My Home - Part 1

So I've been meaning to put pictures of where I live up, and have finally gotten around to taking the pictures. For the first post, I'll try to walk you through the place where I spend most of my time (usually around 12-14 hours a day...) which is the lovely AGSM building.

Now for those of you here in Australia you will hear my sarcasm, but I will explain it fully for those of you back in the states... however before I do that I will walk you through the building.

The Common Room is where we spend most of our time. It has very high fashion black leather couches, a 70's style kitchenette, our lockers, mail slots, and what which all MBA schools must have... a flat screen TV. (The school is over 75% men so that is a must have)

When I'm not procrastinating in the common room, I'm usually in one of the lecture theaters. This picture is of the largest room, where we have our lectures with the entire class. Now one theme of the entire building is that they are trying to keep us from overheating... and so even in the summer we were bringing in sweaters to keep warm in classes. Personally that just makes me want to fall asleep more, but I have managed to maintain consciousness so far... :)

Then there are the syndicate rooms. Now if there was a place where I would call home, it would be in one of these. This is where we have our meetings to discuss and work on the different assignments, or just as a quite place to study without other people and distractions. They are small, but they have white boards, computers, and very comfy chairs!

On a given day I would estimate I spend about 4 hours in lectures, 1.5 hours in the common room, and the other 8 or so hours in syndicate rooms. This is my life... are you jealous? ;)

Now the sarcasm comes in because while the pictures may seem very nice, the building has a couple features which we do not brag about... like the leaking roof where the glass ceiling is, or the climate control issues. Overall, they are just points for whinging and not really that bad. Then there is the fact that while the building is named for the school, we only use I'd say about half of the building (specifically the majority of the bottom two floors). The old library is now an empty space that will be used for god knows what, and the medical students have moved into a space in the offices while their building is being remodeled.

All in all it's good, and we even have a little cafe w/ sandwiches and coffee for those busy days. So this is where I spend most of my time, I'll post soon about where I actually live once I clean it and take some decent pictures. :)

Gambling, Drinking, and Men in Uniform... What more could a girl ask for??

Friday was ANZAC Day, which is the equivalent to a sort of combination of Verterans and Memorial Day in the states. However it's much better here!

The day starts off with a memorial service which started at 4:30 AM in the city. We thought it started at 5:30 so I was a bit late and got there at 5... which I still thought was pretty impressive! After the service my friends and I headed to a 24 hr pancake house for some grub. It was very much like IHOP but with things like fried pineapple and bananas... and they were serving alcohol. :) So we started the day with our first drink at 6:30 AM, champagne of course!

The next event for the day was the parade which didnt' start till 9, so we did our own version of a pub crawl between 7 and 9 AM. It ended with a Starbucks run and snagging a prime location for watching the parade.

Once the parade started I realised that there is something weirdly sexy about men wearing kilts and playing bagpipes... or maybe it was just the alcohol and lack of sleep. :) The parade was very moving and pretty impressive to see the different war heros. It was both impressive and sad at the same time, because most of them are very old (as you would expect) so they were driven in cars. There were a couple that were marching along and that was great to see!

After the parade we headed to the pub for an afternoon/day of drinking and playing two-up. Two-up is a gambling game which was played by the soldiers during the war. It essentially involves flipping two coins and everyone betting on whether there will be two heads or two tails. To make it fun, if you are betting heads you hold your money on your head and have to find someone who is betting the same amount on tails (and is holding their money on their tale).

Now to help paint the picture, we arrived at the pub at 12... gambling started at about 12:30 and continued till probably 7PM. So people are getting pretty drunk and as the night goes by the bets get higher and higher. I managed to come out even, so I am pretty happy. Add to that I stayed at the bar till 10:30PM and I'd say it was a pretty good day!

Growing Family!!

OK for those of you who aren't in Australia and I couldn't tell earlier... I'm going to have a new niece and ?!!! My brother's wife is pregnant with twins!! YEAH! The last ultrasound confirmed that one is a girl, however the other has yet to be identified. :) So the McClelland clan grows in size!

I'm sad that I won't be able to get back before they are born, but am thinking this warrants a trip to Seattle over Christmas. So for those of you who will be in the area keep me on your radar because it's been way to long and I'd love to catch up!!

Oh The Joy of Lawn Bowling!!

So, when I first arrived in this lush country I was excited to see all the exhilarating sports that are touted by everyone who has ever been here. Everything from rugby, Aussie rules football, cricket, surfing, and the list goes on. Nowhere in this list was lawn bowling ever mentioned... Now for those of you non-McClellands who may not have the great batchee ball experience to know what I'm talking about - lawn bowling is a sport which, if in the right situations, can foster competition, gambling, and athleticism for people of all ages.

For those who are confused or unaware of the sport I will provide you with a brief description. It is plaid on grass cut much like grass tennis courts. To begin the turn you throw a small wooden ball (called a Jack) down to the other end of the lawn. Then each person from the two teams takes a turn bowling larger weighted balls down the grass, trying to get their balls closer to the Jack. Once all the balls have been bowled the round is scored - the team with their balls closest to the Jack gets a point for every ball w/in the closest range. If I had to compare it to another sport I would compare it to curling (minus the brooms and freezing temperatures).

Being the school's Events Coordinator I get the joy of not only choosing the location/activity for our outings, but I also get to choose the theme!!! (tee hee hee) So for our mid-session party we rocked up to the local lawn bowling club. (Now, for those of you who don't know what rocked up means please refer to my recent post below on Aussie slang... but to save you the time it means we showed up.) The theme: Plaid and Argyle Galore!! Below are some pictures to give you an idea of the different outfits.


