One exam down and roasting tatties

About time for an update I think; I last wrote on Monday last week so I'll pick up from Tuesday. I've just had a storming dinner so hopefully I'll get this written quite quickly and I'm going to go and watch a film before I go to sleep.

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

This post is pretty much all about food

This is an attempt to keep this blog updated more regularly, so hopefully this post will be a little bit shorter!

Firstly, there are one or two things which I think I forgot to mention in my previous blog posts which slipped my mind at the time. The first thing was the car crash which myself and a few others witnessed about a week ago! It wasn't a bad one and nobody was injured or anything like that, but there was an incredible noise as a driver ploughed into the back of another car at a set of traffic lights. There was smashed glass from the lights all over the road and considerable damage to the two cars, but both drivers got out and were fine, thankfully. It certainly shook up our night out though! I'm sure there was something else too, but I can't remember what it was - maybe it'll come back to me...

Anyway, my last update was posted late on Friday night; Saturday the 3rd August began with an excellent long lie, followed by a shower and some breakfast. I had no plans for the day until the afternoon, so with the football league season kicking off in England in a few hours time, I spent the morning reading the sports sections of the British newspapers. It's a little bit odd getting all of my news online when I'm used to reading newspapers and watching TV back home. On that note, I heard a rumour from my sister that my mum is considering changing her daily newspaper from the Daily Mail to the Guardian, or something else; I would just like to take this opportunity to publicly declare myself very much in favour of the proposed move. Furthermore, it's probably not surprising how little news coverage the Australians are giving the current Ashes series, where England are running away with things a bit. After the recent Lions victory down here too, sport is not a popular topic of conversation in the pubs at the moment!

On Saturday afternoon I met up with some other International Students for an arranged game of football - it's alright to call it football in this context, since most of them were Europeans and knew what I was talking about! This was the first time that I had played football closer to the middle of the day and it was melting! It was quite a hot day, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is winter here. I've also noticed a distinct difference in the quality of the grass which we play on here, given that most of the time we're making do with a rugby or Aussie rules pitch to play football on. This makes the ball unpredictable as it bounces and skips across different lumps and bare patches; it's a real test of your ball control.

For Saturday night's entertainment we had arranged to meet up at the Morrison again - which is the place where we previously ate oysters after our day out at the zoo. For the month of August, every day between 6pm and 7pm they're having an "Oyster Hour" which means you can order the shelled delicacies for a mere dollar each - fantastic value considering they are usually sold for four times the price, in the very same restaurant, any other time of the year. The truly brilliant thing about going to the Morrison on a Saturday night however, is that they also have a drinks Happy "Hour", which isn't really an hour because it lasts from 5pm till 7pm - ideal! We headed along at 5pm sharp and had a few drinks before a bell was rung to mark the time at 6pm and you were able to go and order a platter of oysters; the place was packed and there was literally a queue of 10-15 people at the bar all ready to place their orders.

Afterwards we ended up going for some Chinese food since we were all starving - apparently even though they are expensive, oysters aren't the most filling of dinners. The menu was all in Chinese, since we decided on a restaurant near the Chinatown part of the city, which made choosing a little bit tricky. There certainly wasn't any chips and curry, or sweet and sour chicken to be spotted anywhere amongst the vast array of options. Eventually, I spotted chicken teriyaki with noodles, and feeling confident that I had made a selection which I would enjoy, I proceeded to order my food. It turned out to be really nice and even though you could probably describe the place as a takeaway, it was far better than any Chinese food we get at home. The night proceeded with a few more pubs before heading home for a quick - still a little intoxicated - FaceTime chat with those back home and off to bed.

Photo of the Chinese from Saturday.

I spent Sunday chilling out, catching up on the highlights of Saturday's football and doing some work which I had to prepare for my uni classes on Monday morning. It's not Monday night, and I had another 3 classes today which all went quite well - glad to say that at the beginning of week two I'm not finding any of them boring, which is good news. Lastly, I've also came to the conclusion tonight whilst cooking some broccoli to go with my dinner, that whilst I am a pretty decent cook (which will be proven by the following picture) I do miss my mum's cooking.

I ruined the broccoli - overcooked it.

Until next time,
Jamie

Firstly, the broccoli and a pretty good effort at a medium-rare steak. Before anyone cracks any "poor student" jokes, it was a cheap cut of meat, from the supermarket! Still, tasted fantastic though - compliments to the chef. Second photo is a quick snapshot of my uni timetable.