Sad Times

Sigh, this gets harder to write as I've moved from an iPad to an iPhone as my tool of typing. I have a few days to catch up on. The is full day two in country Victoria. We didn't really have any plans, but Jes' mom suggested that we go see a movie. We went to see Brave. I was a bit worried it wouldn't be that good, a bit of a miss. I was wrong, it was pretty fantastic. Very funny and well done. Even the less Disney crazed Nason enjoyed it. That was the major event of the day, the rest was spent relaxing and wasting time. We also watched episode 3 of Hamish and Andy's Euro gap year. I cannot recommend it highly enough, nor the American gap year. Very silly.
The next day was very sad, very very sad. I left Castlemaine by train. I want to go diving, but it's sad to leave people you won't see for a long time. So two flights: Melbourne to Brisbane, on which the Melbourne Footy team accompanied us. And then Briabane to Cairns, same flight. I also sat next to the same people of both flight. We didn't talk...I'm not good at meeting new people in planes and trains. Got to hotel, which was ok, not as nice as I had hoped. Probably should have stayed at a Holiday Inn. I just plan not to spend too much time there, more exploring. For example, I went to the night market last night, similar to the night market anywhere, only no real haggling. Today is for exploring, then tomorrow morning diving begins.
Also Jes officially has no horses, I was at her place for days and didn't see them, thus they do not exist

We're Going to the Zoo

Jason's method of trying to indicate that I do not really study real classes is cheering "we're going to the zoo" accompanied by excited hand gestures. For some reason he thought I would be ashamed or upset by this, that's obviously completely erronious. So we went to the zoo today. We being Jes, Jason, Me, and the Twins. It was quite entertaining, and I think that we saw literally every animal in the zoo, including the lions twice. Yes there were a bunch of useless children running around making annoying noises, accompanied by even more useless parents. Still, other than judging them, we were able to deal with them unscathed. Lets think about some highlights. I finally saw a platypus. It was pretty dark because they're nocturnal, so all my attempted photos came out absolutely useless. We pet a friendly wombat, though it was not a wild one. It did look like it was trying to escape, but it gave up. Plus it wasn't small enough for us to smuggle it out. The small cats also decided to show us a lot of teeth, possibly hissing at us, when we went past the first railing and right up to the cage. It did make for a good picture though. There was a point at which I was left responsible for Claire because we were both looking at something for too long. It took ages and a phonecall to regroup. Also the otters were adorable. Anyway, yay animals After dinner we watched How to Train your Dragon (not in 3D which I still must do). It was pretty good, but I was a little distracted by the voice actors. Mainly I didn't like a number of them, but they didn't take away from it and it was a lot of fun. I did like the Norse Mythology references. More Fun Times In other news, the potentially evil cat ended up on my lap during the movie. While it was cute, it was very limiting. It also had a tendency to dig its claws into my pant legs, dangerously close to breaking skin. Then I got up and before I sat back down the chair was claimed. Jason asked me how it felt to be whipped by a cat

Leaving Fisher Forever?

Today I left Fisher, Utas, and Tasmania as a whole. I am now lying on a couch in Jes' house watching Hamish and Andy with Jes and Jason. I woke up early today, my head not feeling quite perfect after a night out with the Pharmy Army at Soho. The packing and cleaning took a while. This was literally the fist time I had vaccuumed my room in over four months. Of course Admin closed at the second I wanted to check out, but we worked around it. I found that there were ten balloons still clinging to life under my bed. I mercilously popped all of them. So long memories and pranks. Zander was sitting in the common room and was given lots of things that I wasn't bringing along. Finally everything was done, breakfast/lunch was eaten (cake and apple-juice). Then there were the goodbyes, some of which have been occuring over the past few days, some of which have not happened at all cough cough Bruce, Smithy, Shani, etc. And that was it. Drove off to the airport and then got on a plane. Plane was not exciting, tried to sleep but didn't really succeed. Got off the plane, got on a bus, then got subway and went on a train (not the subway). Jes, who was my lovely traveling companion for the day, was so interested in meeting our companions onthe train, she sleep kicked some guys chair. Unfortunately he turned out to be a grumpy old man who proceeded to evil eye us at every opportunity. Our talking and muttering about him may have added to that. Otherwise it was a rather uneventful ride. We got picked up by Jason and the rest of Jes' family. Antics have ensued. Jes has two cats. Jason says they are evil, i'm inclined to agree. She also has three siblings, they may or may not be evil as well. Tomorrow to the zoo, hopefully lots of fun stories for fun check out: http://textfromdog.tumblr.com/ also, technically TZ in Tas is done because i'm not in Tassie anymore, but I'll keep blogging until I get home

