France

I've literally done NO work this entire week. Not a single homework problem or practice question for any of my classes. It's been a very lazy and enjoyable week. I've been enjoying catching up with friends and chilling out in the hot tub. But my unearned freedom is giving me some time to organize my trip to Europe. I found out that Etienne is going to be in France to visit his family until May 26th. This presents me with an interesting travel plan. At the moment I am heading to London on the 22nd (and arrive on the 23rd), so if I immediately decide to travel to Spain via France then I can meet up with Etienne for a day, then make my way to Spain. I'm not too sure how this works with Pablo and Africa though because I think their exams formally end on the 8th of June. Clearly I haven't put too much thought into it yet, eh?

I also need to figure out what I'm going to do for the week I've got in the US without any place to sleep. A few people have offered me space on their couch, but I really want to travel throughout Texas to see more of the rural areas.

Oh yeah, I finally sent my earphones in to get repaired. I sent them via express post in the hope that they'll get back to me asap. I miss going on night runs without blasting dubstep into my skull.

I also just started making a movie out of all the photos I've accumulated in my time here. It's taking up a lot of my time and it's much harder to make than I thought it would be. I'm contemplating bringing my camera to parties now so I can have more photos with my friends.

Matthew Peter James Senior

I only just realized today that UT has incorrectly saved my name as "Matthew James Senior". I didn't pay much attention to it until one of my classmates asked if I actually had a kid. In hindsight I should have totally gone with it. I could have developed a new Catholic alter ego where I have 7 kids and hardly any money to support them.
But now that I think about it, this really does explain a whole lot. It explains why students look back at me with that confused 'wtf, man?' face whenever my name comes up on the projector. I always thought their priceless expressions were due to my super religious triple first name.

I also volunteered for the Texas Longhorn run promotion campaign today. Albeit, I was only there for 15 minutes until I gave up and went to class, but I still managed to grab a free shirt and water bottle!

I went to the local pub the other day (that's actually what it's called) with Ettiene and Vivek to play trivia with their other PHD friends. I really enjoy the bar scene, it's very relaxing and social. However, I can't help but feel incredibly stupid every time I walk out of the pub, because I know none of the answers ever presented in the trivia challenge. All the questions that are asked are all very specific useless facts - for example, one of the questions was; what is the name of the deadly scorpion that glows bright yellow under ultraviolet light? I have no idea, and more importantly, knowing the name won't help me if I'm ever surrounded by them. All I need to know is how fast they run, and how fast they burn once drenched in petrol.

Eeeargh, I've got a small pop quiz in 1/2 an hour. My professor made it compulsory to do pop quizzes in class in an attempt to improve attendance. It's not working though, more people just get worse grades because they miss class and the pop quiz...

I watched the human centipede last night.
That is all

Blood

I know that's a morbid title, but it's an accurate one.

I donated blood today right after I finished my Engineering design exam. As soon as I got back to Moore Hill I opened 2 beers with my roommate and casually drank em while watching an illegal version of "the hunger games". It was good fun.

On the downside however, I managed to drop my free shirt I got for donating blood. This is devastating because now I can't procrastinate doing my Laundry for another 2 days :(

Also, I'm a terrible son, I forgot my Dad's birthday yesterday. So I'm going to wait till 2:45am in the morning to skype my parents.

Bitches n' Hoes

That's right, this post will be about American Rap Music.

Most parties here have an interesting blend of American Rap music and country music. I find this really weird because these types of music are polar opposite in nature, yet both seem appropriate in a party. Also, every now and then a song comes on called "the wobble" (i'm pretty sure that's what it's called). It's a very interesting song, not for it's lyrical genius or interesting beat, but because of how everyone acts once the song comes on. Whenever this song comes on, everyone instantly starts 'wobbling' (that's a euphemism for jerking your hips in a whole bunch of different directions). It's quite a simple dance, but I still can't do it.

I went to a party the other day called "Holi" - a Indian religious holiday to spread awareness about the unfair caste system in India. It was AWESOME. About 300 people were there just throwing water balloons and paint at each other. At one point, I even went crowed surfing - that was a life changing experience.

