Learn to Learn

I've been thinking a little bit lately about the saying that "everything happens for a reason."

It's a good way to console yourself when things go wrong. More than that, actually: people cling to this expression when things go wrong. If something of yours gets lost or stolen--which has happened to me more times than I care to admit--you smarten up about keeping track of your iPods and IDs, and you can use it as an opportunity to realize how lucky you are that it was just a something that you lost and not a someone. If you fail at a task--a test, paper, project or presentation at work, whatever--you can evaluate where you went wrong and how to fix it in the future. Broken relationships teach you what to look for the next time around, and what you can probably do to make yourself a little more bearable.

I think that this mentality is also applicable to the unknown. There are moments in everyone's life where you face the go-with-your-gut situation that requires you to act fast and trust that things will work out. Plus, let's face it: spontaneity it just makes life more interesting (and story-worthy). I bring this up now because two huge things are happening to me right now. Admittedly, I'm probably being melodramatic about this; everyone graduating faces these Two Huge Things at some point or another, whether right after college or a year or so down the line. But the job/apartment duo hit me before I even turned around to realize it was coming. And before I was even looking for anything beyond informational interviews I was presented with a fantastic opportunity to work at a small media agency in the South End.

Maybe I should give a little background. I've never been someone who can decide on a TV channel before flipping through everything to make sure I've picked the very best use of my lazy 30 minutes. When I go shopping, I'll visit a store, visit another store, visit the first store again and put a shirt on hold until I'm sure no other store has a better version of it. Looking for a college that fit me and my aspirations was a headache that required two additional visits for my final three choices. Et. Cetera.

So when I was presented with the opportunity to go in for an interview, go in again, meet everyone and one week later be presented with a (really cool) job offer and a 401k plan, I had to ditch my commitment to thorough, methodical option-weighing. No, I've never worked at a small agency. No, I haven't full-out applied to other places other than practicing various networking tactics via email, Twitter, and cash bars. But I went with my gut and the "I have a good feeling about this place" reasoning. And I said yes, I'm free to work before I graduate.

And then there's the apartment. My friend and future roommate, Molly, and I had our hearts set on a perfect apartment right around the corner from Fenway Park. We had the paperwork ready and hours before we were about to write the check we got a call that the place had been snatched up. Here is where panic would ensue. But! Now we are exploring options with five other apartments and it turns out one of them might be bigger, cheaper, and in the same location. I might be speaking too soon, but it's moments like these where I feel myself inching over into the "everything happens for a reason" camp.

Sure, you might be skeptical about this mentality, and I'm right there with you. Maybe nothing happens for any damn reason, but over time we teach ourselves to take something away from every situation we face--some of us better than others--with grace and positivity, so that for every credit card you lose and every presentation you dismally bomb, you go away with it saying "I'll be smarter next time." You learn to learn. And I think that adopting this mentality helps make more people more happy more often. But I'm also learning that jumping on opportunity before meticulously weighing the options is sometimes far more rewarding.

So next time you see someone who is just obnoxiously happy, tell yourself it's just because they've learned to learn, or that they recently took a chance and it worked out for them. And then you can go thank me for that. Just kidding. But really.

Well, that was a bust.

I kind of (and by kind of I mean completely) abandoned this blog and all presumed attempts to keep whoever in Blogworld updated on my life. I'm not even going to try to come up with an excuse because I can't really use the "I'm just so busy" line for a hefty six-month blog abandonment.

As May 22 is coming closer at race speed, things are starting to pick up. And by things I mean everything is starting to pick up. The job search, the apartment hunt, the mildly desperate efforts to wring out every minute on the college clock until we are positive that we are getting everything we can out of senior year. I use the collective "we" to include every senior around me who is starting to realize that whether they get a B or an A on their next paper hardly matters in the grander scheme of things, every senior who feels the same sense of urgency to hang out with their friends in every spare moment to cram in as many last-minute memories of what exactly it means to be a student as possible. I'm starting to write a list of things I will miss about BU, just so I never forget how much I loved it here despite any complaining I've ever done (I'm still trying to get back the $20.11 that they sneakily made you auto-donate at the bottom of Senior Week registration).

I'm not quite sure what's inspiring me to start this up again. Maybe it's the fact that my best friend has started a blog to document her Peace Corps stories in Moldova. Maybe it's the fact that "branding yourself" has become the buzz phrase of advice for landing a job in advertising. Either way I'll try to post a balance of ad-related material and personal stories that make sense. I'm thinking (hoping) that the last month of college and the now-but-hopefully-not-forever-daunting prospect of Life After College will be full of new, exhilarating, overwhelming stories that are blogworthy enough to hurl into the world wide webernetosphere.

Let's hope I don't disappear from Blogworld for another six months again.

Round Two

In my efforts to follow the wisdom of every communications professor I've ever had at BU, I'm starting this up again. They tell us to stay connected. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, a blog. I kept up with it fairly well while I was in Australia, but mostly because there was a lot to write about. Stories are just easier to make blog-worthy when they take place in a world that is foreign to your readers.

So now I'm going at this round two, this time taking place in Boston. It'll be more of a challenge, to make interesting; I can't just spit out every place I visited and every humorous Aussie dialogue I exchanged. It'll be more of a challenge, but I'm up for it.

That's my first reason to keep this blog going. I also realized that writing is a passion of mine, and like many passions, it only gets better with practice. If I don't keep at it on my own time it might fade away and my emails might start lookin lyke dis. Just kidding, that won't happen. But my focus in Advertising isn't on Copywriting, so I need to find some other way to keep the writing up. Blog it is.

