Sydney Life

I just got back from an amazing two week holiday where I travelled up to Darwin and around the Northern Territory, concentrating on Kakadu National Park and Litchfield National Park. Having two weeks spent swimming in gorges and under waterfalls amongst stunning scenery in 33 degrees weather in the middle of winter was beautiful!

We went on a 5 day adventure tour that included some four wheel driving, bush walks, and sleeping in swags! I felt so Aussie! Haha. The bushwalking was stunning. One walk in particular cannot be forgotten: we climbed up a mountain to swim at the top of a waterfall (the best infinity pool ever!) and with cheese and biscuits in hand, witnessed an absolutely stunning bright red sunset.

A few weekends ago Sydney decided to have a Winter Festival. It was truly a slice of Europe. It was held outside Sydney’s one big gothic cathedral called St. Mary’s Cathedral. There was an ice skating rink (in true European style you had to have booked to use it prior to the event though!), and even fake snow blowing around. Seeing the snow flying around the Cathedral did make me really ‘homesick’ for Europe (Can I call it that if it’s not technically my home?!).

So it's July holidays!
It's time to do stuff I didn't have time for during the semester.
One of which is look for summer work experience.

This is it, the final entry.

I've been way too busy (and lazy) to write this blog more often. However there also hasn't been much to write about. My life was mostly involved in partying, writing chemistry reports and lazing about with a fellow Aussie. I could have written about those times but the entries would have been largely identical. Monday to Friday attend school. Monday to Thursday night relax and watch TV. Friday night go out and have a great time. Saturday morning get a pizza and calypo with Annabel. Go out Saturday night and pretty much repeat Saturday morning on Sunday.

However this entry is going to be about Education (mostly)..

Mm don’t we all love crunch time? Knowing that even though we have no class, we have to wake up to sit at a computer all day and churn out essays or study notes? I’d like to ask – who decided that all assessments should happen at the same time? And for me, on the SAME day!!!!

Yep, because I’ve got no exams (you’re allowed to hate me), I had the joys of over 9000 words due on the same day! So for a long time, getting out of bed with the only plan for the day to write yet another essay was my life. Exciting! So because my crunch time is over, I thought I’d put down 10 very useful procrastination tools I used to inspire (cough cough) my uni work!

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but my exchange in Maastricht has now come to an end. It sounds cliché, but the last four and a half months have given me some of the best times of my life and to be honest I don’t want it to end! Going on exchange was definitely one of the best decisions I have made and I recommend anyone considering it to go for it, it’s worth the effort a hundred times over.

Last week was the Sydney Writer’s Festival, so I thought I’d get cultured and head off to some of the events. The first thing I went to was a speech by Germaine Greer. I really wanted to people watch, to see some true 1970s bra-burning feminists, but it wasn’t like that at all. She focused on the politics of Australia in Britain, in really ‘lay-man’ terms, so it was pretty interesting! She’s definitely opinionated but has changed topics. Someone tried to bring up a feminist issue of female Prime Ministers and she completely brushed it off...that fight is clearly done for her.

The next event I trotted off to was a speech by author Kate Grenville. It was at the Observatory, so the event was coupled with champagne and nibbles as we saw an art exhibiton, and then a tour of the observatory. It was a cloudy night unfortunately but we did see some stuff! (Some of it may have included the Luna Park mask and the Harbour Bridge but hey!).

I just went out for dinner, and this super full feeling reminded me that I never wrote about my amazing meal extravaganza I had on mid semester break! My parents and I ventured to The Grampians National Park in Victoria. I’d never actually heard of it, but it’s a beautiful mountainous valley essentially that springs up in the middle of nowhere! There’s some amazing Aboriginal art there, that dates back 39 THOUSAND years and is so well preserved! Even though I major in Archaeology getting your head around those numbers doesn’t really happen!

We tried ‘bush tucker’ when we were there: emu, kangaroo, crocodile, yabbie, scallops and more. But the amazing meal was a 10 course one at a three hat restaurant! Hats are used to rate the top restaurants in Australia, with four being the highest achievement, so the food was fantastic! They were all obviously small courses (thankfully! otherwise ‘hello obesity!’), and were accompanied by matching wines. So so good! I really do think I was full for about four days though!

I’ve just finished a month with the ABC on an internship with Triple J Television. It was great, but hard work! The team for “Hack”, a youth current affairs show is only 2 people...plus the intern . There’s a week to find, research, shoot, edit and get a story to air. Although often quite stressful and rushed, this was a great way for me to have to learn every part of the process of making a current affairs program.

My favourite part was going out shooting. We got to interview fashion magazine editors, rugby league players, doctors, government officials, academics, shop assistants and various other people. We also got to film just background shots of various ideas, so got to go to NRL matches, fashion exhibitions, shops, and so on! This meant every shoot was completely different, and the variety was great! Getting out of the office was also a good thing!

If someone were to ask me what I thought were the highlights of being on exchange in Europe, one aspect that I would definitely mention is the opportunity for travel. I have got to see some amazing places, places I once only dreamed of visiting and that now I will remember for years to come.