I met a few interesting people over this weekend, but I think I gave them a poor first impression due to irreconcilable cultural differences.

I still haven't hung out with the other people we met at Colorado. I'm going to put in an effort to invite them to a pub or UT activity soon. I'd like to see them before the UT run on the 14th of April.

Oh yeah, that reminds me, I've been training (occasionally running between binging food and watching youtube videos) for the UT longhorn run. I want to be able to run the thing without wheezing and panting.

Round up

Round up occurs the weekend after spring break. It's a time where all frat parties welcome all people in for lots of free alcohol and loud music. This is usually very uncharacteristic of frat parties because they are typically very exclusive.

Even though you were meant to get a green wrist band to enter the frat parties, i managed to sneak in with a crowed of people by flashing my UBSki wrist band. After I got in I met Simeon (the guy I went skiing with in Colorado) and a few friends from around UT that I knew. I was also wearing my JIS (Jakarta International School) shirt at the time, which was very convenient because one of the 'brothers' (one of the people who belong to the ridiculous overpriced Frat) also lived in Buket Golf in Jakarta. After mathing it out, we found out that he was in the year just below me. It was really rewarding to have a conversation about the 3 level cafeteria and other good parts about JIS which I thought I had forgotten.

Even though the music annoyed me slightly I still managed to enjoy the Frat overall. At about 12am (11:59pm + 1 minute), I went to Austin and Jason's place to check out a party they were hosting there. It was pretty decent, but I felt like I was just socializing with people I already knew there. In hindsight, I should have stayed at a few frat parties for a bit longer so I could meet up with a few more people. Ah well, it was still a good night overall.

:(

So Pablo innocently asked me when I'm leaving the states to go to Europe. I looked it up and saw that it's the 22nd of May. That means I've got less than 2 months left...

I DON'T WANT TO GO :((((

food and feet

So I just had a beef burger. I guess that means my vegetarian lifestyle just ended :(. Well, it was interesting while it lasted.

I lined up at J2 and noticed that my two options were a beef burger or whitish yellow mush. Don't judge me!

While I was in line, the bloke next to me saw that I didn't have shoes on and asked jokingly; "you in a rush to get here?". I told him that going shoeless is a cultural norm in Australia and everyone does it. I must not have said it with enough sarcasm because he apologized and said it was a 'cool idea' with as much fake sincerity as he could.

To be fair, my thongs/sandals/shoe-thingies broke a few days ago so I've had no choice but to walk bare foot to all my classes and around campus for random errands. I tried to pull the Engineer card by stapling them back together, but it didn't work :(

I should probably invest in another pair shortly because I'm getting a lot of weird looks from College students and a lot of supportive looks from hippies.

skiing and school

I forgot to mention that on the first day of skiing I did 12 hours straight. And surprisingly, this didn't leave me exhausted for the rest of the week of skiing. Perhaps it was Simeon's Bulgarian pasta (spaghetti and ketchup) which kept me going.

I got my grade back for my Mechanics of Solids Mid Term. I got 100% whoo! I'm very happy with the lecture quality in this class. The lecturer is en par with Olsen (my Thermodynamics lecturer back at UNSW).

(skip this is you don't care about Engineering)
Also, in my Engineering vibrations class yesterday I got an interesting idea for my thesis. I think an untapped part of Engineering vibrations is analyzing small bumps in the road and the influence it has on cars in parallel with spring and damper systems. At the moment, Engineers assume the road takes the form of a sinusoid, but I think this assumption can be improved upon if we experimentally sample a road and apply a Fourrier series to it. It's an interesting idea, I need to remember it by the time I get into my last year at UNSW.


(you can start reading again now)
Oh yeah, I've decided to try and become vegetarian again. I tried a few years back, but gave up the day I attempted it. I blame bad timing since my dad brought out a pot roast only a few hours after I decided to be vegetarian.
I'm still not entirely serious about it. It's more of a pilot test. I want to see how long I last before I (a) can't be fucked eating vegetarian food from J2 or (b) collapse on the ground due to malnutrition. I'm betting myself that I won't last a week.