My updates won't be as frequent (if you could call my posts from Australia frequent); its pace will rely more on how often I find something blog-worthy than keeping weekly tabs on my life. I'll just work a little harder at finding blog-worthy observations, stories, etc; who knows, it might make me work a little harder at making my life blog-worthy.

I don't know how exactly it'll go, but I can promise I won't write about how much homework I have to do, or what time I ate lunch or anything like that.

To be continued!

Wine and a little politics

Well, I said I would finish my blog update some other time and it turns out that “other time” is roughly 4 hours later. Just one of those days at work where I ask anyone around me if they need help with anything and they answer in a chorus of “no, but I’ll let you know!” Meh, it happens. When I’m not UPDATING MY BLOG (which has only been today), these days usually result in me browsing the New York Times and AdWeek sites because I figure if I’m not doing anything helpful, I might as well be doing something mildly educational. Right?

So I left off at Cairns. For the most part, the past few weeks since Cairns has been kind of uneventful, more or less, with a few highlights. One of these highlights would be last weekend when a few of us took a Saturday to visit Hunter Valley, a renowned vineyard about three hours away from Sydney. It was easily one of my favourite trips in Australia so far.

The day started off rough. And understandably so, since we had to leave the lobby of Unilodge by 5:30 am to catch our train. Which meant I woke up at 4:50 am. And, quite predictably, we made it out late. Like, 5:45-5:50 late. For a 6:05 am train. After anxiously waiting for the last person to make it down, we bolted out of the lobby and caught a cab to get to Central station which would normally take 10-15 minutes to walk. Not ideal.

We started running as soon as we got out of the cab. Keep in mind I was wearing flats that are too big for me so this run was a horrendous effort. We jammed our money into the ticket machines and sprinted to the train, the whole time thinking “shit, we’re not gonna make it...we’re going to miss the trip.”

With the guidance of other passengers around us (“I think the train to Newcastle is over there! Go!”) We found the right train. Right as they were closing the door. If we had arrived a few seconds later we would not have made the train. It was quite a victory as we found seats, panting and very awake for 6:06 in the morning.

Three hours (and one nap) later, we arrived in Newcastle, where our lovely tour guide met us at the train station. She was so nice! Once she picked up all the other vineyard- goers (we were the first of her stops) she asked everyone, “so I assume you have all had nice, hearty breakfasts to prepare yourself for the day, right?”

Keep in mind this is at 9:30 in the morning. We’ve been awake since 4:50 and I had yet to eat anything amidst all the rushing and lack of places to stop for some food. So I thought to myself, crap...this wine tasting is going to be interesting.

We arrived to Hunter Valley around 10 am and it was absolutely breathtaking. The weather was perfect, mild with the sky completely blue. There were hills upon hills with grapevines, and mountains surrounding the place as far as you could see. I’ve never seen anything like it, really. Our first wine tasting began promptly after we arrived at an organic winery. I felt so classy as the wine connoisseur explained to us which wines were oaky, which were dry, and which had just a “hint of passion fruit.”

“Oh, I can TASTE the passion!” Brittany said. Hopefully he had a sense of humour about it.

After trying 15 or so wines, we were all feeling it because of the severe lack of food in our stomachs. So we feasted on bread and oil samples as much as we could before making our way to the next winery called Tempus Two, which was very modern and had a younger feel to it (techno music playing in the background? It somehow seemed to work).

Luckily the next part of the tour was a cheese tasting so that gave us the chance to try stuffing our faces a little more so that we didn’t feel too warm and fuzzy.

After one final winery in a very homey-type place (the log cabin setup actually reminded me of New Hampshire and made me briefly homesick), we finally had lunch at around 2, followed by a chocolate tasting (if you could call it that; we had four tiny slivers of chocolate! I would complain, but the rest of the tour was so amazing it hardly mattered) and a final trip to a liqueur site. Here we tried butterscotch schnapps, coffee schnapps, and a few other liqueurs, including the strangest alcohol I’ve ever heard of or tried: chilli butterscotch schnapps. Yeah...it was weird. There was even a chilli in the bottle. We downed it last, after instructed to take it fast like a shot. It burned my throat and as everyone reached for the water, I got instant hiccups! I have no idea why. But they lasted about 15 minutes before going away. So strange.

After a very satisfying, albeit exhausting day (wine + sun = nap) we took the train back and arrived back in Sydney at around 8 pm. Unfortunately I have no pictures from this trip because my camera has temporarily broken until I can get it fixed under warranty in the US, probably because of something miniscule like a grain of sand. But it was absolutely incredible and, like I said, definitely one of my favourite trips this semester.

Another thing worth mentioning: I was on TV last Monday night! Well, me and my entire Mass Media class. Our professor has ridiculous connections to every aspect of the media industry in Australia, and he pulled some strings to get our entire class to be in the audience for Q&A, a show on the ABC (think the Australian version of PBS) that has a panel of significant political figures and an audience that can ask them anything they want. The whole thing is aired live so there is zero editing, which is a very bold media move on the station’s part. This week was focused on American/Australian politics, with the American ambassador on the panel. It was fascinating and, while I would never feel comfortable/knowledgeable enough to ask a question myself, I loved sitting in the audience and watching other members go at it with very insightful, often controversial questions and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Well that’s pretty much it; I will try to be better about updating my blog before I leave in two weeks! Two weeks left....I still can’t wrap my head around that one.

