glad to be here

JIMINY CHRISTMAS.

I've been so busy lately. And putting off updating this because I was busy. And then putting it off because I've been putting it off. Geez Louise.

So last Friday our little band of Americans took to Canberra, the capital of Australia. Our schedules were packed to the max; the day we got there we visited the New Zealand, Indonesian and USA embassies and learned about foreign relations, got snacks, etc. It was actually pretty interesting, and definitely sparked great discussions later. We were asked a lot of questions like how we felt Americans were viewed here, and whether or not that stereotype was true. We also listened to the Green Day song 'American Idiot' and had a huge discussion on how we felt about the song. In short, we didn't like it.

The next day we went to the National Portrait Gallery, National Museum, National Art Museum and the Australian War Memorial. Little busy. The portrait gallery was cool, but I pretty much didn't know any of the people so it was not the easiest thing to be interested in many of them. The National Museum was pretty neat, and it looked like it was built with K'nex. Art museum was excellent, though. We only had about an hour to look around and it definitely was not enough. I recognized a lot of the paintings there, but I think my favorite was the one they had by Jackson Pollock. Especially because we discussed him in a class at Taylor last semester and it really made me like his artwork more (never EVER thought I'd have any speck of gladness that I took Com Sem 2, but there it was). The painting was pretty massive, and I just stared at it. Part of me was like, 'Yes, I appreciate this art,' and the other part was like, 'I feel so cool standing here appreciating this art.'(Hannah Beers: looking at paintings in an art museum by yourself needs to go on your Romantic Things list). I think the War Memorial was my favorite though. I love history, and there was so much stuff there. I really had no idea about Australia's involvement in any wars at all, but they've been in a lot. Pretty much alongside the US since they've been a country. It was a little depressing, especially since we had just watched the saddest Australian war movie ever, Gallipoli, but definitely interesting.

Canberra has a reputation for being really... boring. And I can see that. There wasn't too much of a social scene there, and it was kind of in the middle of nowhere despite it being a city. But I really enjoyed the time we spent there. We stayed at a hostel and it was great being able to hang out with everyone not at school. Living in separate homes we don't really get to all be together outside of class. Everyone was chilling, eating pizza, playing board games. It felt like being in college again.

Oh my gosh, this is like a novel. So long. So I'll just leave it at that and write more later. Just to keep you interested: I finally went to Hillsong! But do NOT have the energy/motivation to talk about it now. Also, I should upload some pictures to this I guess. I might get on that.

current song: 2080 by Yeasayer