Hey again, blog. I have to write an essay today, so naturally I am procrastinating.
My day:
This morning saw me up at 8, running across the gardens half-asleep, to arrive 7 minutes late at my new job at a place called Garden View Cafe on Nicholson Street. 8-1 was a blur of stuff that I know will come to be second nature by about next week: sandwich-making, barista-ing, cashing on the fancy touch-screen register, squeezing through the narrow galley, trying to field orders/suggestions/jokes from my quirky coworkers. Since I am the third Rachael to be in employment there, I must now learn to respond to the calls "Upstate!" and "hey, America!" and "Grrrraahtz-ee-oh-playyy-nayy". The owner and most of the employees are Italian, so they act like a big family and yell at each other a lot. It's pretty funny. I didn't exactly get trained, so I screwed up some really interesting things, like dissembling an entire platter of carefully crafted fruit slices on it's way out for catering. Oops. In my defense, I had no food until 1pm, and not much memory of the end of my night at the bar. Needless to say, when i stumbled onto the street at 1:00 with a veggie focaccia and 70 bucks cash in tow, I was not about to trek to campus for my lecture. (OH NO. hell, i've just remembered that i washed my clothes and left all that money in them. must go investigate the state of the washing machine........... sure enough, a fifty plastered to the door. Looks alright though... yay for my brain. )
last night:
my new Australian friend Matt, who is in my cognitive psych class, took me out with him and introduced me his girlfriend and their group of friends. Success! The friends are awesome, and i had a great time. And... they HAZED me. In Australia, chugging is strictly called "skulling" (no idea why), and when someone throws a coin into your beer, you must skull immediately. Enter blackout-klepto Rachael. Today on my floor there is an ashtray with green sharpie all over it, and a plastic beer cup, presumably from the bar. For the record, I do mostly remember drawing all over that ashtray. And on my camera, i found about 15 blurry off-center pictures of my eye, really close up. Whyyyyy. (p.s. Dear Mom, Don't worry... I swear this doesn't usually happen!) But see, look, i saved one:
The days are passing quickly here, mostly because I'm happy and busy. Here are some pictures from over the last week or so:
Ashley Dancing at the Marquee Club
This possum climbed onto my shoulder that night, and it was awesome.
Our Australia Now professor, Michael Cathcart, draws australia on the board a lot. Our tattoos are very good approximations of what it looks like when he does this... and only badasses like us could sport green Michael Cathcart tats.
Pub crawl sunset (this is for sarah, even though i'm not sure if she reads my blog! )
japanese cookie snacks, "yan yans", have things like this written on them in english. other examples include: "fox: beware of lies", "rhinoceros: think big" and "panda: go for more!" i don't get it, but i'm down for pretty much anything that's delicous AND hilarious.
Big stuff coming up: thursday kayaking, saturday surfing, and yep, i am totally writing this essay tonight. temporal lobe epilepsy, memory, neuropathology, right now. yeah!