I'm becoming more and more excited about visiting Europe after I'm done with America. Not because America is getting lame (in fact, I'm liking it more and more every day), but because my time to go to Europe is getting closer and closer, and I miss Pablo and Africa.

I'm not sure if I've already talked about this, but I've registered for the UT longhorn run. It's a 10km run (that's right, American's use metric units for long distance running - weird, huh?), so I better do some training for it. Training will be tough because my dorm is a health hazard and I can feel myself getting more and more sick every day. I think one of these days the frustration I feel from being sick might just overcome the laziness I have preventing me from taking out trash and doing the laundry. Either way, I'm excited for the run. It'll be good to take up night running again. Oh yeah, I met some people at Colorado who go to UT too and they will be joining in the run as well.

So I've got a philosophy exam tomorrow. So I guess that means I'm going to the pub for Trivia at 8:00pm tonight :)

end of spring break

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, spring break is over. Colorado was fantastic. Simeon and Mike (the two guys I went on the trip with) are very cool people. Park Meadows lodge was located right next to the slopes and we had a hot tub. So it became a daily thing to ski all day, ski directly to our lodge, then hop in the hot tub with a few beers and talk about what we were gonna do with the rest of the day.

I also had a lot of fun talking to people on chairlifts. It was very surprising to notice that a huge percentage of people going to Colorado were Texans - most of which from Austin.
The coolest experience I had on a chairlift was with a few uni students going to Uni in Boulder (another part of Colorado). As soon as we got half way up the lift, and about 40m elevation from the ground below, I was offered a shot of Whiskey (glass and everything) and a gulp of some weird concoction of Whiskey and Apple cider that had been warmed up. That was a lot of fun.
Also, on a chairlift the following day, the bloke next to me was being quite anti social by listening to his music and staring at the mountains for a while. Then, about half way up, with no warning whatsoever, I heard a flicker of a lighter and smelled a waft of weed in my direction. I looked over at the guy again, and he had a full sized bong out from under his jacket, and was taking a hit right in front of me.

While I was there, I went to a few parties around the lodge or near it. I met some guys from Alabama. Holy crap their accent is strong! They were a lot of fun. I've managed to stereotype the entire state as being filled with alcoholics with shotguns and bibles. I met a few people from UT there as well and they invited me to a pub in Austin on the day I got back (yesterday). That was pretty cool, I'm glad I've managed to get an older circle of friends here.

But spring break is over now :(. I think I'm going to catch up on a weeks worth of sleep and then get working on some homework :(

Skiing

So my adventure to Colorado starts tomorrow at 8:00am sharp! I've tried not to talk about it too much in my blog for the last few weeks, but really it's been on my mind 24/7.

I did an exam earlier today and all I could think about was replacing very crucial elements of the exam with skiing parts. I think I'll do pretty good though.

Ok, so I just purchased some $16 dollar skateboarding shoes which I desperately needed since my black casual shoes have two gaping holes in the bottom. Funnily enough, as soon as I bought them and started wearing them outside of the shop, a group of skaters came up to me and asked me where the nearest skate park was. I said I didn't know, then they swore in my general direction and ran off.

Back to skiing! I need to buy some skiing stuff, but I reckon I'll just buy what's cheap over here and then purchase the rest in New Mexico with Simeon and Mike.

Also, I've given up trying to be subtle when I mention I'm from Australia. I've made it a habit of mine to introduce myself as Australian before I give anyone my name. I also randomly chime in and segue any conversation to a subject of Australian beer. You'd be amazed at how easily it works at getting peoples attention.

hygiene

I washed my hair today! This was the first time I've done it since the 3rd of Jan. That's right, I've just managed to hide my greasy, messy hair under a hat for 2 months.

I've got an exam on Thursday (it's Tuesday night at the moment), but I'm not worried about it. In fact, I just came back from a pub where I had to answer random trivia questions. I figured I would probably learn more from this pub than I would studying for my exam. Did you know China is the number one consumer of alcohol? It's so obvious once you know the answer.

