Last Monday night, as many people around the world watched on in the hope that there would be some massive, last minute moves in the football transfer window, I had to be sensible and eventually retreated from my laptop to bed just after midnight. However, in a move which could only be described as obsessive, I set my alarm first for 4am and latterly for 7am in order that I could check up on the latest news before the window closed at 8am. Each time my alarm went off in the darkness, I reached out for my phone still half asleep before remembering exactly why my alarm was going off at such a stupid time in the middle of the night - needless to say, it was a pointless exercise since hardly anything happened through the night whatsoever. Bit of a let down really, but at least United signed a midfielder finally! It's been a long time coming - 6 years to be precise.
I've had a reading week, so luckily didn't ruin my body clock for a week worth of classes after my long night of news updates and enjoyed a nice long lie until almost lunch time on Tuesday. After eventually rising from my slumber, I had a flick through some of the reactions to the football news and had some breakfast. I also downloaded the new Arctic Monkeys album called "AM", which has instantly become one of my all-time favourite albums - it is seriously that good. I hope it isn't one of those albums full of songs which you get sick of though and I'm trying to avoid over-playing it in to avoid that happening. Due to my extremely long lie, Tuesday seemed to fly by and before I knew it I was making dinner and chilling out to watch some TV before going to bed once again. I hadn't done much studying so knew that the rest of the week would be busy.
On Wednesday I got up around 10am in an attempt to return some kind of routine to my sleeping pattern and began studying for my Anti-Discrimination Law exam, after some breakfast and a shower. This is the first year at uni during which I've used my laptop to take notes in lectures and so far it's proven to be a preferable method not only for the purposes of making efficient notes in lectures, but also for reading them back and studying. I found compiling a concise collection of all my notes for the exam was really simple and it seemed to take a lot less time than it usually does to compile handwritten notes. I would definitely recommend a laptop or tablet over pen and paper for any students who might be considering whether it's worthwhile. On that note, I am absolutely in love with my MacBook - it is a total joy to use and never ever seems to slow down or be anything other than perfect. Well worth it.
In before one of the lads "humble brags" me...
On Thursday morning I got up fairly early again and continued my studying for the exam, which had a deadline of Friday afternoon sometime. However, since a few of us were planning on going out to Ivy on Thursday night I had decided to get the exam done by Thursday afternoon in order to avoid doing it with a hangover on Friday! After a final few hours studying, I had a shower, made some lunch and sat down to do the exam. For the Anti-Discrimination class, the online exam was worth 25% of the total grade for the course; it took the format of a choice of 5 out of 7 short questions relating to the basic concepts that had been covered in the early weeks of classes. I felt it went quite well and was fairly happy with the answers which I submitted, which meant I could look forward to our night out later on. Around the back of 6 - does anyone know what that actually means because us Scottish students over here have tried explaining the saying to people and none of us even know what time it's supposed to mean - anyway, I made myself some pasta and then took a walk up to Liquorland to buy some wine. It's a bit of a strange set up for purchasing alcohol here since supermarkets aren't allowed to sell any at all - not beer, wine, spirits, or anything, which is very unusual and I have no idea why things are done that way. Luckily there are quite a few liquor stores scattered around the city because of this rule. I returned to the flat with a box of "goon" which is essentially cheap white wine, but it's palatable since it's quite sweet - I also got myself a can of Guinness for $4.90(!) in order to enjoy something nice before we started on the wine.
We had decided we would pre-drink in my flat before we headed out to Ivy. After getting showered, I headed downstairs to let Jordan, Alex, Connor and Jessica inside, finding that they had also brought two more boxes of "goon" - I didn't think we were going to go short on drink anyway. The second Alex, who knows Jordan from back home in the US, arrived some time later and we started some drinking games - Jessica had brought a pack of cards with her so we set up a game of Kings, which is potentially the best drinking game ever. Usually at a party or pre-drinks we'll manage one, or maybe two rounds of Kings, however we managed almost three full rounds before it was decided that it was time to head to Ivy. Rather than get a taxi down to the far end of George Street which would likely be quite expensive, we headed to Central Station and got the train to Wynyard Station, only a few stops away. Whilst we were walking to Ivy, Alex hit the wall and was sick in a bin, so in a very responsible move, Jessica and I marched him back to his flat and headed home. So I still haven't been to Ivy, but we'll try again no doubt!
