rescue the assignment...lol ;o) Little hobby photographer there.

TV and PR were also alright. My group didn't show up for TV, so I just affixed myself to Saskia, Frieda, Angelica and Austin and shot my exercise with them. I thought they'd have a clue what they were doing, but nope. Didn't have a clue at all (well, except for Austin maybe). Makes me think if I'm the only one reading the book and watching news...

We got a client for PR! Yay! Probably gonna meet up with them next week so let's see how that works out. As far as I understood Sarah it's a non-profit organization that sends students overseas on scholarships or something.

And I even already did all my studying for this week (by mistake, I have to admit), so no more studying this week. =) Well, except for the darkroom stuff, and that's probably gonna take hours.

And a belated happy birthday to my nephew Bj�rn who turned 10 yesterday! 16:10 PM [GTM+10]

My back hurts. Probably because I spent most (...uh d�j� vu?) of my weekend in bed, reading. And not sleeping. I wanted to go to the Sydney with Sahori on Saturday, but I woke up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep until like 9. Woke up again at 10:30 and was disoriented as hell. Yeah. So I pretty much spent all of Saturday and most of today (expect for the 5 hours I had to study again) in bed. Not the best thing for your back, let me tell you. But the point is: nothing really exciting happened, so I got nothing else to tell! ;o)

My legs hurt. Could be because I've been pretty much walking non-stop since 10 this morning. I went to the city with Diana, Nohad, Josefin and Ashley, cuz we wanted to go to the Sydney Design Exhibition. I thought if I go with them I'll finally see something else of the city than Market City and George Street. But when we took the Monorail to the Powerhouse Museum from Townhall (those of you who know their way around Sydney: don't ask, we could've just walked there and probably would've been faster or just gotten off at Central) the girls saw Market City - where they'd never been before. So we went there for like 2 hours. Hmm. Nothing new there. We finally made it to the Design Exhibition after lunch, which was alright, but nothing too exciting and met Nohad at the mall in Queen Victoria Building afterwards. Let me tell you, this mall is huge. The building claims a whole city block, you can get lost in there easily. Since we were all tired we decided to just have icecream. I had white choc raspberry icecream. White choc. And raspberry. Can it get any better than that? It was delicious. That's gonna be one of my favorite flavors from now on. ;o) Since nobody could really decide on what to do (Diana and me wanted to go to the Opera House, noone else did) we just decided to go back home and stop at one more shop on the way. Right. One shop. We ended up stopping at like 5 and at the Sydney Tower, but the other girls didn't wanna pay 18 bucks to go up there, so I guess I'm gonna go another time.

Creepy Jim striked again, greeting me with "Hey Sweetie" when I got on the bus. Somehow, I'm really not comfortable with him anymore. I guess I'm gonna avoid getting on the bus in the afternoon from now on. When I go to class Phil's on shift anyway and I'll probably just gonna do my shopping in the morning then.

Had a nice 2-hour-talk with Sahori (who brought my doughnuts from Parramatta today! Yay! Already had 4 ;o)) about cultural differences in Germany and Japan after dinner and now I'm about to fall asleep. So G'Night!

I just got my first lap dance...rofl ;o). That happens when you go to a bar and won't dance. First they give you bruises, then extra special attention. But I should elaborate.

So Thursday is Swamp Night. Swamp is the on campus bar, and they actually have a dj and sometimes even bands playing. Since I've never been there before I agreed to come today. Of course, they only told me they were there after they'd been there for an hour, but who cares. So I sat on one of those comfy couches, watching people hop around, enjoying myself (well I did! I don't know why noone ever believes me) - until people started noticing that I wasn't dancing. So first Ben tried his luck, practically giving me bruises he grabbed me so hard, then Diana and Hendrik tried their luck (also giving me bruises), then Ashley, Nohad...the list goes on. Since nobody succeded Ben obviously decided it was time to pull out the big guns. And gave me lap dance. Complete with half a striptease. Since it didn't work, he got Fahad to help, so in the end I had two guys pretty much humping me. Afterwards I had girls coming up to me saying they felt so sorry so for - I thought it was hilarious. ;o) They probably still think I'm weird cuz I'm not dancing, but I don't care. If it gets me extra attention - why not go for it? ;o)

It's one of those days again. I adjust my alarm clock to 8:30am, cuz I was told we'll take the 9:08 bus to go the Sydney Design exhibition - and nobody's awake but me. Could be because Diana and the rest only came back from Sydney at 4:30am (which I heard cuz I was moonstruck again and couldn't sleep), but it would be kinda nice if somebody told me those changes of plans once in a while. She could've at least stuck a piece of paper under my door or something. So now I'm lying around here, blogging, when I could be asleep (didn't sleep at all between 4 and 7am). Hmpf. But if I go back to sleep, I'll probably miss them getting up and leaving. Seems like I can't win here.