It's been a while...

So anyone who reads this has probably assumed I’ve dropped off the face of the earth in Australia. I’m sorry! So much has happened between my last post and this post, so this is going to be a novel of an entry. I’m probably going to split it up into two because really...it’s going to be long. Jeez, talk about procrastination.

Let’s see...last time I wrote anything was right after spring break in Fiji. Which was, a very long time ago. The most significant thing to happen after Fiji was undoubtedly the start of my internship at Publicis Mojo, an advertising agency in the Rocks by the harbour—I can see the opera house by stepping outside. The agency is full of young 20-somethings blasting music and clopping around in high heels or throwing foam footballs. It's crazy how professionalism and casual communication can coexist so effortlessly here. One minute they are clamouring (I’m using the computer at work—i.e. Australian spell check) to get a brief out to the client before the 4 pm deadline and the next minute, the Traffic coordinator is going around asking if anyone wants a beer.

I’ve been working in the Account department for over a month now. In the beginning, it was slow going—it seemed that either there was not enough work to give me, or the work they had was too difficult to give an intern. Still, I always have an extreme intolerance for not doing work at internships when I feel like I should be doing something, so I’ve been trying to strike the balance between seeming apathetic, spending time on gchat all day and invading their space as the overly eager intern who needs work to do all the time. This basically means that I remind my department every once in a while that I’m free, as well as let the people around me know that I can help them out with anything if they need it.

As a result, I’ve gotten more than just requests for creative brief editing and data entering (though I love data entering and editing—I’m not kidding). I’ve gotten work on different projects, from doing competitive analyses on digestive wellness brands and cooking appliances for Proctor & Gamble, to researching everything and anything I can on Broadband in Australia, the UK and the US in preparation for a huge client—the Australian government. While there have been the expected lags that any internship inevitably has from time to time, I can say that I’ve become an expert on travel wholesale companies, medical trends for 2010, Broadband, digestive health, kitchen appliances, and major Australian banks and telecom companies. If anything, I’ve realized from all this research that to get anything done in an advertising agency, you have to know a hell of a lot about countless random topics—in other words, you have to know every single thing about the client, their audience and the challenges they face in marketing.

Still, it hasn’t been just research and data entering. They've been putting me in different departments, so that I'm getting a real sense of how the agency works. Other than busy work and projects at my desk I've gone to three commercial edits and the other week I sat in on a meeting between account and one of their clients, Qantas Holidays. It was my first time sitting in on a boardroom meeting and, I have to say, it was very interesting. A lot of the stuff kind of went over my head—figures and stats and business terms and whatnot, all in Australian (and one very thick French) accents—but I still absorbed a lot about the business aspect of the industry, seeing them discuss how to reach certain targets, how to stand out from other travel ads, etc.

As for the TV commercial edits...that was a crazy experience. The first one that I'd been invited to was in North Sydney at nine in the morning—as in, I had to use my horrible navigation skills find the place myself via bus—and when I got there, it turned out they only had to edit for 2 minutes. One of the Creatives apologized saying that it took him longer to eat his toast than to edit the commercial. Later on that day, though, and the next day I went to editing sessions for a foster care commercial, the client being the New South Wales government. I felt so glamorous. Well, more like I felt like I was in the middle of a heckuva lotta glamour and I was the intern who was jussst a bit out of place, from my lack of knowledge about any aspect of editing whatsoever to my American accent that seemed crude in comparison. We took taxis all over Sydney as they chatted small talk about work, recent engagements, and client gossip/complaining (to them, Citibank is apparently Shittybank—hardy har har).

When we got to a studio, it would always be one of those trendy, industrial/posh combinations where the floors would be cement but there would be leather couches, funky chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, and secretaries greeting you behind their giant computer monitors. And all of that greeting each other by kissing on the cheek business. When we settled into the editing studio, complete with buttons and screens that took up an entire wall and more leather couches, people would pop into the room and ask if we wanted anything—lattes, sparkling water, etc—all for free. When the producer asked, "who wants lunch? Anyone? I'm dying for Japanese. Let's do sushi," I knew just how out of my element I was. But I did a lot of listening and smiling and not a whole lot of talking. Which I'm okay with, because the whole experience was a great look into the editing business when you're working with big name clients that invest a lot in their advertising. Sitting in on TVC edits was definitely the cushier side to my internship; I didn’t really have to do much but take everything in.

I can’t believe that I only have eight work days left; my last day is next Friday. While I’ve been having a great time here, I feel like there is still so much more that I could learn. Still, I’m so happy I’ve gotten the chance to gain some insight into the workings of a full service agency, especially the account sector since I’m pretty sure that’s the area I want to go into once I graduate.

Believe it or not, I’ve been doing things with my time other than going to my internship. For Easter break, my friends and I (and pretty much half of the BU abroad program—not even exaggerating) went to Cairns for the extended weekend. This trip definitely had its positives and negatives. But basically the positives were the amazing activities we took part in. The main negative was that it rained. Hard. The entire time.

When we got to our backpackers resort, “Calypso,” I have to say it was a little disappointing. It was probably due mostly to the rain but the place reminded me of Home Alone when Kevin’s family pulls up to that motel in Florida in the pouring rain. With walls painted yellow, orange and purple and a murky green pool, the place seemed desperate to make itself look brighter than it actually was. Our room was a cinderblock of a room painted orange and dark blue with two bunk beds, an A.C. and a mirror. Needless to say we didn’t spend too much time at the place.

