Hey Everybody!

So I've gotta keep this relatively brief, because I need to seriously get down to business on some homework.  I made the mistake of signing up to give two presentations in the next two weeks, to go along with the two papers I need to write.  The intention was to get some major stuff for the semester out of the way early on so I don't have to worry about it later, so if I make it out of the next couple weeks alive everything will be great!  If not, it's been nice knowing all of you.

I've had a few cultural "bumps" in the past week that I'd like to fill everyone in on before I forget how interesting they were.  First of all, a group of Bennies and Johnnies (myself included) put together an intramural netball team, and we had our first game last Wednesday night.  Talk about being out of your comfort zone.  I never thought I'd be able to say that about myself when it comes to playing a sport, but netball changed that in a hurry.  I won't get into the specifics of the game, but here's the rules video that we all watched before going over to our game on Wednesday if you're interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBuxsRnU50A.  This video was literally all the experience any of us had with the game of netball, and as you can imagine, it wasn't nearly enough.  We played hard, and our officials and opponents were very understanding of our lack of experience, but in the end we lost pretty badly.  The funny thing is, for the first time in my life I didn't care one bit if we won or lost, it was just amazing being there and learning something completely new on the fly.  Our next game is tomorrow night, so we'll see if we improve at all now that we're experienced veterans of the game.

The next cultural abnormality that I came across was in my social psychology class this past Thursday.  My professor got on the topic of terrorism, and I of course expected the conversation to take the usual turn to places like Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, etc.  I was sadly mistaken, as the first thing she asked the class was "Do any of you consider Americans to be terrorists?"  Everyone in the class (except for the six Americans sitting in the front row) answered with a resounding "yes".  Even more surprising, the professor responded to their reply with "Good, you should", and then continued on with the lecture like nothing had happened!  This was a really eye-opening experience for me, and it makes me wonder what the citizens of place like Afghanistan think about what their fellow citizens are doing, since we as Americans so readily associate their behavior with terrorism.  Maybe they don't see it that way, just like we don't see ourselves as terrorists while other parts of the world do?  Food for thought.

The last unusual thing that happened this week was on Friday night.  A group of us decided to go down to the beach with a guitar and just hang out and relax.  We had no idea what we were in for.  After we had been at the beach for about an hour, we heard screams coming from somewhere down the beach.  Not long afterwards, five naked men who appeared to be in their early forties (and had CLEARLY had a few too many to drink) came running past us down by the water.  They then proceeded to run into the ocean and start tackling each other into the waves.  The most interesting part of it all, though, was the fact that they felt the need to run right through our group on their way back to their spot on the beach.  Needless to say, it was more of a show than any of us had bargained for.  Now I'm not implying that things like this can't happen in the U.S. (because I'm sure they have), but rather that they seem to be more likely to happen here because of the culture of drinking that is condoned in this part of the world.  At any rate, I had never seen anything like it, and I don't particularly care to see anything like it again.

That's about all for now, short and sweet but I think I covered the major points.  Classes are starting to really pick up now, and after these next two crazy weeks we are leaving on our CSBSJU excursion up north for a week, and right after that we go on mid-semester break!  Over that break a number of us are thinking of driving up to Ningaloo Reef and the Pilbara here in Western Australia, so if you'd like to look up some pictures/information on those, you'll have an idea of what we'll be up to!  I'll of course come back with TONS of pictures and put them on facebook if you would prefer to do it that way.  Until next time!