You mean I'm here to study?

I realize it has been quite some time since I’ve updated. That’s mostly because nothing too exciting has been going on. After Sydney, I spent the next two weekends in Canberra. One day, I walked around Lake Ginninderra with 2 other exchange friends. I thought it was a very small lake, but turns out...It’s not. It took us about 2 and a half hours to walk around it. We took lunch with us and stopped and had lunch by the lake. We also stopped to play on a zip-line and spider-web thingy. It was a little chilly the day we did that, but it was still fun and it was nice to explore that area. The next weekend I went to a science museum with some friends. It was actually really cool and a lot of fun! Yay for being a nerd on a Saturday. Other than that, those two weekends were full of movie nights and hanging out with friends. 

Pretty Australian sunset

Also during that time, I got to celebrate my birthday for a total of 39 hours. Who out there has had a 39 hour birthday? Yea, probably not many of you. Be jealous. It was weird because I kept getting Facebook notifications until like 2PM the day after my birthday had ended for me since it was still my birthday in the US. I liked it though. :-) The Wednesday night before my birthday, we went out to the Lighty (the bar near campus). Thursday was my actual birthday.  I had class and then when people were done with class, some of us went to get ice cream. I knew my housemates and exchange friends had been planning something for that night, but I wasn’t exactly sure what.  They planned a house party for me, complete with decorations, a country theme, and KFC for dinner because “Kentucky is close enough to Tennessee” in the words of my housemates. It was so much fun! Definitely one of my favorite birthdays I’ve ever had! So, thanks to my housemates and exchange friends who took the time to plan my party! I appreciate it!

Pebbly Beach sunset

Freddie!

This past weekend, I went to Bateman’s Bay with a group of friends. Bateman’s Bay is about 2 from Canberra. It’s on the coast, so it was a beach weekend! We went to Pebbly Beach on Saturday. Pebbly Beach was super pretty, and my Pebbly Beach experience was complete after seeing kangaroos on the beach! When we were leaving, we saw a group of kangaroos, and naturally, we had to take pictures. These kangaroos were really awesome and let you get super close to them! In fact, I had a kangaroo hop to me and get about 2 or 3 feet away from me! I REALLY wanted to touch him, but everyone has told me wild kangaroos are aggressive. I reached my hand out to him, and he started reaching his head out towards my hand. I freaked out when he was like 6 inches away and pulled my hand away. I was afraid he was going to turn all aggressive, and being that close I could see he had some pretty massive claws. We named him Freddie, so I now have a kangaroo friend named Freddie out on Pebbly Beach!

Wimbie Beach

Sunday we got up pretty early and headed to another beach. We kind of just drove around until we found something that we liked, and we ended up on Wimbie Beach. The weather was so great that day. The water was a little chilly, but definitely warmer than at Pebbly. The waves were also much calmer at Wimbie. Overall, it was such a fun weekend. I once again did not want to come back to Canberra. That seems to be a recurring theme. Leave Canberra, and never want to return. Don’t get me wrong, Canberra is great and I love the people I’ve met here, but it’s always so much fun traveling and coming back to Canberra means study time. Ick. Who actually wants to study on their study abroad experience? 

Sunday I will be flying to Cairns for Spring Break! They don’t call it Spring Break here, but it’s Spring and it’s a week long break from school, so I define that as Spring Break. We have everything booked! After staying in Cairns for two nights, we’re doing a tour of the Daintree Rainforest, and that will take us to Cape Tribulation, which is about 2 and a half hours north of Cairns. We’re staying there 3 nights before heading back down to Cairns for 3 more nights. While in Cairns, we’re going snorkeling and scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef!! I am so beyond excited! It’s going to be great! So, my next blog post will include all the details of that trip!

And now, time for the Australian differences section of my blog. I mailed one of my friends a birthday card, and when I bought the envelope, they placed something where I would usually write the return address. I was a little confused, so decided to ask my roommate exactly how to address an envelope. They write the address that it’s going to on the side of the envelope and to left. The return address is written on the back. Who would have thought I would have to ask how to write out an address? Also, they use a different paper size. It’s a little skinnier and then a lot longer than what I’m used to. They also spell things differently, which can be annoying when writing papers. I’ve set my language to Australian English, so that’s definitely helpful. Instead of behavior, it’s behavioUr. Instead of center, it’s centRE. Instead of counseling, it’s counseLLing. Considering the paper I just wrote has each of these words multiple times, it was annoying because I messed them up every single time. All I can say: Struggles of a study abroad student.

