the first: random journalish entries to get up to today. higher quality after this. probably.

list so far of stuff we've made or can - trying to build a rep. so can glance at for ideas, etc.
feel free to toss out easy/tasty cooking etc ideas. ;)

Pizza (pizza sauce, mozzarella, onions, capsicums, garlic, ...)
Potatoes (mashed, with garlic or with rosemary)
Pasta (with marinara sauce, basil and garlic, alfredo, mac and cheese, various from packets)
Couscous
Rice
Stir fry (e.g. onions, bell peppers (tofu?) in soy sauce or perhaps balsamic vinegar)
Grill cheese
Panini (cheese, basil pesto, tomato, onion)
Bagels (cream cheese, onion, capsicum or just cheddar, garlic butter)
Toast (w/jam or w/garlic butter or w/cheese (and marinara) ...)
Oatmeal (w/almonds, raisins, cinnamon, cardimum (?), maple syrup)
Tofu (fried like at home, with cayenne, garlic powder, soy sauce... or stir fried, or... ?)

Mexican: quesadillas, tortillas w/..., burritos, tacos
Veggie burgers?
Grilled vegetables?

Mon, 21 July 2008 - arrived, picked up at airport, driven around campus, Coogee, and to flat. dropped off stuff, went to campus. study abroad office, signing forms etc, got student ID at FM assist, looked up bicycles etc, walked to Europa Cycles then to a rental place in Clovelly, then took the bus back here. met Sammy for the first time, hung out. Went grocery shopping with Sammy. Ate parathas while they ate pasta. Ended up hanging out at night, walking down to the beach with Brad, then coming back, hanging out (trying to stay awake to ward off jet lag) and then Meghan came back with Shira et al (Australearn kids) and watched Wedding Crashers with them. sleep.

Tues, 22 July 2008 - woke (to Meghan and Kenji, who hurt his ankle), hung out a bit, went on an exploratory run/jog, made some oatmeal for Sammy and I, then met up with Shira, Meghan, AJ, and Kenji at the steps to go get phones. got phones etc at Eastgardens, then went to campus, where looked up internet, etc. came back, had grill cheese and soup courtesy of Sam. then met up with shira et al, went to shira's, hung out, played some speed quarters, met more peeps, then ended up catching a bus to downtownish (Circle Quay) to go to Scruffy Murphy's. cool place, cover band was quite good. crowded with americans, not great dancing music, so dancing was so so.

Wed, 23 July 2008 - woke a bit later, made some oatmeal (too much) went with Brad to campus to buy tickets and go to Dark Knight, but was sold out so ended up hanging on campus, doing some internet/email in library, then going by health center for immunization (to ask about it), then walked to the bike rental place in Clovelly, purchased bike ($200, free helmet), rode back, got passport and proof of residence, etc to get license. rode to Motor Registry in Maroubra, found out rules are changed or i looked at the wrong ones and actually i had to be here for more than 6 months before i could get a license. bugger. came back here, made the rest of the spaghetti, ate it and some tofu i burned badly (too much oil). set off the smoke alarm. twice. met up with shira et al at palace. was nice. cool place. chill. met sarah (german, physics/oceanography). pool, bar, not dancing though... upper floors for that weren't open. probably fun in a quite different way on an open/on night (sat?). was raining.

Thurs, 24 July 2008 - woke, toast for breakfast, orientation. went to roundhouse/unibar after and hung out, met a lot of people, played flip cup (not me), speed quarters (yesss), met some more germans (and some swedes, etc). inc. nadine and sabrina. ate for free in dining hall with kyle (australearn et al). back to coogee, saw brad and sam back at our flat then introduced myself and hung out with girls next door and their friends. just took a bunch of pictures of them for them, now just took a shower and going to put on clothes, head over to their place, then go with them to Kings Cross to World Bar in Sydney, where Brad is going, and Sam, and i'll tell Shira about. (sent a text, we'll see). sweet. --- update: shira and meghan etc went to palace. i went to World Bar with the neighbors, met brad there. he called Sam and she was apparently at the Palace. i didn't really like world bar that much. it was indie night... dance floor was really crowded... music wasn't great for dancing. wasn't too bad, but was kinda smoky and dodgy. they played that song that neil's had recently ((irony... but we're so happy ... everything is going wrong but we're so happy)).

Fri - 25 July 2008 - woke laate. hung out watching heros a bit. set up the internet (MAC address filtering). had a grill cheese sam was making. then grabbed a protein bar and went out to Dark Knight with Shira and Meghan. so good! inspired me to be better and awesomer. then came back, made dinner real quicklike (two small bowls of salad with olive oil and balsamic and salt and pepper... then two slices of bread dipped in the leftover dressing etc, then two PB&Js on way to bus to go to downtown to Cargo Bar in Darling Harbour on Kings Wharf. it was "at capacity, guest list only" so we went to Pontoon. it was nice. definitely a bit fun and some decent dancing, though dance floor was a bit too crowded. kind classy, which was nice. a good time, though tiring.