Fun with Exams

Just because exams seem to be the most horrible time ever created, one in which many students break down into little sobbing balls of despair, doesn't mean that you can't have a little fun with them. I certainly tried to, with some coaxing and encouragement on the part of the pharmy army
On my animals exam we had the question of why the Strong-billed Honey Eater (enedemic to tasmania) had evolved to have a beak designed for ripping and probing bark of eucalyptice trees for food rather feeding in the foliage as similar species on the mainland do. Actual answer: no Tree Creepers in Tassie, on the mainland they rip and probe the bark. their abscene from Tassie leaves an open niche. I then wrote after the exam under a section clearly indicated: for your enjoyment do not mark: it is because of the koalas. Koalas like Eucalyptice trees and get really pissed off when anything else tries to damage or feed from them. During the 45 minute a day they are awake, the koalas throw nuts and small branches at the honey-eaters, effectively stopping them from being able to tear and probe. Because there are no Koalas in Tassie, they can damage the trees. We also had a question about the yearly life cycle of an echidna. i wrote: they sleep, and then they sleep around.
In my plants exam earlier today i was talking about bacteria and plants working in symbiosis. i explained that most bacteria are bad for plants and that letting them enter the plant is bad. I went on to say "it was like letting the proverbial bull into the teashop, only imagine this bull had been insulted by a teapot in its youth and had then sworn a vendetta against all similar dining ware." It's a little forced, but I enjoyed writing it so stop complaining.
I also drew a diargram about flowering and had to draw a flower in it. Part of the diagram was rather unrecognizable so I drew an arrow and indicated that it was a "pretty flower."
So exams aren't complete toture...always

My New Haircut

I finished my exams today and decided to celebrate by relaxing. Unlike many people this did not involve alcohol. I finally got a haircut. I have not had a haircut in five months. The last time I did it was the infamous incident in which an unprepared Elsa started cutting my hair without the implements to finish. Jon Ryss had to clean up the mess. So lets tell this story
Those looking at me may assume that I was attacked by a pair of scissors. That is pretty close to what happened. The hair is certainly shorter, but it may not be even. Jes had volunteered ages ago to preform the duties, so I politely obliged. As the haircut went on my confidence started to dwindle. It was mainly because of comments like this: "you can show Jason and then he'll let me cut his hair. He says he'd rather have his dad sheer him." "I've cut my horses hair, Ziggy's, and my cats." "Your hair is really think here so I can't tell if I'm cutting it or skin." "After some cuts I feel like 'wow, there's a lot of skin'" and her final pronouncement on it, "its not THAT bad." She's right, its not that bad. Certainly much better than having curly hair. No one will even notice that its uneven in a week or two...I hope

Another Adventure or Two

I went running again yesterday, and that in itself is always an adventure. I went back to nutgrove and stopped to watch the birds, definitely not because I was wanted a break. I was staring at the corellas and rosellas and this guy was changing his tire. He struck up a conversation about how incredible and beautiful the animals were, and I pretended not to know tons about birds and bird watching to be polite. The conversation actually ended up moving on to how humans were going to wipe themselves off the planet earth. There was a method connecting the two topics, but i don't really remember what it was. Anyway, that made it an interesting run, and then i saw another cool bird on the way back, Nick Bird.
Today was my first exam and last night I was done studying, so Jes turned on a disney documentary on African Cats narrated by Samuel Jackson. it was awesome. then the credits came on and it was hilarious. it put up little videos of animals and had captions saying their role in the movie production. Secretary Bird: script editor, Black Rhino: security. Stealer of our Hearts: baby elephant. There were many more, it was awesome. Good way to decompress before an exam.
I passed the exam, of that I have no doubt. I knew the answers to all the questions, though the first one was a bit sketchy and I got the diet of the bettong partially incorrect. The rest was pretty simple, I had studied enough yay. Then I became a bum for the rest of the day. it is as good as it sounds