It’s crazy to think that when we get back from our Spring Break trip, my time here will be half way up. I can’t believe it’s been almost 2 months since I left. It’s unbelievable. Time is flying by, and in trying to plan so many trips, I’m realizing how few weekends I really have left here. There’s still so much I want to do and so much I want to see.  I’ve booked plane tickets to New Zealand! That’s not until December, but man, I can’t wait! More and more I’m realizing that right now is my time to live it up, go on as many adventures as possible, and do the things I want to do. Sure, there have definitely been some hard times while here, and the past few days have been my hardest days here due to some circumstances at home. However, even with all the stuff going on at home...I know my family wants nothing more than for me to have a great time.

So, as the ending of this blog...I’m dedicating this blog entry to my Aunt Betty. My world has shattered this week, but she would have wanted me to keep enjoying my time here. I’m heartbroken to realize I’ll never be able to share all my pictures with her. I’ll never be able to tell her about my many adventures over here. She was so excited for me before I left, and one of the last things she said to me was that she was so proud of me and that she loved me so much. She was such a great lady and loved seeing everyone happy. She wouldn’t want me to waste the rest of my time here regretting that I’m not there for my family right now. So, I’m pushing on through with the thought that she’s still here with me, and if even physically I will never see her again, she’s in my thoughts and memories. I’m thankful that I have such great memories of her from throughout my life, and that my final memories of her were of her being so happy. So, Aunt Betty...Know that you were and are still so loved by so many people. You touched so many people, and I’m still in disbelief that this is real. I love you, and thanks for being the lady you were! 

It's already been over a month!?!?!

**Warning: This is going to be a REALLY long post. Get ready.**

As of 2 days ago, I have been in Australia for a month. In some ways, I feel like I’ve been here much longer, but in other ways, I feel like I got here maybe a week ago. The past two weeks have just been amazing, and I’m not sure I can make you understand how great they have been just from a blog post, but I will do my best! :-)

2 weekends ago, I stayed in Canberra and hung out with friends a lot.  Friday night I went out downtown (they call it Civic) with my roommates and some other Aussie friends. That was the first night I had gone out in Civic, but it was such a great night! Saturday during the day, I went with a couple exchange friends to the Australian National Museum, which is located in Canberra, and even better--it’s fo’ free! That night, we were celebrating a birthday, so a lot of exchange kids got together and surprised the birthday girl with a little party before some of us headed to Civic for a night out. I originally wasn’t going to go out since I went out the night before, but I am SOO glad I went. It was such a great night with exchange friends! I can’t even really say this night was great for <insert reason here>, it was just great and so much fun for no particular reason. It’s just a lot of fun to hang out with people who are from all over the world...That’s definitely something that always makes things great! Sunday nights, exchange students have been having international dinners, so I went to my first one of those this week. It was Canadian themed, and we had yummy pancakes and then something that was really good, but I don’t remember the name. I am super excited for when we have Tennessee night! There’s another girl from Tennessee here, so we will get to plan together, but we are both thinking fried chicken (of course)! The plan is to have dinner each week with someone different making it each week!

Sydney Opera House!

Bondi Beach

This past weekend, I went back to Sydney with a group of exchange friends. It was such a fantastic trip! I did not want to come back to Canberra at all. I had originally planned to come back Sunday night, but that changed to Monday because I was having fun and didn’t want to miss out on Sunday. When we got there on Friday, we just kind of explored around the area our hostel was located. We went to a place called The World Bar that night, and they served their drinks in teapots, which was really cool. I don’t remember the name of the drink I had, but it was soo good. Saturday we all got up and headed out to find Bondi Beach. It was sooo beautiful. Looking back at pictures, there are some that don’t even look real to me because it was so pretty there. We hung out on the beach for a while and got lunch while there. After the beach, our group split up to do different things. I went to see the opera house again, and then we explored the botanic gardens. That night, we went out for a little while, but ended up back at our hostel just hanging out. It was a fun day and night! Sunday, some of us decided to head to shops called Paddy’s Market. You can find all kinds of stuff there for super cheap! After shopping, a couple of us were going to go take a tour of the government house, but that turned into let’s go take a picture in front of it so we could catch an earlier ferry to head to Manly. We got to Manly, got lunch, and ate while by the ocean (always a good plan), and then walked to an area called Shelley Beach, where we eventually met up with everyone from our group. We laid out, read, played frisbee and threw a football around with some guys we met on the beach, took a dip in the ocean (it was really cold!), and just had a great time! We watched the sunset from the beach and just hung out for a while even after it was dark. We stayed in Manly for dinner, then took a ferry back to Sydney and headed back to our hostel.  