We went white water rafting the first day we were there. I’ve gone before, but it was back in the eighth grade and I hardly remember it, except for the fact that I had to wear a wet suit. Maybe that’s why I don’t remember it—blocked it out, perhaps? Anyway, it was incredible, and pretty much as far as I like to push myself, thrill-seeking-wise. Our guide was ridiculous, pretty much the typical crazy, inappropriate Australian in his mid-twenties who we can’t quite seem to fully understand. I’m starting to see a trend with these guides.

Example number one: we’re on the bus and he’s giving us the run-down. What to wear, what not to wear while we’re out in the rapids. “Alright so for all you guys on the bus. Do you know what a speedo is? You do? Okay, good. Yeah. Don’t wear that. You could get really hurt without the proper coverage. You’ll want something loose like this bloke’s board shorts, that’s right. Okay. Ladies, I recommend you wear something very skimpy because you don’t want anything loose getting caught on rocks or something awful.”

That kind of guy. He was definitely amusing. While we were getting our life jackets and hats on for the water, he came over to our group of six. “Girls, there’s good news and bad news. What do you want first?”
“Bad news.”
“Well good news is I’m your tour guide! Bad news...we need seven of you and there are only six. So,” he said, pointing over to a 300 pound man by himself getting on his gear, “you’re going with that guy.” So yeah, instant awkwardness. How do you deal with this kind of situation? It was ridiculous. Apparently this guy has gone a few times, loves thrills (bungee jumping skydiving, etc) and couldn’t wait to get in the rapids. So we piled into our boat and Nicole was lucky enough to have to sit next to him. And I was lucky enough to try to pull him out of the water when he fell out halfway through. Of course, that failed and the guide had to help me out. As you can imagine the scene was pretty...interesting.
Also about halfway through, we stopped our boat for a bit on the side so our guide could leave to partake in various safety measures along the river. Of course, being the crazy typical Australian guide that he was, he decided to dive into the water on a dare with his friend and swim away from us.
“Where are you going!!” we shouted.
“Follow me!” “What?”
“Really, just follow me! Come on!” he shouted, laughing.
So we did, and yelled at him when he got back on the boat. Well, at least I did. I told him he was fired and he told me to shut up. Typical..
And at one point he made us go BACK into a rapid that we had already gone through, “just ‘cause we can!” Also typical.
Despite my constant screaming/freaking out, the day was really fun. I definitely felt like I faced death coming up to some massive jagged rocks protruding from the water, but that’s the fun of it, right?

The next day, we went to the Queensland tablelands and visited a few rainforest highlights. Aside from the pouring rain and tour guide, Brian, who I’m convinced was afraid of silence, it was worth the experience. Side note: he couldn’t go a 10 seconds without talking into his mic about something completely unimportant: “you know, before we go out there you might want to take water. Unless you’re fit and don’t need water so much. I don’t really need all that much water, unless it’s humid, of course. When it’s humid well that’s a different story. But today is rainy, so you should be fine. Unless you like having water with you all the time and in that case...” He was the first guide I thoroughly did not like.

Queensland is beautiful with deep green, massive rolling hills. The rainy day actually added an attractiveness to it, sort of as I’ve always imagined Ireland’s appeal to be like. Our first stop (after over an hour of Brian drawling to a sleeping tour bus about dairy farming and bananas and Queensland tourism) was at Paronella Park, a site in the middle of the rainforest crafted in the early 1900s by “one man who had a dream.” The place felt unreal; with handmade stairs carved out of stone, a castle with decades of moss growing over it, and pathways through the rainforest with such titles like “Lover’s Lane,” it really did feel like we stepped out of reality for a minute and into some romantic’s imagination. To be honest, I would have enjoyed this part of the trip much more if it hadn’t been so humid. It’s incredibly difficult to enjoy anything when you are unbearably hot/sticky and there are massive mosquitoes biting every exposed part of you. Even with these aggravations, I could still see why it was considered the #1 tourist spot to check out in Queensland.

As the day went on, we went on an elevated canopy walk, stopped at a giant waterfall, and made a few other stops including a “cruise ride” which actually ended up being another drawling tour guide taking us around a lake in a boat: “now if you look there, you will see some ducks, they are fighting for the bread I toss out as they have become quite accustomed to us feeding them. Oh, and there is a turtle right there. See those trees? They are fighting for the sun. These plants have to be competitive in order to survive...” I would have loved it if I were a 7th grade bio teacher. But I’m not and by then I pretty much had my fill on turtles and ducks.

That day was rainy, but the next day, Easter, was a total downpour. Which was unfortunate, since we were booked to spend the whole morning and afternoon snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef. Of course, there was no possibility of backing out—it was a rain or shine kind of ordeal—so we sucked it up, took some seasickness pills and boarded the boat.

The two-hour ride over was brutal. While the inside of the boat was nice, complete with snack bar and comfortable sitting areas, the waves rocked the boat so violently—and consistently—that half of the passengers got sick. All I have to say is that good thing we took those pills. Once we got there, we were advised to rent sting suits for $7 to avoid jellyfish stings (and who wouldn’t rent one? Really, they should have been free). Turns out the suits were skin tight and freezing cold from being wet. Still, we put them on and transformed ourselves into a band of Aquamen. These suits were absurd, covering us head to toe. As funny as they were, they were cold. It was the greatest relief to jump into the water which, given the wind and cold rain bulleting down on us in our soaked sting suits, felt like hot bath water. It was the biggest relief just to get into the ocean.

