Tubasaluki: Quoting music since 2003

The best thing about AutoFill Text is it lets you know if you’ve used a title already, and if so you can make the apporopriate changes.

Time for some randomness. I’m debating sleep tonight. The Salukis tip off in five hours in the MVC championship game and I’d like to follow it online. But if I sleep, I can see me hearing the alarm and reasoning with myself that I can read about it later.

So, I might just attempt staying up. Ah, the benefits of no class on Mondays.

So far I’m liking it down here. Its very laid back and I’ve met some really cool people. I’ve also met people from all over the world. The other night I played board games with an American, an Australian, and two guys from Iran.

When I met the two guys from Iran, I really didn’t know how the evening would go. All you hear in our media is how different their culture is, and that there’s a lot of anti-American sentiment in the Middle East. Not that I believe that everyone in that part of the world despises America and wishes us harm, but still, when you meet someone for the first time, you don’t know what they’re like and your first instinct is to go off of sterotypes.

As it turns out, the Iranians were awesome, and we had a blast playing cards. American policy game up once, when one of them asked me if I liked talking about policy. I said I did, but the subject was never broached again. It was just five guys hanging out playing cards.

(Cue huggy, feely, “We must work together in this global village” hippy-esque song)

I’ve met a bunch of other Americans, some Canadians (people who actually like hockey!), some Swedes, some Finns, a girl from the Dominican Republic (with whom I displayed by close to 0% knowlege of Central American geography when I confused it with Costa Rica. This was chalked up, in jest, to me being a typical “dumb American”) and people from China, Japan, and other places around the world.

And, of course, I’ve met Australians. They’re pretty cool, and since I’m becoming more comfortable here, I’m talking with them a bit more. Since we have a communal kitchen, at about 6:00, a lot of the floor is there making dinner. The conversations are usually pretty good, and I must say if they did a Chef ranking for our floor, I’d probably finish near the bottom.

Classes down here are nice. As I’ve stated before (possibly not here, but at Alan in Oz) I have class three days a week, so its not to stressful. There are a few big projects, such as a paper to write, and a marketing proposal for a sports team (this is a group project). For a little bit I felt overwhlemed by it. Then I realized two things:

1) In keeping with my very egotistical view of myself, I’m smart and school work, while challenging, usually results in a good grade. Let the ownage commence!

2) I’m in Australia, if I don’t get A’s and B’s…meh. Not to say I won’t try, but I’m not going to fret over projects. I’ll just get them done and be on my way.

Awesomeness note: Two of my classes don’t have finals. That means sometime in the three week exams period, I have to take two tests. I’m hoping they’re close to the same time so I can maybe do a little bit more traveling before I head back to the States.

Lets see…I am starting to miss my friends a little bit. But its not in the “I wish I were at Quatro’s right now” kind of way. Its more like I wish they could be here and experiencing this as well. This whole trip has been awesome. Of course, if my friends were here, would it be as awesome? Afterall, making new friends is part of the process, so if mine were here, how would that change things?

Something for you philosophers to debate in the comments.

Remember how I found you there
Alone in your electric chair
I told you dirty jokes until you smiled,

Alan