Manly at Shelley Beach

I left on the 10AM bus Monday morning to make it back for class. It’s such a sad moment when I realize I’m in Australia to go to school and not just on a 5 month vacation. The weekend was sooo good, and I kept forgetting that when I went back to Canberra, I would be the typical college student who needs to do homework, write papers, and go to class. I should be doing something school related right now, but this sounded better. :-) I really feel like when I type out what I’ve been up to, it doesn’t sound that great. But seriously, this past weekend in Sydney was one of the best weekends of my life! 

So, that is what I’ve been up to the past two weeks. It has all just been so great! When I think of all the things I’ve done, all the people I’ve met, and all the friends I’ve already made, I absolutely cannot believe I’ve only been here a little over a month! I’ve had my moments of homesickness, but I feel like that is just normal. Seeing all the pictures from UT is so weird, and now that it’s football season, I feel as if my Saturdays should be spent tailgating and going to games. I miss my mom, my friends, my cat, my car...There are so many things I miss, but I would not trade my decision to come here for anything! On the bus ride back to Canberra yesterday, I was looking out the window and thinking how many people never get to experience something like this, and it made me sad to think that! I was looking at all the native Australian trees and plants, the animal life, and the scenery and thinking how it’s still crazy to think that I’m actually here living this life! 

Of course, I have some Australian differences to mention. I think all my blogs will have to contain some culture lesson, so that maybe people will actually get something out of reading them. Haha So, here’s the culture lesson: Australian’s add the letter ‘r’ to the end of words and take out the r from other words. So, here’s some Australian words: idea(r), pasta(r), Australia(r), usually words ending in an ‘a’, they pronounce with an ‘r’. But, when talking about Melbourne or Cairns, you leave those r’s out. So, you end up with what sounds like Melbin and Cans. Silly Australians and their r’s. Also, I brought some notebooks with me, and I needed a 3-ring binder to put everything in. I went to the school bookstore, and could only find 2-ring binders. I looked at some peoples paper in my classes later that day, and noticed their paper has like 7 holes instead of 3. Who would have thought things like that would change in a different country? Also, I’m trying to get used to walking on the left side of sidewalks, which is challenging. I guess you just go to the side that you would drive on, but since that is backwards for me, I get confused. I also still freak out when I’m in a car and we turn into the wrong lane in my head. I always think I’m about to be in a head-on collision!

Almost done! I am officially going to Cairns for our Spring Break! They don’t call it Spring Break here, they just call it the Week 8 break, but it’s Spring and a break from school, so I’m calling it Spring Break. I booked plane tickets with 4 exchange friends a couple days ago, and I AM SO EXCITED! If you don’t know what Cairns means, it means the Great Barrier Reef, rainforests, and beaches! Seriously, just so excited!

And last, but not least, I will give you all my address in case you feel the urge to write me a letter! I would love to get mail, and I’ll write you back if you want!

Brook Beasley 

LPO Box 5264

University of Canberra

Bruce ACT 2617

Australia

PS-My birthday is next week. :-)

School Life and Canberra

Hello there! Since school started, I haven’t been doing too many exciting things. I just finished my second week of classes (I don’t have Friday classes), and there are quite a few differences between UC (University of Canberra) and UT that I’ve noticed. I haven’t decided which way I like better, but I think UT will win. This blog post is happening because I have a paper I should be writing, but writing a blog seemed better. :-) 

One difference is that even though I have 4 classes, I have 3 exams the ENTIRE semester. Including finals and everything. I have two classes where my grade is based off two papers, each paper worth 50% of my grade. The classes with exams still don’t have very many assignments, so if you mess up on one thing, you’re pretty much screwed. I’m used to having things to cushion my grade, so if I mess up on one thing, I can make up for it. But, that is not how it will be here. Definitely much different than UT. 