Once we were in, it was great. I saw more than I expected to see, from sting rays to fish that were literally neon. We were taken to two spots, one off the shore of a remote island and the other in the middle of the ocean where we just dove in. After finally getting the energy to put the sting suits back on after lunch (I was seriously just considering sitting in for the second site), the second spot was phenomenal, even better than the first. The reef was more complex and vast, spanning farther than I could really see. Of course, it would have been far more colourful if the sun had been beating down and the reef was basically limited to dull shades of red, brown, and green. But it was understandable; Cairns is in its wet season right now so the weather was in no way unexpected.

While the trip to the reef could have been made far better simply with better weather, it was still a memorable experience that I would absolutely love to do again when the weather was better—if I ever manage to make my way to this part of the world again after this semester!

The next day was spent sort of wandering around town aimlessly while Brittany and Sarah went bungee jumping—not my kind of thing, at all. As much as I was happy to have done such incredible things while I was there, I could not wait to get back on the warm, dry plane in dry clothes and make our way back to Unilodge (which at that point seemed like a luxury).

This entry is absurdly long, so I’ll be updating on more recent adventures in another post. Until then, as Australians say in response and conclusion to literally everything, cheers!

Once in a lifetime

So, I just got back from Fiji two days ago and getting back into the normal routine. It's weird to think that the "normal routine" is now what I do day-to-day in Australia. Fijians always warmly called their country "home away from home"...so I guess that means for me it was home away from home away from home? Anyway. Before I get into talking about Fiji I need to talk about the day before Fiji because I'm lazy and have yet to cover the ridiculousness that was my participation in Sydney's Mardi Gras. So, for the sake of writing in logical order, I'll start with that.

After celebrating the end of finals (this semester's divided into two sections, in case that was unclear) at Broadway, our favorite spot to relax (pizza, beer, outdoor seating...you can't get anything better) we started getting ready for the parade around 3. Brittany has an internship with Clover Moore, the mayor of Sydney. Long story short she was invited to walk in the parade, and was welcome to bring friends. So by this indirect lucky connection we were able to participate in a once in a lifetime kind of event. While other people lined the streets for hours waiting for the parade to begin, we were instructed to show up at the park around 4 pm dressed in white tops, black bottoms and anything else we felt inspired to wear.

We had shopped earlier at Bi-Lo for cheap costume jewelry, etc and by the time 3 rolled around, we were ready. After putting on tons of cheap, colorful necklaces, star stickers all over our faces and arms, and rainbow headbands we headed out, meeting up with the rest of our group at the park. We were given wristbands (so VIP) and told by one of our groups' members that it would be a few hours and that we should feel free to relax at a nearby bar until the festivities began.

I should make clear that Mardi Gras in Sydney is not like U.S. Mardi Gras. It's more of a gay pride, LGBT kind of thing. A lot of drag queens, women covered in nothing but gold body paint and men dressed as promiscuous police cops. And as I waited at the bar I looked behind me, my vision blocked by the most extravagant feather getup I've ever seen. Turns out his name was Jacky...figures. He was surrounded by yellow, pink and blue feathers, white poodle wig and all. It was ridiculous and very telling of what the next few hours would be like.

We went back to the line and waited. For a long time. The whole experience was thrilling, though. Every once in a while music would start blasting and the waiting parade members would join in a massive dance party to Bad Romance or Sandstorm. A few times I looked beyond the fenced off area to people on the streets, looking from their windows and realized, I am in the parade. I get to be in the parade, these people are watching us. It was an exhilarating feeling.

Once the parade began we took our positions, grabbed rainbow flags and Clover Moore signs and got ready to start walking/dancing. In front of us was a choreographed dance to Eye of the Tiger and a giant paper mache tiger float. Even with our colorful sashes, rainbow headbands/necklaces and whistles we were probably the most conservative group in the parade.

We had been told prior to marching by one of our groups' members that we should "interact with the crowd as much as possible. They are hear to watch us perform, and that's what we need to do. If you are inspired...if you make eye contact with someone in particular and feel an urge to run up and hug them, do it. Hell...I've been known to kiss random people before. Have fun, let loose."

With these words in mind, we went crazy. We danced, jumping and spinning around, waved at everyone, beaming the whole time. We would sometimes run up to the side and start running, giving everyone a high five along the way. I hugged a few people with outstretched arms. We all agreed that by the end, we felt like celebrities and for no good reason. It was an incredible high. Everyone was out to have a good time and the mood was beyond joyful. Everyone just seemed to love everyone and the atmosphere was contagiously positive.

Still dancing at the end, we were exhausted and still had more to the night ahead of us. Brittany had been told that we were invited to Clover Moore's house for cocktails. So after walking down the streets of suburbs for what seemed like hours, we finally arrived. At the mayor of Sydney's house. Again....a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Her house was surprisingly normal. There was a cozy outdoor patio area, illuminated by dim lights and surrounded by a thick wall of trees and bushes. People helped themselves to wine and champagne in the kitchen. We all seemed absurdly out of place for such a nice home, sweaty and donned in rainbow attire. Of course, everyone looked like this and as a result, it eventually felt normal.

