Week 37: My Wave Exposure Model Works!

Its sunday night so of course its blog time. So monday as usual this session was overwhelmed with classes, my 6 hour day at Uni is my longest day and so they work associated with it took up most of monday and tuesday. I spent tuesday arvo plugging away at my Independent Project, in which I am using a GIS model to map out Wave Exposure and how subtly changing the model will alter the results. So after 3 weeks of tinkering I finally managed to get all my data in the right format and run the model to completion which felt like a great achievement!

This ran into wednesday and the next thing I know I am preparing to head out for our student night out again. It was a damp occasion but nontheless we all enjoyed ourselves and I whipped up some garlic bread on my return home... NOM. Thursday was spent all day on the computer getting to grips with my GIS model, in the evening I headed out with my future Touch Footy team for some food at our sponsor, I demolished a great burger and chips! On return to KB I wacked on a very weird samuri-esc film called 47 Ronin.

Friday rolled around and I smashed out some work early in the day so that I could enjoy the "I like to party" pub crawl. This session we made sure we didnt get there too early and had a relaxed journey down to Dicey Riley's we headed to the Patch and North Gong before grabbing a kebab from town... OMG kebab! And then headed home.

I decided to get some more work out of the way on saturday morning. The sun was out, just so I made the trip to the beach, and was picked up on the way there. What I was hoping to be a lovely swim in the usually clean and clear beach was turned into a mess by the presence of lots and lots of seaweed! Ew! Regardless we went in for a very quick dip. On the way back I grabbed a few bags full of fresh fruit and veg. I made up an amazing salad for dinner with so many ingredients that its not worth spending the time writing them! The evening was spent playing nintendo (im not getting any better!) and then some yarns back at mine for my roomates birthday. 

Sunday stared with an energetic KB sports session, the highlight of which was definitely a game of ultimate frisbee! I was at a loss what to do with my arvo, with most of my friends away or studying so I headed down to the beach for a surf. 3 hours later and lots of swallowed seawater I would say it was my most successful surf session to date with waves suitable for a beginner like myself. I think I stood up over a dozen times which im pretty happy with and I even taught myself how to sit on my board to look at the oncoming waves like a true surfer ;) .... shame im blind without my glasses :(.

To finish off the week I made an amazing chicken in a bag with mash and a side salad YUM!

Thats it for this week. Three weeks until mid-session break, lets see what they bring!

Week 36: Happy Birthday Kooloobong

The week once again kicked off with a full day of study. I sent Eddy on her way at lunchtime and rounded off the day watching a bit of the Hobbit. Tuesday went in a similar vein, lots of study but I did manage to get out for a surf in the afternoon which was good.

Wednesday once again was jam packed of study and class... fun fun! I did make an awesome steak with a sweet chilli, bbq, tomato-ey sauce which was to die for! We had some drinks and yarns in the evening, but I decided against going out.

Thursday once again was spent at Uni trying to get my independent project going, getting the model running is providing some challenges, more on data acquisition than the model itself. I did watch battlefield in the evening, a very classic American Navy movie!

Friday was a bit more exciting! Kooloobong Village had its first birthday which is pretty cool, so we sang happy birthday... yes... to a building! There was a great cake bought in for the occasion. The afternoon passed having a water fight at KB Karnival which was cool. We had a bouncy castle, slip and slide and pool set up outside.

In the evening we went down to UOW Global Buddies cocktail party, it eventually got busy and it was good chatting to people from all over the world. The cocktails they were serving were given to us in a teapot which was really cool! We then headed over to the Little Prince, which was an even fancier cocktail place and I got a watermelon cocktail which went down very well, but alas tiredness had set in and we headed back around midnight.

The weekend rolled around and I spent a lot of saturday trying to get ahead in my assignments. Sandwiched in the this was a great game of touch footy, very humid and sweaty as you can imagine. I am proud to say I got a try or two! In the evening we all dressed up smart and headed down to the patch for a friends 21st birthday, after some cheeky pre-drinks. It was a great night, especially the toast of free vodka shots and then a few more later on, we all got rowdy and enjoyed ourselves immensely!

Photos courtesy of Kimberley Hurst! 

Vodka shots!

Its safe to say sunday was a late start! I headed down to the beach for a surf which soothed the sore head a few hours later i headed back to KB and sat down to watch the footy. Five mins in I was invited to go surfing again, so I donned my swimmers and we headed back out there. We stopped off at Woolies on the way back and I made a monstrous spag bol for dinns.

Week 35: KB Pub Crawl!

The beginning of the week again started with a chocker monday of classes and tuesday I tried to start my project, but that failed as we didn't know how to work the model. In the evening I went down to see how to make some veggie patties at our cooking lesson, which was pretty cool.

Wednesday rolled around once again and once my classes were done I headed out to get some hippy clothes for our themed pre drinks. We headed up to fairy meadow for pre-drinks at a friends house, unusually we didn't play any games and just chatted which made a change. I made a quick costume change and we jumped on the train down to town to go out to the grand. Another great night was had by all but there were no waffles to come home to :(.

Thursday I got some work out of the way and then in the evening headed up to pick Eddy up from the station. By the time I got back it was time for a telephone interview, which went well (I hope). Friday was spent pretty chilled at the beach, at k mart and topped it off with a great lemon and thyme chicken. After this we went over to a friends flat, watched the footy and then broke out the Nintendo 64 and played some smash bros and mario cart. Its safe to say I have no experience with a nintendo 64 and it definitely wasn't my area of expertise, give me fifa anyday. But anyway we had an absolute blast!