Each class has two different meetings a week, one being a lecture and the other being what is called a tutorial. Tutorials are smaller groups of your lecture class, so for those of you at UT, think discussion groups. But, you don’t have your lectures or tutorials every week, so you have to figure out what classes are actually running in a given week. I only have one class that has a lecture and tutorial every week of the semester. One of my classes only has the tutorial every other week and another class only has 6 tutorials the entire 14 weeks of classes. No complaints there, it’s just different! Also, teachers record lectures, so lots of students don’t bother to go to lectures and just listen to them later online. For me, it’s easier to just go at an assigned time for lecture instead of relying on myself to actually make time to listen to them later. But, I know some people who schedule to work during lectures because they know it doesn’t matter if they come or not. While some classes are like this at UT, I cannot imagine scheduling to work every week during a class, because I know I have to at least go sometimes! 

I’ve also noticed that during class, the US is mentioned quite a bit! We did something in one of my tutorials the other day involving Super Bowl ads, and there were some people in my class who didn’t understand how big of a deal the Super Bowl is. But, we also talk about Australia sometimes, and I still don’t know that much, so I can easily get lost sometimes. I had to work with a partner in an activity dealing with the local ruby team, the University of Canberra Brumbies, and I was useless during that activity because I knew nothing! Haha Oh well, it’s a learning experience! Anyways, enough about school life!

View from Mt. Ainslie

Yesterday, I went with 2 of my roommates and 1 other friend to explore some of Canberra. We went to Mt. Ainslie, which is a place that overlooks Canberra. I had been up there at night, and it was so pretty to see all the lights, but this was my first day time trip. It was so gorgeous and so cool to see all of Canberra right there in my view. We then went to the Australian War Memorial, and since I LOVE studying about wars, this was awesome. We went when the museum was about to close, so we only got to walk around about 20 minutes, but I will go back and easily spend an entire day in there and be completely content. I also think it will be great to learn about some Australian history.  Since I've been here, I've noticed how little I know about anywhere except the US. And let's be real...I am terrible at US history too! Canberra is the capital of Australia, and thus government business goes on here, so we stopped by the Parliament House next. We walked inside, but were only there about 5 minutes, but I’ll go back there as well at some point. The day definitely gave me a good look at things to do in Canberra, and I can go back and visit places later and stay longer! To end our adventures, we had dinner at a Turkish Kebab place. The kebab was HUGE and only $9.50, which is cheap here! I could have easily made 3 meals of it if I had really wanted, but I ate a lot and made two of it. So. freaking. good. I finished the night off by going out to The Lighthouse (or The Lighty, as everyone says), which is a bar near campus. I bought one drink and learned that even during their Power Hour, drinks are still $6 for something as simple as rum and coke. Therefore, that was my one and only drink, and I enjoyed the night hanging out and dancing with some exchange friends. All this basically to say that yesterday was a great day and one of the funnest nights I’ve had since being here! 

Australian War Memorial

Parliament House

Well, I feel like I just rambled on about nothing much, but it’s been a while since I updated, and I’ve had some requests to write a new blog. The first 2 weeks went by pretty slow, but this past week has gone by fast! Overall, life Down Under is going well, and I am loving it here!

Australian Adventures

Since updating, I have had several Australian adventures! So far, everything is still going great, and I am having so much fun (or as Australians would say, heaps of fun!). There are still so many differences I’m adjusting to and still so many I’m just noticing. Anyways, on to my adventures.

Brindabella Mountains

Friday a couple of my housemates and their friends took me to the Brindabella mountains, which are about an hour outside of Canberra. If you know me at all, you know that I LOVE mountains, so you should know that this trip was just awesome. These mountains are more like big hill since I'm used to the Smokies, but it was still great! We were in the mountains for the sunset, and I cannot even describe how pretty it was. I also got to see some Australian wildlife! I am used to deer running out in front of my car, but I have to say that when a kangaroo hopped across the road in front of our car, I may have gotten a bit too excited. It was definitely one of those moments that made me think “Oh my gosh, I am actually in Australia.” I also saw a few wallabies and A LOT of sheep. There were sheep everywhere on the mountainside. All around, just an amazing day! It was so much fun to hang out with everyone I went with, and I am so thankful my housemates included me in on things! 