Sat - 26 July 2008 - great day. malcolm and jules picked me up ~10:45 am. i was just finishing making tofu. i did better than last time, because i kept adding more oil as the original oil burnt off. (so less burning). still way too oily though. the answer, i think, is that the heat should be much lower. that way there need not be so much oil... i can just put on a little bit as i'm used to and it should last the whole time... with no burning and no ODing on oil. fingers crossed. first we stopped by a shopping center with various wholesale stuff for interior design where jules looked for stuff for her big tender/quote. after that we drove around for quite a while... saw many beautiful views from all sorts of places with homes in the tens of millions of dollars. first went to near harbour so could look across, see bridge, opera house perhaps. then around on a point south of the harbour. then crossed the bridge, saw the opera house. went to bondi, drove by the beach, they treated me to some awesome falafels at a place there (sabbaba? keanu reeves went there according to the newspaper clippings on the door). then up through the northern suburbs/beaches. newport beach, manly beach (drove by it), whale beach, palm beach, pittsomething(?) sound, ... wow. they took me up to a house that their friends (world champion windsurfers ?) had bought and were remodeling. fabulous views and awesome house! !! then we went down to a place in a town called avalon (a.k.a. babylon by M&J) where we had some delicious toasted gluten (and egg) free banana bread with coconut, and a chai latte for me. awesome. then we came back, they dropped me off at my flat. made/had some dinner there (actually sam made some paninis with pesto, tomato, cheese, and onion. quite good actually. afterwards sam and i went up to "the guys' house" where we hung out and watched the rugby match between AUS and NZ (aus unexpectedly won). was chill. anyway, afterwards went down to the sports bar for the end of the game, then walked megan who was tired as heck back home. was going to shower, but then shira called megan and she gave me the phone... shira had lost her credit card and the ATM machine stole her ATM card. so i tossed on my bestest plaid flannel and biked over there. after being with her for a bit (comforting and trying to help call numbers to help sort it out) we parted ways (her to her place, me to the palace). the palace was actually a quite good time. i saw danielle (a jersey girl from columbia who i met last night) and talked to her a bit. ...finally met up with sabrina (she said first floor. i was thinking ground floor (like in US) whoops!). talked to her for a bit. saw brad and sam at the palace. talked to them briefly -> sam told me that i don't turn the best way for snowboarding. allegedly when you're really good you turn with the front of your board. so when you're facing uphill you lean/fall back and twist the front of your board back to whip it around to 'catch you' almost. i said that's what i do when i'm about to fall to avoid falling. i'm still uncertain about my turning not being right, since i'm quite solid on it. we'll see. apparently the four of us roomies are going to have breakfast together tomorrow. it'll probably be not that good for me, but could be okay foodwise and should be sweet for us to eat together. 'night.

Sun - 27 July 2008 - solid day. very unproductive, but pleasant. woke late (130 pm?). hung out for a while... finally made up some oatmeal for breakfast. was solid. then hung out for a while... did some email etc. hung out, watched TV. a helicopter was flying around over wedding cake island and nearby waters with two searchlights combing the water (!). ended up cooking rice with stir fry (sam on stir fry) (red bell peppers, carrots and onions) with soy sauce for dinner while watching heroes. then brad and i went out to get movies and dessert. the apple turnovers with cream (3.70) looked awesome, but the dude wasn't sure if they had eggs or not, so i didn't have any. picked up "The Bucket List" (jack nicholson and morgan freeman) and "Goal" (some aspiring soccer kid). meanwhile sam made cookies and pizza. was good. movies was pretty solid too. then pullups, and this. tomorrow some skyping hopefully. and a run (swim if good weather). and grocery shopping. pushups then sleep for now.