Friday morning was mostly spent in bed, only interrupted to go and get a McDonalds hangover cure - it was one of those kill you or cure you McDonalds and I felt like crap for a little while afterwards. Brutal. However I soon perked up again and felt spot on again an hour or so later. After chilling out for a little while, I made myself some lunch and decided that I would go and play football in the afternoon, even though I was still pretty tired. The game totally passed me by, as I misplaced pass after pass and could barely left my legs to chase anyone; I had a total shocker, but still scored two goals - the sign of a world class player, when you score even if you're not playing well, right?! Before we played, I took a quick picture of the oval where we play, called St. Pauls' Oval - essentially a cricket pitch, but it does the job and the grass is really quite good to play on.
On Saturday morning I awoke to the news that Scotland had been comfortably beaten 2-0 at home by Belgium in another World Cup Qualifying match - the national team really are going through a truly tragic time just now, not that I get too bothered about international football anyway. Club over country when it comes to football for me, personally. On Saturday afternoon I did some more work on one of several assignments which are due in the next few weeks, watched a film and made some dinner. I also went down to the mailbox for the flat and found a postcard which Andy and Hayley had sent me from their holiday in Tunisia - which had been around 3 weeks ago! Postcard took ages to arrive here after they sent it! Yesterday, I had a long lie before getting up and having a fry-up of sorts - I didn't have any bacon, beans or bread for toasting, so it was just scrambled eggs, sausage and a fried tomato. A trip to the supermarket was in order, I thought. Jordan and I had planned to go to Bondi Beach for the 'Festival of the Winds' which essentially a big kite festival, but the weather was cloudy and rainy on Sunday morning and beach plans were aborted. It was only the third time I've seen rain since I've been here, so you really can't complain. Instead I headed to Coles and after I had been to top of my food supplies, I got down to some more essay writing before watching a film at night. I hadn't seen Men in Black before, but had heard that it was really good, so found it on Netflix and it found it really enjoyable. I'll need to watch the sequels at some point, highly recommend it to anyone else who hasn't seen it.
So, today is Monday once more and time continues to race on by here in Sydney and with another busy week ahead of me it won't be slowing down anytime soon. In just over a week, it will be two whole months since I arrived in Australia - can't quite believe that! Anyway, today it was back to classes at uni, although not Anti-Discrimination which has a reading week - so the day started with Intellectual Property at 2pm followed immediately by Competition. Today's Competition Law class was another guest lecture from a judge of the High Court here in Australia called Justice Hayden. I found his talk reasonably interesting in parts but in truth, was glad that he only spoke for one hour of the two hour class. The remaining time was spent discussing our essays which are due in a few weeks and allowed an opportunity for some questions to be asked about exactly what was expected from the submitted work. Some people raised concern over the deadline dates, stating that they, "had a lot of work due just now" which annoys me somewhat. We are all busy and we all have lots of work to do, unfortunately you still need to work to the deadlines which are set.
Tonight after class I returned home and immediately raced to my laptop to watch the new episode of Breaking Bad; it was another brilliant episode full of drama and surprises. I seriously cannot wait to see how the writers wrap it up and finish the story - I think there are only around 3 episodes still to go now, which is sad because it means it will all be over soon enough. After that I began making dinner which tonight consisted of steak, sweetcorn, fried onions and roasted potatoes. Now, before tonight I considered roasted potatoes to be something which were rather difficult to cook properly and get right since my mum can sometimes get them wrong, and she is an excellent cook generally, but I thought I'd give them a try regardless. The results were fantastic; genuinely brilliant. I passed on the good news to her and she says I can take over cooking duties once I'm home - you know mum, I think I'll pass actually! Again, I've been somewhat boring and busy this week so haven't got any decent pictures to post, however I'll attach one of dinner from tonight. There were some truly brilliant photos from Thursday night on Jessica's phone I believe, but she hasn't been brave enough to share them yet! I look forward to seeing those!
Until next time!
Jamie
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