So on my way down to the kitchen I met Sahori who was on her way to class - with her camera. Her interchangeable lens reflex camera. Exactly the type that I would have needed for my assignment, just a little better than the uni one, cuz it actually has an auto-focus and helps you adjust the other stuff, too. So she showed me and said I could use that one if I wanted. What the...? I mean, I love that girl and that's really nice of her to offer and I'm probably gonna take her up on that offer, too, but why didn't she tell me she had such a camera when I started talking about my first assignment (which, by the way, turned out to be a disaster. Of 36 pictures about 6 are halfway usable, the rest is blurred, over- or underexposed or just plain crappy) and complained that I could only borrow the camera from uni for a day? Sometimes I really think she doesn't understand half of what we're saying here. Hmpf. But well, still it was sweet of her to offer and at least for my next assignment (which will HAVE to turn out a whole lot better than this one or I'm screwed) I know where to go.

Diana had the girls over last night cuz she was making us all dinner and they planned their spring break. I don't know when exactly I got excluded again (since I was included in the plans for Fiji), but they found out Fiji was too expensive and wanted to travel down the Gold Coast (in 10 days from Cairns to Brisbane - hah! Never ever.) I suggested the Whitsundays instead and they loved the idea and wanna go there - but somehow nobody asked me anymore. So I'm probably gonna go complain to Diana again (I do that a lot lately, complaining, but it just works so well here!) and see if she invites me. ;o) Cuz I reeeeally wanna go there.

Thanks to Phil, the bus driver. He's cool. Cuz when my new group-mates (yay! I got a pr group!) made me miss the bus and I couldn't even make it to the bridge (where we're supposed to go when we miss the bus so we have a chance of him picking us up on the way back) he pretty much slammed on the brakes when I waved at him and picked me up...like somewhere in the middle of campus. He didn't pick up the other 3 girls that did the same thing I did. =) Aah, sometimes it has its advantages to live in res, cuz the bus drivers know us (Jim - the other driver - also let me out close to the houses instead of taking me over to Werrington, where his route goes first, so I was home 10 minutes earlier than expected) And Phil pitied me cuz I had to take pictures with a camera I'd never worked with before.

So yeah, classes this week weren't as bad. Like everyone told me, I was worrying for nothing. Well, not completely nothing, but it seems managable (well, ask me again after I picked up my pictures tomorrow and know if I have a chance of passing my photography class ;o)). But pr seems alright now, since I finally have a group (yay! And we even might have a client) and this whole facilitating and reporting crap doesn't look too hard either. So I hope I'll be fine. My tv journalism group disintegrated today, though. I thought I was gonna form a group with Saskia (dutch girl I've been hanging out with) and Martin, but Saskia abandoned us today. So let's see how that works out next week. The film cameras we're working with are actually pretty sophisticated, so it should be fun.

Took the pictures for my photography assignment yesterday. Erica was natural (I mean, she studies performance, so she should be able to stage things so they don't look staged), but the other girls...good lord. ;o) They had fun, though. I just hope the pictures turn out alright and I don't have to do it again, cuz getting analogue pictures processed and developed here is like sooo expensive. And I wouldn't have a lot of time left either. So yeah. I'm gonna get them tomorrow.

Went to the movies earlier with Diana, Nohad, Josefin and Ashley and watched The Lake House. Seems I was the only one who got the movie...lol ;o) The others were just reeeeally confused about it...lol ;o) But we had fun. A lot.

Did I ever mention we got the most beautiful sunsets right in front of our house? I don't know why exactly, but we have a different color each night. Today it was a bright orange. Already had purple and pink this week. Unfortunately we can't see it completely, cuz there's a row of trees and then there's houses, but we see the sky change right above the trees and it's just the most beautiful thing.

Got a busy week ahead if I really go to all the places I'm supposed to go. So I guess I should study tomorrow. Argh. I like the German system better (not studying at all until you have an exam). Damn. But well, I'm not gonna put such a big effort in it this week since nobody obviously cares if we read the stuff or not.

