First Assignment Due!

I just turned in my first official assignment here at Notre Dame. It was a 3,000 word essay on the tension with Aborigines in early colonial life. Hizzah! Props to my friend Joe for proofreading it. English grammar, not my favourite. Neither are footnotes. I celebrated with a nice jam donut and coffee followed by an episode of Arrested Development. The official due date is at 4:00 this afternoon, so I think at 4:30 there will be a full bar down at The Orient.

Things are going pretty well here. We formed a team for Australian Rules Football and practice twice a week. It’s quite something. I can’t really think of an American sport equivalent. Here’s a link to it (mom, don't watch the second half) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cz-vseUX9k&feature=related And yes, I will be the guy jumping on people’s back, I’m pretty scrappy.

St. Patty’s Day was quite an exciting experience over here. Australia doesn’t celebrate the holiday as fervently as Americans, but there was plenty of Guinness to go around, I suppose supporters are drawn to the bars in any case. It also proved to be a great incentive to get most of my paper down on Monday so I wouldn’t have to work on Tuesday night – I had to celebrate my roots!

Things are settling down a bit and I’m starting to get a nice schedule going. On Saturday we went to an Aquarium and saw some of the wonders of the sea. Hopefully this is as close as I will ever get to a shark. They had an underwater tunnel similar to the one at the Henry Doorly Zoo, but it was a circular loop with a treadmill going around it, pretty nice. And the stingrays they had there were quite a bit larger than the ones at Doorly. When these ones swam above you, the tunnel got darker. They were huge!

This weekend we’re going on an archaeological dig with one of our professors. There’s a site here that’s dated in the 1830s and some of the earliest stuff on the Western Side of Australia, should be fun.

Now I think I’m going to get some lunch at a local place here and then head out for a snorkelling adventure (don’t worry mom, I’ll wait two hours [not really, probably 30 min]). Thursdays are nice, I have no classes. The day should probably be spent doing work, but after this paper, I’m done for today. Hopefully there are no negative repercussions for this attitude.

Take Care,