Sunday, March 11, 2007

Sorry I haven’t been writing as much, but things have been getting so busy and I’ve been very tired lately. But here’s what I’ve been up to for the last few days:

Thursday I had a few lectures and a long PBL to talk about our problem of the week- which is cancer (specifically breast cancer). There is so much to know! In the evening, I went downtown to take advantage of an all-you-can-eat pizza deal at a place called Fringe Bar. It was a little bit of a hike, but was really yummy and I even brought a zip lock bag with me so I could have some pizza for lunch the next day. I think Nana has rubbed off on me a little bit!

Friday was full of lectures- mostly on cancer. They said that over 50% of Australians will have some kind of cancer in their lifetime. That’s pretty scary, isn’t it!? I didn’t go to the bar after the lectures because I was tired and hot- but I did get some ice cream in Newtown with Sabiha later in the evening. It was yummy, but no ‘Ed’s’.

Saturday was a very busy day. I got up at around 7am and headed over to Bondi beach to try some surfing. There were about 12 people who had planned to come, but almost everyone bailed since it was apparently “too early”. Anyway, we got to Bondi at around 9am and rented 3 surfboards for the 4 of us who made it there (Tom, Brooke, Nick and me). Tom knew a little bit about surfing so we didn’t think it was worth it to pay an extra $40 each to get an instructor. Plus, Brent gave me a surfing lesson over the phone the night before (and had taught me how to catch waves on the paddleboard last summer).

This is on the bus on our way to Bondi...

I offered to sit out (and stay on the beach) first since we only had 3 boards and one of us had to wait with our bags. But, it wasn’t bad because Brooke only lasted about 5 or 10 minutes before she came out. I don’t think she was feeling very well. The waves were huge (by our standards) and it was actually really difficult to get past the break (especially with our big, super-buoyant learning boards). Nick only lasted about 15 minutes before giving up as well- I don’t think he got more than about 15 meters off shore. Tom and I stayed out almost for the entire two hours though. I was so tired and sore by the end of it and I have big ‘board burns’ on my thumbs, elbows and knees from being pushed off my board so much. It was really fun though! I caught lots of waves but mostly just got up on my knees (because I’m so used to paddleboarding). I got to my feet a bunch of times, but it only lasted a second or two before I’d loose the wave or fall off the board!
I also put zinc on in the morning (as well as some sunscreen) since the sun here is so hot! But I guess it all got washed off while I was surfing and I ended up getting horribly burnt everywhere. I’m puffy and red and in a lot of pain right now!

Here's a picture of Brooke, Tom and Nick. Look at all the surfers in the background!
On a totally different note- I did some more laundry last week. Since each load costs over $10, and I don’t have many white clothes, I decided to put my whites in with my light blue sheets to try to save some money. Bad idea. I now have a lot of light blue clothes. At least I won’t have to worry about doing my whites separately anymore- cause I don’t have anything white left!