I shook Clover Moore's hand and thanked her for welcoming us to her home. Later on in the evening, she even came over to us to talk for a little bit. Of course, conversation was short as we were all petrified to say anything that risked us sounding like total idiots. After a brief discussion about vegetarianism, she went on to talk to other people she undoubtedly knew better. We left early, not wanting to overstay our welcome and left thinking, "we were just in the mayor of Sydney's house...for cocktails. Incredible.

I suppose to give myself credit, there was not much time between that night and the next morning when I woke up at 5:30 am to blog about Mari Gras. Which brought me to blog about it now. Which leads me to go on about Fiji.

After packing quickly the next morning (I always procrastinate packing until the last minute), we met in the lobby at 6:30 for our 8:15 am flight. We groggily took a taxi, went through security and got on the plane. As soon as I got on I instantly thought, yes. It was a VAustralia plane, part of Virgin Airlines. Remembering Virgin from spring break last year, I knew this would be a cushy flight. Not to suddenly be an advertisement for Virgin Airlines, but they are great. In-flight entertainment including screens on our seats to watch movies and listen to music for free, etc. Not to mention "Party in the USA" was playing as we walked on the plane which, albeit really strange, was hilarious seeing as we've been trying to get bars in Sydney to play the song since we've arrived in Australia. Without luck, anywhere.

Anyway.

Four hours later and two hours ahead of Sydney time Sarah, Brittany and I arrived in Fiji, went through customs and were greeted by a giant "Bula!" sign. The first "Bula!" of many. We waited for a good amount of time for a shuttle before someone informed us that shuttles run few and far in between, and taking a taxi would cost very little. It was only about six Fijian dollars to get to our SkyLodge hotel, which is actually about three U.S. dollars. Side note: that was one of the best aspects of our trip, the way everything was actually half-price in a way.

A few minutes later, we arrived at our hotel, a place for backpackers connecting from Fiji's mainland, Nadi, to the islands. It was nice enough, but nothing too remarkable. The weather didn't help. It was a rainy, humid Sunday, making it hard to get too incredibly excited for the week seeing as there had been monsoon warnings up until our departure.

After dropping off our luggage in our room, we decided to venture out into town to see if there was anything interesting to explore/anywhere to eat. It only cost a dollar to go into town and pretty soon we were on our way.

There ended up not being much to the town, a fairly long strip of low buildings, all closed because it was Sunday evening. We eventually found a restaurant after a little bit of walking, one of the people who worked there standing outside from the lot, beckoning us in. Our waitress was really nice, teaching us not only that Bula meant hello, welcome, and a bunch of other things along that line but that "thank you" is "venaca" and "goodbye" is...something that I don't remember. Then she asked if we had tried Kava before, which ended up being a big ceremonial drink in Fiji.

After we finished our meals, she motioned us to follow her. We crossed the street, up the stairs in an alley and right as we were about to start feeling uneasy we were brought into a shop that sold local artwork and other souveniry-type things. People I'm assuming were her friends welcomed us in, and told us that we had to be welcomed properly to their country. So, sitting down on a mat we waited as one of the people made us Kava in a giant wooden bowl. After clapping and jumping through other ceremonial hoops, we each took turns drinking the stuff. None of us really liked it at all, but it was a nice gesture. Of course, after the man said that the Kava was on him, and after he pulled necklaces from the wall declaring that these were also on him, we knew we had to buy something. Still, I knew I'd have to keep my backbone to keep from getting scammed. Sure enough, he tried to rip us off by offering to carve our names in wooden blocks "for our family" for about $90.00. I said "no, thanks," stuck to a $20.00 jewelry box and, although he was clearly annoyed with me we got out of there and took a taxi back to our place.

The next morning we got up early to catch our bus to the boat docks which led us to the islands. After getting off the bus and reaching into my pockets I realized that I left my phone on the bus, but at that point there was nothing I could do about it. Even though there was no way I would be able to use my phone in Fiji, I had been using it as a way to keep track of time. For the rest of the trip, I really did feel cut off from the rest of society, being without phone, Internet and now, any way of keeping track of time. Despite the frustrations of losing my phone, that aspect was actually really nice.

After getting one last coffee before reaching the islands, we boarded the ferry and got settled for a two and a half hour trip. It was still raining as we left, and the weather seemed to contradict the people seeing us off, singing happily with ukuleles and guitars. Once on the boat, I realized for the first time that I somehow managed to completely disregard the fact that being on an island meant the need to provide entertainment of our own. As in, I neglected to bring any books whatsoever and ended up relying heavily on my iPod on the way over.

Our island, Waya Lailai, was eventually called out and as we "made our way to the back of the vessel" I realized that there was no close island in sight. That's when I looked down to see our luggage being thrown from the ferry to a very small motorboat, rocking in the huge waves being caused by the storm over our heads. My series of thoughts went, "oh, a boat. Crap, we're getting in that boat. Crap, that's a long jump. Crap, that boat is REALLY wet." And once we were sitting on the floor of the boat, getting soaked as the boat jumped over waves and water crashed over us, it became clear that the water was not only soaking us, but the insides of our bags as well. Luckily, the only damage made was to my passport, kind of wrinkling it up/bending it out of shape but nothing beyond that.

Eventually we jumped out of the boat and into water up to our knees, given a hand by people on the island. It was the afternoon by the time we arrived and after given a quick overview of where to put our belongings, when breakfast, lunch and dinner was served, etc, we decided to explore a little and just lay out and relax on the hammocks, despite the weather. By this point, through, the clouds were starting to go away and by dinner the sky was pretty much entirely clear.

