It's been a while...

Yeah, I haven’t updated in a while, but things have been pretty slow around here…


My supervisor was gone for the past two weeks. She needed to use up her vacation time before the end of the financial year, which is June 30th, so she left me with the task of researching other areas of the world with issues similar to the Murray-Darling Basin. Well, I found a plethora of articles, and all I’ve been doing is reading them for the past two weeks and summarizing them in less than a page. It is HEAVY reading, and sometimes I’ll be summarizing things I don’t quite understand. You know you’re in trouble when you visit dictionary.com so many times you “favourite” it. But that doesn’t stop me. I’ve written papers on things I don’t quite understand, and if school has taught me anything, it is the fine art of appearing to know what you’re talking about. But in all honesty I’m learning a lot about water issues, terminology, and many other things Australian…

Canberra is very, very slow. Luckily, my host mom, Fran, was heading up to Sydney last weekend and I was able to hitch a ride to see some friends up there. We went up on Friday and came back on Monday. Before we left on Friday, I had enough time to get a haircut. The only problem was I was on my own and didn’t know where a haircut place was. No matter. I just hopped on the bus to the city center and hoped for the best.

Amazingly, I found a place within 5 minutes of getting off the bus. I had an hour before the best left again to go back to my suburb, so I thought it would be a good move to just go to this place as opposed to looking around. Well, as I walk in, I realize that it’s a Korean place. A haircut was $25 Aussie dollars, which is a little steep for me, but I NEEDED a haircut, so I went for it.

Some of you might know that I really don’t like getting a haircut. I don’t ever like my hair, and I never know how I want it cut. My apathy and indecisiveness usually frustrates haircutters, and it usually makes for an awkward experience. So I try to explain to him that I want it pretty short on the sides but a little longer on top (I’ve found that’s the easiest thing to say). He just nods and he says “Like that?” and he points to this black and white photo of a guy with a greasy 50s haircut. I really wish I could show you the photo, it was hilarious. I get a little nervous from his interpretation, and I tell him maybe a bit shorter. He just nods again and starts to cut my hair.

He went to town on the back of my head. He pretty much shaved it off so the back of my head is always cold. But once he was finished I actually liked the haircut. Maybe I was just relieved I wasn’t walking out of there looking like The Fonz (not like that would be a bad thing…)

So Fran and I drive off to Sydney with only one stop at a McDonalds. This was the biggest McDonalds I had ever seen. They had 13 registers and at least one employee behind each register. I felt intimidated walking up to the counter because there were about 5 people looking at me, and I felt like I had to choose my favourite one to take my order, but I didn’t want to offend the other four…

Well 3 and a half hours later we arrive at Fran’s sister’s house. It was a really nice house, and her family is really nice. They like wine a lot too… Do you ever have those conversations with slightly intoxicated people where they try to explain something to you that really doesn’t need explaining, and they proceed to tell you about 50 times using the same two sentences? Well, I had a conversation like that about toll roads for around an hour. Needless to say, it was riveting.

While up in Sydney I saw some of my friends, Emily and Katrina (they were the ones I met in Cairns. Because of their names, I simply refer to them as “the Hurricanes”). We tried to go to a rugby game, but since it was $69 we decided to just go to a pub instead. It was a lot of fun, although I ran down the street to get some Indian food before the match started. I tried to sneak it into the pub, but the security guard made me eat it outside. He was taking a smoking break and we got to talking about the US Economy. I’m convinced the economy is how it is because of the housing markets, banks, and whatnot. He’s convinced it’s because of the Jews. After that awkward meal I went back into the pub and enjoyed the game.

So I’m back at work right now (working hard, if you can’t tell…). I’ll try to upload pictures as soon as I can, but my internet at home isn’t really catered to things like that. This weekend I’m going to Melbourne, so expect another update within a week!