Mon - 28 July 2008 - no class today, though some people did. not really sure what i did monday (writing tues night?). i think hung out and was quite unproductive, and i think we watched goal (thought that might have been tues... ?) : / (i should perhaps try to make this a more deliberate thing)

Tues - 29 July 2008 - first day of classes... starting with Philosophy of Religion at 9 am. seemed like has potential to be a pretty cool class. prof seemed decently interesting and nice. people seemed pretty nice as well. we made our groups of 4 people each for our class presentations later on in the sem and i'm in a group with three girls. all seemed nice. we got out quite early (1030 am instead of noon). so i went to give blood (which i was originally planning on doing after my ELEC tutorial from noon-1. i filled out the paperwork and all but didn't get in before i left to go to my tutorial. turns out the tutorials don't start until wk 3. oh well... seems as though there is a bunch of course info up and available on this site called WebCT or vista.elearning.something that Study Abroad didn't tell us about, including the course outline for ELEC3114 (Control Systems) which told us that tutorials don't start yet. so i went back and gave blood b/c i'm a baller like that. afterwards i went to the doctor and got immunizations. (a HepA typhoid combo shot). solid. i went by Thoughtful Foods at some point - seems pretty cool. got a strawberry yogurt frog. wasn't that good. there were mostly girls there, which was fun as i was chatting with them. one girl who came had another girl ask if i was from canada... after i replied she said something like "i didn't want to ask if he was from the US b/c if he wasn't he'd be offended" or something. nice. that night went to Scruffy Murphy's. Colleen and Danielle and Alyssa and Rachel were there. was a good night. oh, and played thumper earlier in the night (drinking game like Big Booty). oh yeah, and rode my bike to and from campus in the rain both times. damn. got some bagels! holla.

Wed - 30 July 2008 - a fat day of classes. got intimidated by Control Systems and DiffEQs which both seem to be decently challenging and also assume a certain degree and specificity of knowledge based on previous classes that i don't necessarily have. may have to work a solid amount in those classes. ! lab sucked. we'll see how it progresses. worked with a chill girl from turkey though - maram. went with Shira to dinner with Nira and Elliot (her bf) and friends in Paddington. not sure what the place was called (need to get that name -> update:: London Tavern, Paddington) but the orechiette (sp?) pasta was delicious. i would eat there again. was quite pleasant and nice, i def. enjoyed it. afterwards went to a pub a few blocks away... after dinner etc with nira (and meeting Tootie, who is friends with nira and 21 and will show us around a bit apparently, and (Wayne) Ash who is cool dude and also will and just moved to Bondi and recommends Nana (sp?) for fallafels there... we went to the Palace.

Thurs - 31 July 2008 - more classes. a bunch. cool though. we'll see how that goes. International Relations was... okay. the lecture was slow but wasn't a real lecture so i'll withhold judgement for now. tutorial was decent though the tutor has a style i'm not used to where she drives the tut entirely, by means of having personal dialogues with each student that speaks. perhaps challenging each to stand to their position or something and follow through but makes it different. we'll see how that goes. went out to unibar start of semester party. was decent, but could have been better.

Fri - 1 August 2008 - skipped math lecture today. shitty weather and just a pain to get to campus. i'm worried that i'll never go and that'll hurt me. shit! i'd better hella go through every lecture and do all the work solidly. hmm... maybe i should pick up some kind of textbook along the way. we'll see. hung out for a while... pretty much all day. watched some heroes. dozed. cleaned the dishes/kitchen like whoa and took out trash and recycling. megan's friend ashley came and hung out a bit, we had dinner over heroes and then hung out for a bit watching TV etc then went out to Darling Harbour (Pontoon). was actually a good time.

Sat - 2 August 2008 - Hung out around the apt. Not sure what I did or if I did much (probably not)... ended up making pizzas at home with Sam. Then went over to Danielle's place, hung out there for a little bit (Rachel, Danielle, Alyssa, Colleen, Kyle, big Sam, Rob), then headed to the Palace with them. Was chill and nice. Played pretend pool with Danielle, talked for a little while. Ended up leaving, heading with Danielle over to my place to watch Little Miss Sunshine, but Sam had loaned it to the neighbors, so then went back to her place and hung out and chatted and played cards with her and Alyssa, also met their roommate Katie (from Maine).

Sun - 3 August 2008 - Woken up by Sam saying it was nice and we should go to the beach. Got email from Dad saying I should get on Skype, so did that which was cool b/c got to see lots of people, including some I hadn't seen in a while and some I had never seen. Briefly saw Rambhagat's (sp?) two kids and his wife, though didn't entirely catch all of their names. Sam went to lunch with Megan and Ashley, who then left. I was on Skype for an hour probably at least, then made some breakfast (2 white bread toasted, with garlic butter). Then joined Sam at beach and met some of the dudes that ended up coming to dinner. Also met three girls, whose names I don't remember for the moment at least. Went swimming for 5 min. Hmm... cold. Want to swim to WCIsland one of these days though... probably when it's warmer though so when I take a break on the island I won't freeze to death. we all (sam and the dudes and myself) went hopping around on the rocks along to the south end of the beach, looking at tidepools etc. she showed us how you can stir a small tidepool and see what looks like oily stuff or heat above a stove or a mirage b/c the saltwater and freshwater settle to separate layers and then you can stir them up to see that effect (different densities, i think). oh yeah, went grocery shopping. got some newman's own light balsamic (they didn't have non-light balsamic, does it exist anymore?). then came back, hung out, ate some food, watched some TV. they came over, we hung out, ate, watched more TV. they left, we watched Derailed with Clive Owen. really messed up movie but not too bad considering. hard core. dude. badass. then watched an episode of Heroes (15 I think) which didn't answer many questions. then did some finances (receipts and estimations and stuff) and now this, then maybe some pullups before sleep. tomorrow hopefully hella HW/getting organized and feeling good about school/classes... and also study/hang out with Danielle (if not others as well). oh, and i think i broke my top left wisdom tooth while flossing. shit!