View from the Sydney Tower

Bright and early on Saturday morning, I left for Sydney with the rest of the exchange students. We were in Sydney on Saturday and then drove a couple hours outside of Sydney to spend the night in a hostel in Katoomba, a small town by the Blue Mountains.  Even though I flew into Sydney and stayed a night, it was great to go back, and it was so much more fun having other people with me! It was also great to not be fighting jet-lag. :-) We went up the Sydney Tower, which is as tall as the Eiffel Tower, so there were obviously amazing views of Sydney! We then had time to roam on our own, and a few of my exchange friends and I walked around to see the Sydney Bridge, the Opera House, and the Botanic Gardens. We then got back on the bus and drove to a place called Paddy’s Market, which is a super cheap shopping place! They had all kinds of things for souvenirs, so that was cool. After the market, we went to the Sydney aquarium, which was very awesome. One of my exchange friends gave me science lessons as we walked around and told me random interesting facts about the critters I was looking at, so that was extra cool for me! Oh, and I found Nemo there! Yaaay for finding Nemo! We then had dinner at a restaurant on Darling Harbor. After dinner, we loaded up the bus and drove to our destination for the night. 

Three Sisters

We started Sunday morning off with a hike in the Blue Mountains. Once again, I love mountains and hiking, so this was great! We got to see a rock formation called Three Sisters, then we went on our hike and ended at the bottom of the mountains, with another view of Three Sisters. Instead of hiking back up, we took the steepest incline railway in the world back up to the top. Not going to lie, I freaked out a bit because we were basically going straight up a railway. If you’ve ever been to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, this one was much steeper! After leaving Katoomba, we drove about an hour and stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park, which had basically every Aussie animal there is. There were kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, dingos, Tasmanian devil, emus, loads of birds, wombats, and many other things. This place was great, and instead of having all their animals enclosed, many of the animals were able to roam freely around large areas. This also means that I was able to pet and touch many animals, which was of course awesome! After that, we headed back to Canberra and arrived back at campus around 6:30PM. It was a packed weekend, but so much fun!

Petting a koala. No big deal. 

So there’s a good summary of my latest adventures. Now, I have to give you some details about other things. We will start with food. They put weird things on weird things. Let me explain. When there are events with free pizza, they don’t just do the normal pepperoni and cheese like we do in the States. I’m not even sure what kind of pizza I’ve eaten here, but some of it is good and some of it, not so much. I had my first meat pie this weekend, and it was ok. There are a lot of different kinds of meat pies, so I think I would have liked others more than the one I got. When I got back from our weekend trip, my housemates invited me to $10 burger night (not $5 burger night, things are expensive here!). I was thinking a burger with lettuce and tomato and maybe some other tolerable things, but no. The intolerable substance came in the form of beet roots. Maybe this happens in the US, but never with any burger I’ve eaten before. It was disgusting. All the Aussies found it humorous, as I sat over there and dissected my burger to clear it of all things beet. After I got the beets off, it was good! So, there’s a little about Australian food I’ve encountered, thus far.

Things over here are expensive. When I come back to the States, I am going to think everything is super cheap. As I mentioned, we have $5 burger night, they have $10 burger night. In Knoxville, you can easily buy a cheap bottle of Burnette’s vodka for $10, maybe $15. Here, the cheapest bottle I found was $30. I refused to buy it, so bought wine instead, which is pretty cheap here. A combo meal from McDonald’s (or Macca’s as they say here) is equivalent to about 10 US dollars. So, maybe those prices will give you an idea of the cost of living here. Also, you pay for internet usage in the ressies (where University students live) by how much you use, which could get pricy. I’ve learned not to Skype in my apartment as that eats away your internet usage, so I now just go and use the campus wi-fi for Skyping!

One thing I do not think I will ever get used to is the driving on the left side of the road thing. I always think we’re going to crash when turning, and I always try to go to the passenger side of the car and end up on the driver’s side. It is soooo weird. I would love to attempt to drive here, but I also know I would crash, so that will just have to be something I don’t do!

The malls are also extremely different here. The mall has everything you could ever need. There’s grocery stores, Target, K-Mart, clothing places, phone places, etc. Literally, everything you could ever need. They have shopping carts since there are grocery stores in them, and to carry groceries back, university students push their cart back to campus! It’s about a mile or so, but there are carts everywhere around the apartments I live in from students bringing carts back. They will even send someone to pick them up sometimes! Crazy, right??