Waya Lailai was absolutely beautiful. Facing the ocean, we could see a few other islands in the distance, while we were surrounded by remote grass-roof huts that served as reception, housing, the dining area, etc. Facing the other direction, we saw woods that seemed endless and elevated quickly to a giant mountain-type structure 1,000 feet high. It was my first time on a tropical island and definitely met my expectations.

After dinner, the Fijians of the island went through some ceremonial dance routines, such as the War Dance, the Fire Dance and the Bula Dance. We were encouraged to join in on the Bula Dance which almost everyone did enthusiastically.

The next morning we woke up early for snorkeling. This was the first time I've ever gone and it was incredible. There were tons of fish and coral (I suppose that's what you expect when you go snorkeling, but I was still in awe) and the leaders of the trip laughed as they caught fish and held them out to "friendly" sharks a few feet long. Maybe they were friendly but we decided to keep our distance.

Later on in the day we went on a Summit Walk. I expected this to be a fairly strenuous sightseeing hike. It ended up being an exhausting, straight uphill, sometimes climb where the path was unclear and dangerous. In flip-flops. We were improperly warned and for a lot of the hike I felt nervous, losing my grip on the rock as we climbed up the mountain. Still, the views were breathtaking and definitely not anything I would have seen otherwise.

The top was the bad part, though. We were instructed to put our watter bottles down, needing both hands to climb across a rooftop-shaped rock formation that plummeted straight down on either side. At this point we were 1,000 feet from the bottom and I was absolutely terrified. When it came my turn to cross I was near tears and halfway across, I had a mild panic attack, losing my ability to breathe and began crying and shaking. Still, I made it over and after a moment of recovering I was able to take in the view surrounding us. I am not going to deny that it was astounding. We could see three islands from where we sat, including the one on which Castaway was filmed. The huts that we were staying in looked minuscule from our spot, and the ocean was this amazing, bright turquoise-green-blue. Of course after ten minutes or so here, I had to cross over the rooftop-shaped formation once again, thinking the whole time to myself a combination of "don't die, don't die, don't die" and "what kind of liability concerns does this violate?" Still, we eventually made it down, exhausted and with a pretty good story to tell.

The next day we made our way a half hour out to Korovou where we were, once again, greeted by people singing and playing guitars and ukuleles for us. I instantly saw the pool and thought, "THIS is what I was expecting!"

The rest of the trip was very relaxing. I borrowed a few books from Brittany and Sarah, and we just sat out for two days by the pool, listening to ridiculous reggae/old hip-hop--think Ashanti--blasting from the speakers by the bar.

The second night there, the patio broke out into a giant dance party where everyone clammored to the bar, offering their iPods to the DJ and we danced to everything from Ain't No Mountain High Enough to I Gotta Feeling, with an overload of techno music along the way that some British backpackers seemed to be particularly fond of. It was all perfect: dancing in massive circles together under a completely clear sky with a view of the ocean that seemed to go on forever, surrounded by palm trees and colorful lights.

It was sad to leave but--as anyone who knows me knows--I can only spend so much time relaxing before I go crazy. By the end I was ready to move and do something other than lay out on a towel with my brain turned off. Still, I want to go back at another point in my life though I realize that, like the Mardi Gras parade, it might be another one of those once in a lifetime experiences.

Either way, having to buy a new phone aside, I'm happy to be back in Australia and I can't wait for my internship to start on Wednesday. I'll be sure to update on that as soon as it starts. Until then..

Mostly Melbourne and some other points of interest

So, I've been back from Melbourne for a few days now and just remembered that I haven't updated about it yet. I would have to say it's been a few of my favorite days here in Australia so far. I wish we could have spent more than the four days that we had there because there was clearly just so much to explore there that we had no time to check out. Despite the shortness of the visit, I am so happy that we went.

My group had the earlier flight on Sunday morning. That meant I had to leave at 6:15 am while the others left at 7:15. That hour did not make much of a difference, though; we were all pretty exhausted getting on the plane. Still, after a nap and some time to wake up, I wasn't too tired by the time we got off the bus next to our hotel. Melbourne is a beautiful city--in some ways, it was sort of like Boston with its historical buildings. In other ways it was more like Chicago, with the more planned layout of the city. Sydney is the opposite, with modern buildings and no distinguishable layout whatsoever. It was also a little colder in Melbourne. That is, colder being 65-70 instead of 75-80. The weather for those four days was absolutely perfect.

After we dropped off our luggage in a meeting room because our rooms weren't available yet, we were brought in groups over to Victoria Markets (not unlike Paddy's Markets, just outdoors). We spent a few hours there, browsing various clothing, getting lunch and buying souveneirs. I didn't really get anything there, but it was still fun to look around. Just a side note because I just remembered--while we were eating lunch we got to listen to some nearby man with a guitar's lovely renditions of the ABCs. Then, once that was done, Twinkle Twinkle. And when he was done with that..the ABCs again, and then Twinkle Twinkle again. I have no idea what he was doing but we were cracking up.

After an hour nap (completely necessary), we got dressed and made our way over to St. Kilda, a half hour busride away from Melbourne. Program directors had recommended to us that we go because of a festival going on. Unfortunately, we didn't make it in time to see the festivities. We still got dinner at the Spaghetti Bar, a restaurant in the area that was, for being a last-minute decision, really good. We did some exploring afterwards, went bar-hopping a little and caught the last bus (along with a ton of other people in the program) back into the city.

