The home stretch

7/29/2011

Well I’m here at the end of my trip procrastinating writing my paper on the research I’ve done :x I’m a bit nervous to go home though, I’ve gotten so comfortable living here that it’s like the reverse of what I felt before coming here, strange how things have switched!

This week has been crazy weather wise though! On Sunday and Monday there was a snow storm, and people here called it the “snowpocalypse” just like at home because Dunedin completely shut down! Most professors couldn’t even get into work so most work and classes were canceled, just not for me :x I gave a presentation on Monday on the work I do back at Emory to the members of the department that happened to make it in that day (a whopping 4 people :p) and it went really well! By Tuesday though, it was raining and the snow was gone, and by Thursday the temp was in the 50’s!

Last weekend I went to another Red Card party though … and those can be terrifying! I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but Red Cards are where each flatmate in a college flat gets one day a semester to make all the rules, and the rest of the flatties have to follow them (and oftentimes their friends as well, which is how I keep getting pulled in!) – some of the stories I’ve heard though make the American Greek system hazing stories look like nothing! For this red card though, teams of a flatmate and nonflatmate in team colors (dressed in crazy outfits) with their face painted and with fake tattoos on it, were blindfolded and then dropped off in the middle of nowhere, and we had to find our way back without asking for directions, hitching a ride, or using GPS, and while completing a list of crazy scavenger hunt tasks! Luckily, my partner is the girl I went to Milford with, so she happened to have a map and I had a compass on me, so we were all good :D We came in second though, losing to 2 Kiwis who are geography majors, so it was legit. The scavenger hunt tasks were nuts though and included things like proposing to strangers, kissing strangers (though it didn’t say we couldn’t on the cheek! :x), doing handstands and planking in weird places, etc. On the bright side though, since it’s a cultural game/activity, just approaching random people and saying you are on a red card instantly makes the person smile and they know what you are talking about (and why you are dressed like a crazy person asking for help with really weird things) and are always willing to help! Even some family with 2 small kids while waiting to cross the street at a light helped us with one of our tasks haha. All in all, this red card was a blast! And everyone made it back to the flat safely, so no worries :D

I really hate Kiwi television though … commercials said that Captain America comes out here on the 30th … it came out yesterday! THEY LIED! I’m very upset  Had to find out that I missed the premier when I came into the lab T.T

Well, I think I should stop procrastinating now and actually write my paper :x