But I'm really not fussed about my grades here at all. My parents are attempting to inject me with some motivation by rewarding me with Skis if I get a certain GPA. Unfortunately for them, I'm not motivated material objects or money... except for beer, or xbox games, or computers. Actually, come to think of it, I am a consumer whore. Maybe this skiing reward will actually get to me. But even if it does, it'll be too late for me to do anything about my grades. Ah well.

Once again, I spent the majority of the day in the hot tub. God, it's so good. I met some interesting Australians today. One lived in Manly and studied at UNSW. I pretended that I was surprised, but really I knew there were dozens of us roaming around campus. We had very similar perceptions of the US and spring break.

Almost out of soap :(

organge juice and getting cremated

So a good friend (which I will keep anonymous) told me that I was being very hypocritical for condemning talk about Alcohol and getting wasted, when that's what I post up on pretty much every blog post.

Instead of referring to this person by his/ her name, I'll refer to him/ her as a continent - Africa.

So after reading through a few of my posts at random (and applying the appropriate statistical analysis), I found out that Africa is right!

So here it is folks. My first post that's not going to be in any way related to alcohol or getting wasted.



ummm




The weather has been good! No wait, I already talked about that...




Stuff is cheap here, especially Alco.... damn it!



Ok ok, next post will not be related to alcohol or getting wasted. Right now I'm gonna get some food from either the drag or J2. Adios

jacuzzi

Yes, I needed to spell check the word 'jacuzzi'.

So the last 3 days in Austin have been amazing weather wise. It's been beautiful, sunny and hot. It was perfect timing too, because this is the last weekend I'll have in Austin before spring break, so it was good to relax in the sun and soak up some skin cancer.

At one point I caught myself surrounded by 4 very attractive (average) women in the Jacuzzi with me. I thought I was doing a good job keeping them entertained by my Australian wit - lot of kangaroo jokes. But then shit hit the fan. A very anti social yet overly confident Russian joins us and starts cutting me off and talking about computer programming... he must have mentioned C++ and MATlab a dozen times before all the girls got up and left...

But I've been chilling out (burning up) in the jacuzzi for hours and I've met dozens of really interesting people. I think the pool is a great social hub. Ironically, it's located right next to Moore Hill - the most anti social swamp of teenagers.

So I blamed my bad work ethic on Saturday due to my hangover. But I'm still not being very productive today. I'm actually writing this blog when I should be studying. I really should see if I can find a study group. That way I can live a life like the one depicted in my all time favorite TV show, Community.

I purchased soap yesterday. I needed to.

6th street

Friday was a good night. It was (French name)'s birthday so we all got wasted at a few bars then headed to a really great club called 'Barbarella' or something. Despite the name, the club was very good. It was 80's themed so great music was played all night. I also blacked out more than I ever have before. I played a game of detective around my room just trying to figure out what happened. My roommate told me how the vom got in the bin.

Today (Saturday) was pretty uneventful though. I guess the hangover had a part to play with that. I just chilled with my roommate and attempted to study after an unsuccessful attempt to organize people to go to a frat lights party.

Back to the good news. I met a few really interesting people on Friday. Hopefully I can chill out with them a bit more. Also, Colorado is coming up really soon. Getting excited for some skiing goodness.

fruit

That's right, this blog is dedicated to fruit.

Apples are Red
Apples are green
Apples can be fed
To me when I'm keen

That's the mentality I have when I'm at J2.

Although to be honest the apples taste pretty bad here. You can lick off the pesticide still clinging to the outside.
That's when I did something crazy and reckless. I just ignored all social trends and taboo's and just went for it. I didn't care what others thought of me. That's right, I tried a pear.

Best decision I have ever made in my entire life. They're so juicy and delicious. nom nom nom

Pears are green
And pears can only be green
That's what I've noticed
And all I've ever seen

easy grading

I just got my Engineering vibrations and Philosophy test back. I got 90% in Philosophy and 88% in Engineering vibrations. How did that happen!?!? I barely studied for either test!

These are the subjects I dislike the most!

I think the grading is extremely lenient here. Lecturers who know they are crap intentionally mark more leniently in an attempt to trick themselves they are less crap.

Well, I guess that destroyed any motivation I ever had of studying for any subject ever.