Today was also the first day of classes. I can say that right now, while this is a STUDY abroad experience, I am still forgetting the first word of that experience and am still in a mindset of just abroad. In the US, I would have looked at all my syllabi, written down things in a planner, at least ordered my books by now, and been prepared for lectures. Here...I just now looked at the books I even need, have only briefly looked at one syllabus, written nothing down, and waited until this morning to figure out what time my class was that I had today. Hopefully, this week the study thing will hit me and I’ll get on track. :-) I’m not too worried yet, as I’m sure that will happen.

Anyways, sorry for the extremely long update, but I’ve had lots of adventures and newness to adjust to! Look for pictures on Facebook, as I have A LOT of uploading to do! 

Australia Living

I’m going into my 6th day of being in Australia, and so far, so good. I stayed in Sydney the first night I was here. I did a lot of just walking around and sleeping while there. Jet-lag was a killer for my first 4 days in the country. A 15 hour time difference is not easy to adjust to! I will be going back to Sydney this weekend with lots of other exchange students, and we’re also going to the Blue Mountains, so that should be a fun trip!

I have already noticed so many differences between the US and here. My living arrangements are quite different from US university living arrangements. I’m living in a 5 bedroom/6 person apartment, and I share a room with another girl. This is where it gets different: the other 4 people in my apartment are guys. Not something that is normal in the US. So far, I absolutely love it! They are all so nice, and I enjoy just chatting with them and learning about Australian culture (they are all from Australia). I’m also meeting other Australians through my roommates, so it is nice to be making Australian friends along with other exchange student friends.

Another difference: Alcohol. It is by no means a dry campus like I am used to. Today, the study abroad coordinators actually took out all the exchange students for free drinks at a local bar! There is even a place on campus that sells beer where you can go eat and have a drink! I’m allowed to have alcohol in my apartment. There always seems to be a party going on somewhere in the apartments I’m in. I knew Australian culture involved alcohol, but I’m not going to lie...I’m shocked at just how much partying goes on here. It is rather insane. I’ve gone to a couple of parties, but I haven’t drank at any of them, and I still haven’t gone out. However, I know when I do go out, it is going to be a blast!

I also have to mention the birds and other wildlife here. My first morning in Canberra, I was woken up by what sounded like a dying child. No worries though, it was just some bird, and I hear that noise all the time now. That same noise has woken me up by 9AM every morning. The birds also look completely different than any I’m used to seeing, but they are beautiful! And, instead of squirrels running around campus everywhere, I see rabbits and kangaroos (no complaints there!). Today, I saw about 12 kangaroos hanging out in a field right behind the ressies (living places)! I took lots of pictures of them, and will probably take more every time I see them, so get ready for loads of pictures with kangaroos! 

Of course, they drive on the wrong side of the road, which is still so confusing. I always look the wrong way when starting to cross the road, so I have to be extra careful. It’s weird to be looking where I think the driver is sitting in a car, only to see someone looking down at a phone. They use kilometers instead of miles and celsius instead of fahrenheit, so I need to learn some conversions! It’s winter here, so coming from a Tennessee summer to winter has been quite the adjustment. The winter in Canberra is very much like what I’m used to in Tennessee, it was just the whole coming from the miserably hot summer to cold that was so terrible. 

I don’t want to bore you with all the details, because I could go on for a while! I am loving experiencing something new and learning about a different culture. It has definitely pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I think I needed that. I still miss my friends at home (of course), and it is weird to think that RA training started yesterday/today and that I’m not there. It’s weird to think that for most of my day, Tennessee is still in ‘yesterday’ because of the time difference. It’s weird to think some of my friends are starting real jobs, and I’m just hanging out in Australia. So, there are definitely a lot of differences to get used to, but I am so excited for everything! 

Classes start Monday and I’m actually excited for them (call me a nerd if you want)! I like having a schedule, so it will be nice to get on a regular schedule. Right now, it is O-week (Orientation Week), and it is just a huge party week from what I’ve heard. We’ve had some sessions and meetings to go to, but nothing too terribly boring. 

So, there’s a kind of long update for you! Hopefully, the blogging thing will get easier, as it’s taken me forever to actually write this and post it. I keep writing and deleting everything because like I said, I don’t like people to read what I write. :-) Hope this wasn’t too boring!