Catching Up a Bit

I haven't checked in a while for a couple reasons. no computer, not too much has actually happened, and mostly i'm just lazy.
Let's get this out of the way. I hereby pronounce Jason the winner of the prank war. Balloons were the last and greatest prank. there, i said it, let's move on
Flaming Red Frogs. Let me explain that phrase, the Red Frogs were a group that came in during the beggining on reading week and made us pancakes for dinner. It. Was. AWESOME. they came in distracted us and gave us food. How could anyone ever complain about that. Wait a minute, there is one thing I can complain about. The second day they came a few of us where in the common room when they arrived. They started to turn on all their things and the ever prepared fire warden Jes Short said, "make sure you watch out for the smoke detector." before she finished the sentence the fire alarm went off. We still had to stand outside and wait for the fire department. Then we had pancakes. The first day we were there Robin Hood Men in Tights was playing and I have a depressing confession. Tess and Lisa actually new the movie better than I did. I never thought I would say that about someone not in my family, but hats off to then. Anyway, as always it was hilarious, better than Silver Brumby or Silver Bambi, whatever Jes made us watch before it. I just started watching mel brooks clips on youtube, i may be here a while. anyway, i've also booked everything to travel around after school, can't wait. i'll also be done with exams, yay. as of now i haven't started yet.
Also I'm back to running. Not as much as mid season in shape, but more than nothing. Today on my run I stopped about halfway in to do some bird watching. I saw a bunch of eastern rosellas and heard sqwauking from across a field. i ran over to investigate/see the cockatoos i was sure were there. I was mistaken, instead I found long-billed corellas. This was cool because i had never seen them in the wild before. Also a couple had flipped upside down on a branch and where just hanging and making noise. it was quite silly. I had heard of galah's doing that but never seen it. now i have. I also saw a Galah, but he was just sitting around all fluffed up.
by the way congrats to everyone who graduated, both from Hackley and Bowdoin.

Fire!!!

It should come as a shock that a place filled withef adults should have trouble with people not knowing how to use a microwave. Sadly, at this point it is all but expected. Sunday night I was taking a long, pleasant shower, when I herd the faint rings of the fire alarm. I was done showering, I needed another few minutes, but no I had troop back to my room and get some clothes to face the damp dark night. Paddy and James had a performance that night and after they returned a number of people decided to drink a lot in Schmidty's too (apparently he was only informed when they invaded his room). There are four fire wardens in Fisher. A floor Kat: drunk, B floor: Schmidt also intoxicated, C floor: Jes asleep but ready to don her helmet, D floor: Hayley not at Fisher. So a nice safe environment right? When I left the shower and walked down the hall, I found myself shrouded a mysterious mist, adding excitement and adventure to the night. What that previous sentence means is that the hall was filled with smoke. When they let us back in the building, later investigation showed that the C floor microwave was destroyed. Some genius had decided it was a good idea to put a plastic bowl of soup with bread in the microwave and leave it on for a couple of hours. The bread was a stick of charcoal that had melted the side of the bowl. Luckily nothing spilled because all the liquid ha evaporated. There's a camera in the kitchen so the villains will be caught...I have little pity, they ruined my shower!

Late Night Antics

There were a few barrels this Friday evening. I chose not to attend, citing killing myself last weekend, the weather, and really any other excuse I could think of. This did not mean I went to bed early or anything, of course not. That would be unthinkable. With that in mind I was up and about when some people started to trickle back in...drunk. There was some comedy, Ira and I played super smash and he did suprisingly well for being drunk off his ass. Birdy and Julio actually had to carry someone back, which is pretty impressive. But the best moment came when Lisa got back. She held a bag from McDonalds. The drunk people flocked to her. Being the generous person she is, she handed over her fries to Ziggy. She looks away for a second, and Ziggy takes this time not to eat all of them, not even to eat one of them. He threw the bag like a grenade down the hall way. Lisa was less than pleased.
Ira had lost track of Zander last night, and I saw him this morning. He explained that he had spent the night sleeping in a private garden somewhere in Sandy Bay. Being too tired to make it home to his bed, he slept in a flower bed. I am so funny
Other fun stuff, went for a run today for the first time in ages. i also missed the rain by about 30 minutes, perfect timing. Time to start getting back in shape. woo.
also, go hawthorne, won by over 100 points today!