Mon - 4 August 2008 - Hung out around the apt, don't think I left. Did reading for Philosophy of Religion. Some legit interesting stuff. Maybe watched some heroes. ?

Tues - 5 August 2008 - Class and all. Philosophy of Religion is looking cool, fun, and interesting. two girls in my group were slower leaving and we chatted and they told me about random cool places to visit and we exchanged contact info (also for the project) and they said I should ask them about stuff in Sydney and stuff. Also recommended a place with a movie theater where Robyn works and where they have markets. And Emily asked if I'd met many locals and was expressing how form studying abroad at Georgetown she knows it's hard to meet local people and people often assume you're all set when you don't really know people and stuff... and proceeded to invite me to join her (and bring some friends perhaps) and UNSW peeps at some (German?) pub on Sat night. I said I might be able to but had said I would go out with my roommates, so we'll see. Then she texted me on Wed to say she was going to be at Roundhouse Thurs night with friends I should join or something. Cool. Ended up coming back and ate pasta w/alfredo sauce from package. AJ and Kenji and Shira and Liz and Jackie came over to pregame. Then to Scruffy's...

Wed - 6 August 2008 - ELEC and MATH. Fun!! This stuff doesn't seem so bad as long as I stay on top of it. Saw Mara and her Asian friend whose name I forget in lecture for ELEC. Asked them if we ever have HW, they said just optional tutorial problems for ourselves... and that no one gets together to do them b/c they're just for you if you want... etc. Hmm... got the book from Kristen... saw Shira in the library, and talked to her for a while (laughed a lot for some reason). Also Emily texted about hanging out Thurs. Then came home, made up some grill cheeses (2, this time with mustard! spicy english... was solid). And a protein chocolate milkshake. Decent. Then slept for 1.5-2 hrs... woke up, did some reading ate dinner, watched some Heroes/TV, read... now sleeptime. Haven't done workout exercise (let alone running... though I have been biking to school and back) for too long... will def do this weekend.

Thurs - 7 August 2008 - a bunch of class, as always for Thurs. Society and Desire is looking a bit heavy on BS abstraction, which is too bad, but we'll see how it goes for the rest of the time. IR lecture was boring again, but tutorial was a litttle better (talked about Kosovo, NATO v. UN, sovereignty and non-intervention vs. humanitarian aid...). met Curry (again, but now actually know) who leaves near us on Beach St. showed Kristen and Curry Thoughtful Foods (co-op) and got some fresh PB from the PB machine (like had at MV Whole Foods before they took it away, i think). biked home, dinner = soup w/toast, potatoes w/rosemary. hung out, watched beginning of Brothers Grimm, then 373 bus to Unibar. it was decent, hung out and talked to Sarah (from germany) for a bunch of the time i was there... which wasn't all that long but they started closing at 11:40 and closed at midnight, so weren't there for that long (got there at 1030?). unexpected... went to Regent Hotel Bar which a dude Shira met recommended. was aight, but wasn't really feeling it. then walked home with Brad and Meghan. mmm... so tired. sleep.

Fri - 8 August 2008 - woke laate (a few times earlier but back to sleep until 3ish). felt goood. talked on iChat for a bit (caught mom). some email, fbook etc... then breakfast and starting up blog. brad still out at school (then surfing i think), meghan and sam left just after i woke for shopping i think. blog: what's good? how much, etc... hmm... will see.

Note to readers: i've never blogged before. this first post (as with title) is basically edited version of random journalish entries i've been keeping for myself separately, just to get up to speed. after this i don't think i'll include much of random daily stuff, but more likely summaryish stuff when it's of more general interest, and perhaps random posts about questions/thoughts i've had or stuff that has made me think. i want people to hit me with all kinds of feedback... comments on stuff that's cool, questions on stuff for clarification or to know more, responses to questions/thoughts i toss out, requests for posts/info... can comment on here or hit my email if that'd work better.