(my argyle is on the back of my jumper but this gives you an idea of the overall outfit...)

Once we were there we commenced in 2.5 hours of very competitive lawn bowling. To give you an idea of the skill level below is a picture of the lawn... can we say SKILL!!!

On the schedule for next session break party: cosmic bowling w/ the possible theme of 80's neoglow.

Off to the Races!!

This week was the beginning of the autumn carnival -which translates into the beginning of race season. So for a whopping $22, we put on our fancy dresses and headed to the local race course. Considering it happens to be right next to the school it was a nice easy walk to the course, and along the way we were able to pick up our fascinators. Now for those of you who have not heard of fascinators - they are essentially the big feathery hair pieces which come close to the hats people wear.

I did bet on a couple of the horses and am now a seasoned professional on horse gambling. :) One horse actually won on my each way bet, but nothing won on the nose - so that translates into one horse won some money back but I did not win enough to make a difference or break even.

The day did remind me how much I love horses and eventually want to have my own some day - large emphasis of some day. It is easy to say that we will be going to more races, if nothing else we need to get our mileage out of our facinators as they weren't exactly cheap.

For Easter Sunday, I made dinner for a small group of friends here at my flat. We had roast beef, potatoes, asparagus and some really good wine. Considering this was the first time I've attempted a roast it turned out pretty well and I now have some good left overs for the coming week off.

Tomorrow I'm debating on doing Accounting studying or going on a road trip south with some friends - it's a hard choice... so I should have more information to post tomorrow but wanted to put this up for everyone to read. :)

Here are some pictures to help paint the picture of the race day.

Love & miss you all!!

Aussie Slang

As part of my integration with Sydney I had to learn the local slang and terms... So as part of educating you on my life I wanted to share some of them with you. :)

Angry or unhappy = Spewin’
Australian Wild Dog (which doesn't bark, but rather howels) = Dingo
Barbeque = Barbie (not to be confused with "Ken and Barbie")
Australian male = Bloke
Beer Cozy = Stubby holder
Bluey = redhead and/or a poisonous jelley fish often blown into the local swim areas
Bottle Shop or Liquor Store (pronounced "bottle-oh") = Bottlo
Breakfast = Brekkie
Bum, Butt = Arse
Case of Beer = a Slab
Complain = Whinge
Conversation = Chinwag
Cookie = Biscuit
Dress Warmly = Rug up
Drunk = Pissed
Drop Bear = a fictional Australian Marsupial said to be related to the koala (Click here for a more detailed description)
Dubious or underhanded = Shonky
Electrician = Sparky
Fireman = Firey
Flip Flops = Thongs
Frills = birds (e.g. "No Birds" is our car rental agency. - see definition for "rent" below.)
Gas station = Servo
Good looking person or either sex = Spunk
Gum = Chewy
How are you? = How ya going?
If you fancy meeting up just give me a bell. = If you like me and want to hang out... Call Me!
Impertinently bold; impudent and saucy = Cheeky
Large Beer = Schooner
Lots of = Heaps (Aussie's LOVE this word)
McDonalds = Maccas
Old Car = Bomb
Pharmacy = Chemist
Really Tired = Buggered
Registration = Rego (pronounced "rej - oh")
Rent = Hire (e.g I hired a car last week from Hertz. Even though the car hire place we use here is called "No Birds".)
Schedule = pronounced "Shheh-dual"
Shady = Dodgy
Shopping Carts = Trollies
Skip School = Wag
Sunglasses = Sunnies
Sweater = Jumper
Sweets/Candies = Lollies
Television = Idiot box
To Show Up = Rock Up
Toilet = Dunnie
Try = Have a go
Umbrella = Brollie
Vegitarian = Vejjo
Well Done = Good Onya
Z = "zed" - Aussie's infrequently use "z's" in their language - it is replaced with an "s"

Catching up....

Ok, so I realise it's been a while since I've posted so I'll try to give a bit of an update... Since I last posted I have gone to a rugby game, been elected Events Coordinator for my class, and managed to knock a girl out (more details later). So to give you the very fulfilling details in order of when these events happened, which is not necessarily in order of entertainment factor. :)

Rugby Game

Unfortunately, it wasn't as exciting as it was built up to be... not to mention the fact that it was raining, cold, and I spent as much time in line for beer as watching the game. All in all it was much like your typical game in the US - cheap seats, expensive beer, good friends, and guys running chasing a ball and hurting each other. Will definitely go again and hopefully it will be more exciting. The picture below is of the stadium and the downpour of rain...



Events Coordinator

What this essentially means is that I will be planning the end of session parties and any other parties for the student society. It does not mean that I am coordinating everyone's social calendars - contrary to some peoples idea... More than anything this will be a fun position to have and enable me to play a part in the Student Society.

One thing that I'm going to try to organise is a trip through Habitat for Humanity. With being so close to countries who need help it is a great opportunity to help people and see a new area of the world.

The TKO

Soo... this was actually today. I've been going down and playing volleyball on Sundays with a group of really good players. Today we were doing some hitting activities and the ball I hit happened to bounce up and hit another girl (who, in my defense, wasn't paying attention) right under the jaw... the next thing she was like a falling tree and hit the sand. She was out for a couple seconds then managed to come to and was fine. Needless to say it wasn't my finest point in time, but it is something I never thought I would say I've done.