Done. At least for today. And mostly because I was cheating and didn't read most of my tv journalism stuff, but only skimmed through it. That ought to do. Actually I'm not really done, cuz I need to copy some stuff over to my notebook, but I'm just too lazy. I've been sitting here studying 6 hours already today and I think that's enough. I still gotta watch the news tonight and familiarize myself with the camera instructions for tomorrow, so I'm probably gonna sit for another 2 to 3 hours. At the moment, the only thing I'd like to do is go downstairs and watch some mindless tv, but I can't, since Ben and Charlie occupy the living room, playing PS2. Hmpf. Don't they have a home? Or can't they at least go out? Seems like we had people here nonstop since Friday.

I just hope the photo session goes well tomorrow. Can't exactly afford to blow it. I don't think the girls realize yet that it's probably gonna take a few hours, so I hope they won't get impatient and just bear with me until I'm done. Damn, she shouldn't have shown us those great pix from last semester, then I wouldn't be so edgy about it.

Amanda actually came home at 10pm already yesterday and spent the rest of the night barfing. How she managed to get so drunk already at 10, when she didn't start drinking until like 7 is beyond me, but then she said she hardly ever drinks. Maybe that's why. ;o)

Had a weird encounter on Skype last night. First this guy wants to add me, just because we're from the same city. After he realized I wouldn't, he tried it with a different name (same last name, just a girl's first name now). I still refused and adjusted my settings to being shown as offline. 20 minutes later he/she/it called me. Hello?? Can't you take a hint? When people don't wanna share their contact details with you and don't answer to your IMs, do you really think they wanna talk on the phone with you? That's exactly the reason why I'm always invisible in ICQ, cuz I've had enough of complete strangers asking me if I was a virgin. Ugh. The hassles of modern technology.

Speaking of that, why is nobody ever leaving me comments by the way? I feel so unloved. ;o) It's not that hard, and it makes my day, so give it a go!

What am I doing here? I happily could have lived without all this work. Of course, it's my own fault. I could have just started studying on Wednesday, but I didn't expect it to be so much. I think I've studied more in the past two days than I usually did for a whole semester in Germany (which says a lot about my dedication in Germany, I KNOW ;o)). I've spent pretty much all of last night already reading part of my Photography stuff and I've been doing nothing but studying all day. And I'm still not even close to being finished. Got like another 150 pages and a case study to analyse for tomorrow. If it goes like that all semester and I really forget travelling around in between, cuz I just won't have the time for it.

It's Amanda's birthday today, so we had a little surprise party planned for her over at Ben's house. Sahori and I just wanted to stay an hour, cuz we both needed to go back to studying (on a Saturday night, can you believe it?), but Amanda threatened to never talk to us again if we left, so we waited until she was engrossed in some oscure drinking game and then sneaked out. ;o)

...and honest to God went back to studying. And let me tell you, Australians seem to have totally different priorities when it comes to PR here. I took notes of the chapter I was reading (for all my fellow students out there, the chapter was named: "What is Public Relations?" - It's a THIRD YEAR COURSE!!!!!) and when I was through I looked through the Unit Guidelines - and the questions there referred mostly to stuff that I thought was unimportant. Hmm. Seems like I need to work on that. And they explain some stuff totally differently here, too, like the 4 PR models (Grunig/Hunt). Hmpf. Everytime I think I already know some stuff they turn it around here. Well. I still got some hope left that it's gonna be okay. =) Gotta go to bed. More studying to do tomorrow. G'Night!

I don't have any type of self-restraint. I went shopping today with Ashley. Yes. I know. Shopping. With Ashley. Two paradoxes in one sentence. Remember my last post? The "I don't have any money left for anything"-post? Yeah, I obviously had some left. Had. As in past tense. As in "don't have it anymore now". Ugh. Bought a shitload of clothes and jewelry that I neither needed nor have space for to take home. But well, I got it now. We went to Parramatta and the Outlet Mall in Homebush. And why? Cuz Nicole felt bad always saying "no" to going anywhere with people. So last night we had our little barbecue here and I talked to Ashley by coincidence (remember, the Canadian who actually hates me) and she said she wanted to go but had noone to go with so I kinda volunteered (even though I still have a shitload of studying to do and don't know when to do it since tomorrow is Amanda's birthday and our place will probably be swarming with people). Yeah. So, we still aren't best friends, but we tolerated each other fairly well. I'm proud of us. We even got a dozen free donuts each, cuz we volunteered to participate in a survey they were doing. =) And I still seem to have it in me! The woman doing the survey didn't believe I was from Germany, cuz I had "such an american accent". Hah! =) Well. After like five minutes she was like "NOW I hear your accent." Hmpf. Well, at least I don't pass as a German right from the start. And thank God I had to get up at 9 this morning anyway, cuz Ben and Charlie came over at like 9:15, waking everyone up none-too-gently (and complaining that I didn't wanna make them breakfast). I was told afterwards they occasionally do that when they're bored. I hope they aren't bored too often, cuz I've got the room next to Diana, which means she gets woken up, I get woken up. =P

