Yesterday was pretty cool. During Fluid Dynamics, several profs came in and talked for a bit about what areas they were researching in fluid dynamics, and they showed some sweet movies and computer visualizations of their models. Most of the areas that they’re researching actually interest me, with stuff going on in meteorology, geophysics and astrophysics. If I were going to be down here for more than just this semester, I’d seriously consider doing some research with one of them, that all looks like some really cool stuff. But it was also the last day of having David May as our lecturer, for the last seven weeks of the course we’re gonna have Paul Cally. Hopefully I can get to know Paul as well as I got to know Dave, so that I’m not just some anonymous student.
After phoning my parents for the better part of an hour on my mobile instead of my super-cheap phone card that’s only 2c/min to the States (I had $43 of call credit to use up on my mobile by 12th Sep, now I have $27 to use by then), Jodee (our IFSA coordinator) invited all of us Butler students to the food court in the campus centre for a free lunch, woohoo! Not everyone was able to make it though, only Meghan, Sharon & Caroline were able to come (plus myself of course). It was good to catch up with them, especially since I really don’t see them anymore now that the semester has started. After that Rowan & I got together to chat and start a little Bible study of 1 John.
In the evening I went to the footy game at the MCG with Rowan & Mars (their friend Andrea and a couple others also met up with us at the stadium). We didn’t get there as early as we should’ve though, and so we wound up having to sit in the last row of the upper deck. But hey, the ticket was only $11, so I can’t really complain (I wish I could go to football games back home for just $US8, that’d be sweet). The match pitted the Carlton Blues against the Collingwood Magpies in the last game of the year for both clubs (they were both eliminated from playoff contention at least 2-3 weeks ago). But apparently both clubs are bitter rivals, much like the Vikings & Packers or Packers & Bears, so no matter what the records are it’s a good game. And both club’s supporters were out in force, the attendance was over 60,000! Not bad at all for a game between two relatively poor sides. While the play was a bit sloppy, since neither club was very good, it certainly was an exciting back-and-forth match, with the Blues topping the Pies by a single point, 108-107. James (Mars) is a Carlton supporter, so we were all barracking for them. In the photo Mars is on the left, Rowan on the right, and Andrea in front, with myself in the back. The only downside about going to the game was that the buses around here stop running at 9:30 every night, which if you ask me is really stupid. So when I got back to the Huntingdale train station after the game at 11:30, I had to walk all the way back to Monash (25 minutes up Wellington Road to the southwest corner of campus, another 15-20 to Halls on the northeast corner of campus, so a 40-45 minute walk in total). It’s the third time I’ve walked back from Huntingdale, and I’ve also walked back from the Clayton station once, which is a similar distance away. I’ve discovered that Melbourne’s public transit system is really great, as long as you’re not travelling at night or on the weekends. Sigh.
Last night while I was at the footy game I also started getting a bit of a headache, and that’s persisted all day today too, only with aches all over and hot/cold flashes as well. Kinda sucks. I was gonna go over to Stuart’s house with Rowan & James tonight, but I just wasn’t feeling well enough. Bugga! So today I’ve mostly spent workin on homework, although my focus was less than optimal with my headache. Blah. I’ll definitely be heading to bed here pretty soon, hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow.