"Did somebody say naked crowdsurfing?!"

It's 3am on Day 4 of Prosh Week, and I can't sleep (much like I haven't been able to sleep lately, for whatever reason -- except when passed out, of course). So what else is there to do but to update on Prosh Week shenanigans?

Prosh Week is hard to explain. There pretty much aren't even any words to try to describe what happens. There's no point, except to have fun (and maybe win as well). The week is filled with random events, some of which involve drinking, some of which are better with drinking (but during which drinking is not compulsory), all of which are ridiculously hilarious and amazing.

On Monday morning, we got decked out in our Prosh Week regalia (each team has a colour and a theme -- the MUSEX [Melbourne University Student EXchange Club, or something like that] colour is yellow and the theme is jocks and cheerleaders) and headed out to Envelopes, where each team receives a certain amount of (fake) money with which you bid on envelopes containing unknown tasks. Some (okay, a lot) involve nudity, others involve doing favours for the judges, and yet others are just plain bizarre (for instance, one of the envelopes MUSEX got was to research the history of men's shirts and hand it in to a judge). Two MUSEX guys shaved their heads, and we all were tasked with giving massages to any judge that asked.

Following Envelopes, we performed a team song and dance; ours involved a human pyramid (and my being sore the following day). Then, that afternoon, we had a huge waterfall race down the so-called "moat" on South Lawn, after which we had Afternoon Games and competed against other teams with some really random games -- bobbing for apples, eggthrowing, eating a bucketful of creme without your hands, etc. (The boyfriend won the apple-bobbing contest, but alas -- he's on the Geodudes team, not the MUSEX team.) MUSEX put on a good show and even won the Rubik's Cube competition (in which we had to do the Rubik's cube as many times as possible during the course of the afternoon...uh, we may have accomplished this by taking it apart, but whatever).

That evening was the Pub Games, competing with drinking games. I was on the MUSEX Beirut (Beer Pong) team with a Greek guy named Stathi. We won the first round and were doing pretty well in the second round, but our opponents rallied and managed to beat us. Ah well, I got some free beer out of it. =P And a good time was had by all.

I left pretty early that night; I was trying to save money (as opposed to spending it on alcohol), lol, and there wasn't a whole lot more to do unless you were on a team. I stopped by David's place and we spent some time together, but I left around 11 because he had to get some sleep for Long Drive the following morning.

Long Drive is one of the highlights of Prosh Week -- I wanted to do it, but would've been pretty useless since I'm not legal to drive in Australia. At any rate, it started at 9am Tuesday and didn't end till 9am Wednesday; it's a 24-hour drive around Victoria, completing crazy tasks whilst decked out like a rock band. The only thing about Long Drive is that it (obviously) precludes you from doing any of the Tuesday events, which includes a "Mystery Event" -- the Bachelor of Inebriation.

The Bachelor of Inebriation is a 10-hour pub crawl involving 14 bars/pubs and 14 drinking tasks (or subjects) in order for you to earn your BI; a higher degree (Master's and Ph.D) can be earned by doing "breadth" subjects that involve drinking extra alcohol. We cut the pub crawl a bit short because there was awful weather in Melbourne, skipping from pub #8 straight to Turf (which was the last pub), but I still managed to complete all of the tasks. I stumbled back to my room at around 8pm, with every intention of returning to Turf, but needing to get some food in my stomach before I died.

Instead, I passed out, woke up, puked, passed out again, woke up, crawled into bed, passed out yet again, woke around 2am, puked again, and then had a hangover. At 2am. It was pretty epic -- also, in future, I'll refrain from eating salt and vinegar potato chips whilst drinking...they burned so badly coming back up that water tasted too sweet to drink (because I don't like overly sweet things). I was trying to drink water to make the hangover less severe, but it literally tasted like I was eating sugar. Luckily though, since the hangover hit me at 2am, I went back to sleep and by the time I woke up, I was perfectly fine.

MUSEX also pulled a lecture stunt on Tuesday morning, wherein Andrew, our fearless [cheer]leader and team captain, crowdsurfed naked down a lecture theatre. We earned full points for the stunt and "Did somebody say naked crowdsurfing?!" has become like the unofficial tagline of Prosh Week. It was pretty hilarious, particularly since we crashed the Australia Now lecture, and the lecture on Tuesday was about the stolen generation of Aboriginal children. The lecturer had just finished showing a YouTube clip of Kevin Rudd's formal apology to the Aboriginal people for the stolen generation, and Andrew (who, I ought to add, is actually in that lecture) stood up (arse naked, of course) and screamed, "Did somebody say naked crowdsurfing?!" Then he just went. It was fantastic.

And that, of course, brings us to today (Wednesday). There was a nude run at 10am, which I skipped, but at noon, we had jellywrestling on South Lawn. I was the female MUSEX jellywrestler, and it was pretty ridiculous. It was rather cold outside today, and the jelly itself was cold and slimy. I went three rounds all the way to the finals, which was a three-way, since we had an uneven number of teams advancing to finals. Girl A and I teamed up on Girl B (who was bigger than both of us and had beasted all the girls she'd previously wrestled, so this was a pretty damn good idea, haha). Girl B managed to tear off my top, but was defeated in the process, and I was trying to fix my top (I was wearing a halter-top swimsuit, and not only was I hanging out, but it was caught in my hairclip and just a hot mess) when Girl A just came up and shoved me out of the pool. Somewhat annoying, but I wasn't particularly interested in winning anyway, since the winner had to wrestle one of the judges (for double points, but still, it's a judge and you don't want to offend them, lol). Besides, at that point I was exhausted and cold, so I just let it go, or else I would probably have fought it a little harder.

I'd planned on going to the boat race that immediately followed jellywrestling, but I was freezing, so I retreated to my apartment for a lovely hot shower. The slime took a lot of time to get off of me, since (as I discovered when I got in the shower) it got slimier as you added water. All in all, though, a fairly successful day. Trivia was the evening event, and I went for a while, but as I said, I haven't been sleeping well (or really at all, even), and I was tired, so I peaced out.

So, that's Prosh Week so far...the huge culminating event of the week occurs from Thursday to Friday, so we're all gearing up for that event, which is a huge Scavenger Hunt. The "white" list drops at noon, and the "black" list (which contains all of the unofficial, sort of illegal tasks) drops at midnight. I've skipped all my lectures so far, though I did attend all of my tutorials and rehearsals, but tomorrow afternoon I have two rehearsals and a lecture that I really do need to attend (since I already skipped it on Tuesday for the BI, and it's the lecture where the lecturer actually takes attendance). So I'll be missing Proshession, which is a huge fake parade down Swanston Street -- I sort of regret this, because Proshession is one of the great Prosh Week traditions, but I am still (sort of, haha) a student. And I'll probably also miss most of the white list, since I'll be in rehearsal/class from 1pm till 6:15. I might do the black list, depending on what's on it (don't want to get deported, lol). And then Friday morning there's the Metcard challenge that I'm meant to be doing, but details don't get dropped until the Scav Hunt details do.

Looking forward to the rest of the week, but I'll definitely be crashing this weekend. I need some serious downtime...for now, I'm going to try and get some sleep.

Let's Face the Music and Dance

So I haven't updated in a while -- I meant to do a post about footy shortly after the Carlton v Geelong match, but never got around to it. (Footy post will be forthcoming, though, when I do manage to get around to it.)

Life is shockingly ordinary; I go to class, I cook for myself, and I procrastinate my reading. But last weekend (Saturday 8th August) I went out with a bunch of people from International House (one of the UM residential colleges), most of whom I didn't know. Cassandra and I had meant to go out clubbing that night, but she ended up needing to work on a paper, so I texted Corey, who invited me to come over to I-House to pregame before joining them to go to Workshop, a bar down in the CBD.

The pregaming was pretty fun; we played Kings and danced to loud music before hopping a tram down to Workshop. The night that followed was only okay though, since everyone split into their own little groups and I didn't really know anyone but Corey. So I'd just started contemplating heading out (it was getting late, I was tired and not drunk enough to be able to deal with sitting around people I didn't know awkwardly) when the boy (part of the group I'd come with, but someone I hadn't met yet) sitting next to me introduced himself and we started talking.

Long story short, that was a week ago and we've been on two dates since. =) So it's been quite a lovely week -- it makes me laugh that there's past precedent for this, yet I completely didn't expect it -- in fact, actively expected that I wouldn't meet anyone. I mean, I am only here till the end of November (possibly a little bit longer, if I can manage to swing it?). And yet I don't believe in not doing things just because I'm afraid they'll get more difficult, or they'll come to an end; most things do, and it's what happens before they end that matters.

In other news, Prosh Week is coming up. It's an old University of Melbourne tradition, a week filled with fake parades, scavenger hunts, and other various drunken debauchery. (Tradition holds that it used to be the week when all the Faculty Balls were held, so it was called "Posh Week," but due to drunken students slurring words -- trust me, these balls are mainly an excuse to get dressed up and then get drunk -- it became "Prosh Week" instead..) At first I was fairly sceptical about it, but the more I hear about it, the more it seems like something that I should be involved in during my short time here.

I don't want to regret anything -- not anything I did, or even anything I didn't do. So I'm going to go for it. I'm going to go for all of it, and live it up.

Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill
And while we still have the chance
Let's face the music and dance
...
There may be teardrops to shed
But while there's moonlight and music
And love and romance
Let's face the music and dance

Trees Full of Starlight

Out of the four days of class I have each week, only Tuesday ends before 6:15 in the evening -- I have a late tute on Mondays and rehearsal on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Nevertheless, today, rather than heading home at 3:15 after my Medieval & Early Modern Music lecture, I popped over to the computing centre to print out some (okay, more like 80) photos to put up around my bedroom.

Grateful that I'd dodged (most of) the rain, which so often comes and goes in Melbourne, I headed out of Union House to head home just before 5:30. Dusk had settled quickly over the city and brought with it a brisk chill. This morning it had felt more like autumn than winter; as I crossed Royal Parade 9 hours later, it was definitely a winter evening. It was just cold enough that I wondered if I could see my breath -- a bit of a novelty for me, since it is August and traditionally very hot. I let out a long exhale to see if I could spot any wisps of breath, but alas. Not quite that cold (yet). The streetlights, the headlights of passing cars, even the lights from the trams were dancing over the still-wet pavement, glinting here and there in shades of peach and champagne.

I've never lived in an actual city. Bridgewater is technically a township, and it's mainly highways anyway, so I would never even think of walking anywhere except maybe down the street to a friend's house or maybe across 202 for a popular event at either North Branch or Duke Island Park. Granville is even smaller -- it's actually a village. I can walk anywhere I need, which is really only up and down Broadway to the CVS or maybe, if I'm feeling adventurous, down to the IGA for some groceries.

Sure, I go to New York City often when I'm home, and generally go to Columbus a few times a semester, so I know my way around a city. I know how to hail a cab, how to use the subway. I know how to get to Central Park, or Times Square, which way is uptown and which way is downtown. But actually living in a city presents a curious dichotomy between being surrounded by people all the time, yet being very, very alone.

It's always an interesting experiment to smile at or say hello to someone you don't know, have never seen before in your life, and will never see again. In New York, if you get a reaction at all, it will be an odd look and then they'll be gone forever -- a brief moment of interaction between two human beings, and yet not really any interaction at all. I haven't tried it yet in Melbourne, but something hopeful inside me says that maybe I'll get a few smiles back. Certainly they're far more open and willing to approach or even help out strangers; the other day a man on a bicycle asked me if I knew where Grattan Street was and how to get there (always a nice ego boost, since Grattan is one of the few streets I do know!). When I first arrived in Melbourne, my friends and I occasionally stopped people on the street to ask directions and they were always very friendly.

At any rate, I haven't had to ask directions in a while -- my daily commute to and from uni wasn't difficult to begin with, and has become even easier in the last week and a half or so. I always pass by a few hospitals on Royal Parade (or perhaps just many buildings of one hospital) between RMIT Village and UM, and they're always busy, regardless of what time it is. First thing in the morning, heading to classes, in the middle of the day, popping back to the apartment for lunch, walking home from class or rehearsal in the evenings, and even late at night on a run to the bottle shop across from Trinity College. There are always people coming in and out -- visitors, paramedics, all sorts of people.

But there's one woman that I see constantly -- nearly every time I walk by, as a matter of fact. She's outside the Royal Melbourne Hospital in a garishly pink robe and fuzzy slippers clearly not meant to be worn outside a building. She's older, probably in her 50s or early 60s, with hair that's dyed a burgundy red and roots that need to be retouched. All of this aside, perhaps what is most obvious is that she is always alone, smoking a cigarette, and never smiling. In fact, it's not even that she looks particularly unpleasant; just on the older side and a bit eccentric, and she strikes me as being very resigned to her fate, whatever it is.

I wonder about her. What's her story, where is her family? In the short week and a half I've been here, she's become a fixture on my daily walks. Is she, likewise, a fixture at the hospital? Or will I stop seeing her in a week or two? Why is she always alone, and why is she at the hospital to begin with? How many times does she come outside to smoke each day? I see her so often on some days that I wonder if she's gone in at all, or if she's just been sitting out there, smoking one cigarette after another, all day long.

Tonight she was sitting alone on the bench again, puffing away at her ever-present cigarette, a look of intense concentration on her face as she took slow drags, examining her pink robe in the rapidly dimming light. I'd known she was there before I could be sure it was her -- the smell of cigarette smoke seemed to carry better in the cold air. She was even more alone than usual. Normally there are other people milling about the bench where she sits, but tonight it had gotten dark very quickly, and combined with the rain it seemed like a good guess that most of them were inside. It was cold; I'd misjudged the weather myself, finding myself wearing only a (fairly warm, but not warm enough) rugby shirt and jeans. These last few days I'd been dressing warmly only to find out as soon as I stepped outside that I didn't need a jacket or even really a jumper; though the camisole inside was too thin for me to be able to take off the jumper, a t-shirt would have sufficed. Today I'd grossly miscalculated; I was underdressed in anticipation of it being warmer than I expected, when in fact it turned out to be just as cold as I thought it might be, and then some.

I wanted to stop and say something, to ask her name. She looked cold. Her robe definitely didn't seem thick enough for her to be out in the cold drizzly evening.

But she sat there, resolutely puffing away, picking at her robe, and I walked on, surrounded by people and yet feeling very alone, on this cold Melbourne evening.

Ordinary People

Last night, at some point whilst I scrubbed at the stove range with steel wool and Lysol wipes, it fully sank in that I live here. Here, at 5-17 Flemington Road, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Here, in Australia. In Melbourne.

I go to class, I buy groceries, I make dinner every night. I have friends over, and I clean and live my life in my little apartment surrounded by a culture I don't fully understand yet and many, many thousands of people that I do not know.

It occurred to me, as I idly watched the Ashes (for the uninformed, the Ashes are a huuuge cricket tournament between England and Australia. Huge deal around here) and chatted with friends from home, that this is not just some glorified vacation. I had hoped that this weekend would be a little more exciting than it turned out to be; I happen to be of the opinion that the first weekend of term will either be a lot of fun or completely boring, with no middle ground. Certainly I've noticed that most people take one of two stances: (1) "Crap, classes have started and now I need to be a serious student!" or (2) "Fuckk, you mean I actually have to do work? Let's get drunk to commiserate."

We all know which one I wanted to do. After all, I am in Australia, and we are legal to drink here, and, whilst I do honestly enjoy my classes, I'd rather go out with my friends (even if we don't necessarily drink or get drunk) and have a good weekend than sit around at my desk mucking through hundreds of pages of reading.

But it struck me just now as I stood under the water for my four-minute shower that this is my life. Yeah, I should live it up, but I'm here for another four months. There will be plenty of opportunities for having fun.

And all in all, this weekend wasn't so bad. I have no Friday lectures or tutes, so I de facto have a three-day weekend every week. Jarrod came over Thursday night to watch True Beauty (and by watch, I mean mock), eat pizza, and do tequila shots out of plastic shotglasses lined with fruit roll-ups, and the next morning we lazed around the apartment, eating pancakes and muffins and generally wasting time. Hey, not the most productive of days, but a good time with good company nonetheless. After he left, I made dinner for myself and watched the Ashes and caught up with some friends back home. Saturday was similarly spent sleeping in (and I do mean really sleeping in -- like 2pm sleeping in), watching movies, chatting online, and eating leftovers. I cleaned the kitchen for a while; it's probably cleaner now than it has been in a few terms. Then I reorganised my half of the pantry and made a shopping list of things I need to go get. I even managed to get some writing done. This morning, a bunch of the Arcadians came over for a potluck brunch and we had a great time sitting around chatting in my kitchen. It's not the most exciting life, but it's by no means a bad one, either.

Not to mention I've got four more months of this life. Not every weekend can be the all-out, get drunk, go dancing sort of crazy fun. Lazy weekends are fun too. Studying abroad is meant to give you all sorts of learning experiences aside from just purely academic ones. You learn to adapt to a new culture, a new lifestyle.

I've been so concerned with having a good time that I missed the part where I'm doing something that's really, truly amazing -- I'm making a life for myself in a place that, a year ago, I'd only really dreamed about going. I'm living fully on my own, meeting amazing people, and getting to know an amazing city and country.

It's been a great weekend. =)