Talked to Thomas on the bus this morning and he told me not to worry too much about my pr class. He had the same lecturer last semester and it worked out quite well, so I'm just gonna believe him and hope he's right. Weather's been totally crappy again, too, it's been pouring all day. Argh. Or as Thomas put it: "That's the part they never tell you when they talk about Australia". How absolutely right he is.

So let's see, what did I do this week? Oh yeah, I spent a fortune on stuff (mostly books) I'm never gonna look at again after I'm gone here. Let's see:

Photojournalism: The Professional's Approach: AUD 90.20
A short course in photography: AUD 57.95
The electronic reporter: AUD 59.95
Public Relations Strategies and Tactics: AUD 117.95
2 Mini DV-tapes: AUD 14.95
2 ILFORD XP2 black & white films: AUD 27.00
RC Multigrade photo paper: AUD 31.95
-----------------------------------------------------------
makes a startling AUD 399.95

For those of you who are still a little fuzzy on the conversion: that's around 240 Euros. In pretty much 3 days. Only for stuff I need for University. Bye, bye trips around the country. Bye, bye gorgeous necklace at the Rocks. Bye, bye gym (well, not too sad about that ;o)). I tried to beat the system and buy at least the PR book from amazon (where it only costs like 5 bucks), but I got an email today telling me that I got refunded - only god knows why, but I won't get the book from them. So I thought well, I'm just gonna copy the chapters I need, which will still be a lot cheaper - but they don't have the book at the library at the moment and I need to read some stuff already till Tuesday, so I had to buy it at last. Argh. Why exactly am I doing this again? I don't even need those courses, I pay a fortune to be here - and will probably fail all my classes. Ahh, you gotta love it. =P K, gotta go. Need to study (can you believe it?).

PS: Saw my first kangaroo on the Werrington North campus today! And a huge one, too. =)

I'm experiencing a whole new emotion today: having overestimated myself and probably failing all my classes because of it. Doesn't feel all that great, let me tell you. Everybody told me Australian Universities were at the level of German High Schools. Well. In my opinion, that's not exactly true. At least as far as I can be the judge of that after 2 days. Ask me again in a few weeks, maybe it'll turn out, that I was honestly just a little overwhelmed at how different uni works here and everything's only half bad, but at the moment I feel like not even a doctorate could really help me here. Erica assured me everybody feels like that the first 2 or 3 weeks, but that I'm soon gonna see that it isn't all that bad. Let's hope she's right.

Anyway, courses are NOT what I expected at all. They're all practial (while I deliberately tried to choose theoretical ones - argh). I don't have any exams (except for a little multiple choice test in PR Strategy, which isn't even during my exam period), which means I'm gonna be done here by November 1. Great. =) I paid 200 bucks for books, though, and I didn't even buy the pr book, cuz it would have cost another 100. And I'm not wasting any more money on pr books that I won't touch again after graduation. I still have to buy black and white films, dv-tapes, photo paper and other expensive stuff, so I guess a nice little trip is out of the question this month. So photo journalism is all practial. We get assessed by the pictures we take. Great. I mean, I love taking pictures, but I'm just not all that great at it. And the pix she showed us from last year's students were absolutely great. Which kinda sets the mark really high. Our first assignment is to produce a narrative story pictureline starring a local identity from our community. Dammit, I don't know anybody here! I only know the people who live in res, and they aren't what you'd call local identities. TV journalism is the same pretty much, we have to shoot, edit and text 2 news broadcasts. But at least we'll do that in groups. PR strategy just sucks. We have to do everything in groups (we even have to find our own clients for our projects!!!) and after my lecturer gave this great speech about Germans not being able to work in groups nobody really wants to work with me anymore. Thank you very much. Not that it's not bad enough already that I'm the only international student in that class and therefore the only one who doesn't know anyone else, noooooooo, kick me again, so I can at least be the outcast from day one on. =P

So all in all, it's a lot of work. A lot. Like, reeeeeally a lot. I'm glad I only took 3 classes and only have 2 days a week, cuz I wouldn't have survived otherwise. Okay. That was the short version. I need to go and buy all my expensive stuff now.

For June and July posts go to the Archives