The next morning was another early wakeup for all of us, having an hour-long seminar on the history of Melbourne. Before coming to Melbourne, we had all signed up for two academic tour groups. For those of us who had our first one that day, we met up with our respective groups and headed out for the afternoon. I had signed up for a street/grafitti art tour. Within the first few minutes of the tour, I wasn't quite sure what to expect after our guide said, "I apologize in advance for the general odor of this tour. The nature of what we're looking at will bring us to back alleys and such, so it will be quite smelly."

The first few sites on the tour lived up to this warning a little too well. While the grafitti art was astounding, the garbage smell was absolutely horrible. Every one in a while, in the middle of a lecture on the history of this artist or that mural, a car or garbage truck would start driving slowly down our alley, forcing us to press against the bricks until they went by.

After our third site or so, the spots started getting less smelly and more interesting. By the end, I was in complete awe of the city and all its little hidden spots that you would never even know about unless you decided to explore a little. Unlike Sydney (or any other city I've visited, for that matter), its best spots were not out in the open. There were no big signs showing you where to go. Instead, you turned a corner, walked a little down an alley covered top to bottom in street art, turned another corner and suddenly arrived at a hole in the wall cafe or even, in some cases, a completely hidden street filled with under the radar shops and cafes that seemed to blend in with the graffiti that surrounded it. There were some spots that I just wanted to stop at and just people watch for a few hours. Of course, we would always keep moving, finding ourselves at places like ACDC lane (yes, the band ACDC) and obscure bars that looked more like emergency exits to more high-profile buildings.

What seemed different about Melbourne to me was the fact that it was so impressive with its giant skyscrapers and historic buildings but, at the same time, its more underlying subculture was just as impressive--those back alley spots that you had to make an effort to find. I definitely could have spent more time there without getting bored, and it seemed as though most people on the trip agreed.

The next day, those of us who signed up for the Great Ocean Road tour got up early and embarked on a day-long tour that brought us about an hour and a half away from Melbourne. All I knew when leaving was that we would be brought along the coastline. I had no clue what it would look like, what I would see, anything like that. By the end of the day, my friends and I easily agreed that it was one of, if not the best day spent so far in Australia.

Our tour guide--as some of us called him Andy part II--was eager to make sure we had the best experience during the day, always changing the music and asking for requests to make sure we were all happy. Maybe in his early 30s, he was always asking if we wanted more talk, less music or more music, less talk. I felt bad for him at first because everyone was wiped out in the beginning, recovering from the night before. He even asked me at the first stop what he could do to make the trip better because I was sitting up front and seemed to be one of the only people responding to his questions or laughing when he put on Time After Time. I told him to give it a while, that his music was fine and not to worry. Sure enough, as soon as people started waking up and talking the whole bus ride got livelier and once Red Hot Chili Peppers was playing, he freaked out, driving faster and singing along to the lyrics as if he had had 7 Red Bulls. It was hilarious to watch. It was clear that as soon as we were awake and interacting, the trip went the way he wanted it to. He even made us learn--and sing along to--the Koala Bear song. Twice. It was great.

Not to mention the tour itself. I felt as though I were in a desktop background the entire time. The views were beautiful of the Australian coastline, as well as the portions that brought us through the rainforest and more peaceful rural fields and farmlands. Winding roads would all of a sudden bring us to these breathtaking views that seemed to come out of nowhere. We stopped every once in a while at spots worth stopping at, from the 12 Apostles to the rainforest, to a secluded cove where we could stick our feet in what I called Disney water--that ridiculous blue that seemed way too perfect to be real.

After a variety of stops and singalongs (ending the ride with Livin' on a Prayer), we arrived back at the hotel around 9:30 pm, completely content and exhausted from the day. I took a million pictures and, looking back on them, can hardly believe I was there myself.

The next day was our last day there, where I went on my second academic tour of the Melbourne Architecture. It was a nice complementary tour of the street art one, showing the more conservative side of the city. After the tour a few of us went to the ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image), a museum that our Mass Media professor for the next part of the semester recommended all students of his visit while in the city. It was great--all for free, we got to play video games from the early nineties, test out various interactive light, movement and sound areas, have Matrix moves recorded of us, and learn a little about the history of film, television, etc. I even watched a few of my upcoming internship--Publicis Mojo's--past commercials. Overall a very worthwhile experience.

After a quick trip to the top of the highest building in Melbourne, a late arrivial to a group picture that resulted in about 15 of us being in our own sort of group picture of shame (we all had to pretend to look lost and/or out of place), and a 5 pm flight back to Sydney, I was exhausted by the time I got to my bed.

And, because I can't leave it out, an RA-sponsored group of us went to see a play, Optimism (for FREE might I add) at the Sydney Opera House! We all got dressed, had our pictures taken on the steps and took our seats for the 8 pm show. I'm not quite sure what I thought of it--it was very quirky, a little trippy and at some points pretty confusing--but regardless of any personal review, I can now say that yes, while I was in Australia I did see a show at the Opera House. Definitely something I'll remember.

And, as for interesting points go, that brings me up to tonight! After hopefully making my way to the beach tomorrow (I seem to say I'll go far more than I actually end up going), I'll have to start studying for finals. It somehow seemed to slip by me that yes, we DO have finals and yes, they ARE this week. Oh well--I'm not too worried with the free time we have this week. And besides...next week is Spring Break, i.e. our trip to Fiji..which means it's a little hard to let some studying get me down at this point. I suppose my next update will be after Fiji! Until then..let the studying proceed.