The captain and the footy :) 

Saturday we headed up to Sydney and found out the the replacement bus service wasn't terrible but still a pain! We met up with some of Eddy's friends and headed to paddys markets then went out for sushi for lunch. I have never been much of a sushi fan but it was soooooo good, and pretty cheap aswell! We spent the afternoon down at Darling Harbour and grabbed a few drinks before jumping back on the bus for North Wollongong, we went through a crazy thunderstorm on the bus on the way home! We made it back to KB and smashed out fajitas for dinner. The evening finished off watching Anchorman 2... a very very weird film may I add!

Darling Harbour

Posing at Darling Harbour

Pouring rain on the bus

Sunday comes around and we don our yellow shirts for the KB pub crawl. 120 student jumped on two buses and made our way to pubs in Scarborough, Thirroul and Wollongong throughout the day! We had a great afternoon and then finished it off at a houseparty. Its safe to say we headed back early and hit the hay in preparation for a busy monday.

Photo courtesy of Kristin Kvam :)

Photo courtesy of Kristin Kvam :)

Pub Crawl!

 

Week 34: Beach and lots of Footy

Week 1 of uni started off with a very busy monday. I kicked off with a 2hr remote sensing lecture, then a lunch break. The arvo consisted of a fluvial geomorphology lecture and then field trip down to a creek in Wollongong. We used a dumpy and level to profile a cross-section of the river. It was great fun diving through the undergrowth and I didn't come across any dangerous snakes or spiders thankfully! I spent the evening doing a bit of work and then I went to KB inspirational talk which was a TED talk off youtube... pretty good actually. Tuesday was spent down at a meeting at Uni, then I headed to the beach and finished the day with a KB food lesson.

I kicked off Wednesday with a great swim in the pool, then hit my lecture. The sunny day was completely flipped when a great thunderstorm came rolling across. We headed up to 4th floor and watched the sky change from blue to dark grey with torrential rain, thunder and lightening. In the evening we headed out to Hostage and The Grand, as per it was great fun, any night that ends with waffles has to be an amazing night lets face it. The highlight of thursday was heading down to play some barefoot bowls for a friends birthday. Never played before but it was great fun, especially when we had about 10 vs 10 on the green. I finished off the evening watching the first of 4 footy matches over the extended weekend.

Awesome storm clouds over Wollongong

Fiday passed very quickly, I hit the beach, then played some 5 vs 5 touch football, which was great fun actually before heading to KB fitness and finishing off the day watching another footy match. Saturday passed in a similar vain, beach and footy. By the evening I felt myself coming down with a cold or virus. Sunday was spent pretty much exclusively in my room and flat feeling pretty grim. I watched a few movies and then another footy game. The plan is to rest up before I get busy again next weekend.

Week 33: O-Week!

The week kicked off with a bout of fancy dress volleyball down at the beach. Out came the sun, we filled a couple of buses and hit the beach. We filled some volleyball courts full with people dressed in wacky costumes and had a most enjoyable time. We also played some slips, frisbee, sea touch and obviously a splash around in the waves. The afternoon passed quickly and before I knew it I was down at the station picking up a friend. The rest of the evening we spent catching up with a few grogs.

Tuesday we kicked off with a trip to the grocery store before hitting the O-week stalls, we got some freebies and then made a scramble for the pool party. After a lengthy queue we got in and it was an experience to say the least, basically heaps of people squeezed into a pool. On the plus side there was a great 20m inflatable assault course which I only just completed. We scrambled to make a lovely lemon and thyme chicken dinner with sweet potato before dashing out to speed meeting. It was great to get talking to some new faces but my voice went croaky pretty quickly. We had some carry ons at a friends which rounded the night off nicely.

Pool Party (Photo Courtesy of Jamie Venables)

We had a lazy Wednesday, heading to uni, town and the beach. Some more free food was really good for dinner at what was going to be a bubble party but the rain descended and it was a bit of a damp squib. We headed out on the party to hostage and we were planning on going to the grand but the queues were massive so we came back a little early than usual.

A very wet bubble party!

Thursday was another fairly lazy day so we wacked on a few films, then had to go for a walk around uni just to get some fresh air. My friend cooked me an amazing sweet chilli beef stir fry, it was so tasty, I am definitely going to use that recipe. Once again we rounded off the evo with a few drinks around kb.

Amazing food! 

Friday I woke up feeling pretty rough, so we chilled out again before dropping off my friend back at the station. The afternoon passed pretty quickly, I had a little play in the ball pit before having a quieter night around kb.

Making friends in the ball pit!

The weekend started off with torrential rain and I woke feeling fairly ill (not from alcohol may I add), so I put on the Secret Life of Walter Mitty and finally woke at 11. I made a trip to town before heading down to the station to head up to a 21st in Sutherland. I arrived to the place all kitted out for a 21st, the caterers were in the kitchen, the floor was covered in vinyl and all the furniture covered in blankets. Fast forward a few hours and 70 people had rocked up in fancy dress and the music was going. Waiters and waitresses were walking around with food and a bar was even set up in their gym room.We had a sweet night chatting and dancing, the food definitely made the night amazing.

I woke feeling pretty fragile once again but the breakfast roll of bacon, egg and onion combined with a nap definitely helped. I made the journey back to the Gong and had a well deserved chilled night.  

Ill hopefully remember to upload pics from the 21st when they put on fb :)