This is turning into a really event-filled week for me, and thus into a week where I’m not getting much work done, hehe. Last night I got a ride with Jane and her boyfriend Michael to the MWACS (Monash Weather and Climate Society) Bowling Night at the Strike Bowling Bar on Chapel Street over in Prahran. It was a really cool place, probably the coolest bowling alley I’ve ever been to. There were two completely separate sections of lanes, one had six lanes and the other had four or maybe six, I didn’t spend time over by the other one. It also had a few cool pool tables that were illuminated by black lights all along the inside of the railings; the lighting made lining up your shots a bit interesting at times, hehe. In addition to that it had a full bar, a room for karaoke, and an area for sumo wrestling. So for $5 we were able to bowl two games, have a go at sumo wrestling and have unlimited use of the karaoke room; MWACS basically had the run of the place for the night, it was awesome. Michael took me on in a game of pool, and I managed to eke out a victory somehow, extending my pool winning streak to a personal-best three games (the previous two being against Kevin at my house the night before I left for Australia, hehe). My first game bowling wasn’t so good, an 88. Then Michael took me on in sumo wrestling, and I managed to win that too somehow, despite Michael being a fair bit bigger than I am. Man alive were those suits hot and sweaty, they were like an oven. The floor was all padded with foam rubber, but at some point during the match I came down pretty hard on my knee, hard enough to feel the hard floor through the suit’s padding and the foam on the floor, so now I have a nice bruise on the side of my left knee that’s kinda sore, oh well. Then we listened to a few people embarrass themselves on karaoke before we bowled our second game. It wasn’t much better for me, a 94 that game. But it’s hard to get any sort of rhythm going when there are 12 people in the game, it’s just too long between frames. All in all we were at Strike from 8pm-1:30am, and I didn’t get back to Monash till 2am. It actually was a pretty fun way to spend a Wednesday night, but I know it’s not something I’d be able to pull off every week. I had quite a bit of fun with everything, and hopefully I’ll be able to post a few pictures soon.
Something else funny that happened yesterday was that two of my friends, Carl & Erin, both wished me a happy birthday, thinking that my 21st was yesterday. They were nice thoughts, and I appreciated them, but here’s a note to everyone else out there: my 21st birthday is on 27th September, this coming Monday. And I’ll be spending it in the Whitsunday Islands, which isn’t a bad way to spend a birthday if I do say so myself. 🙂 Just one more day of class before spring break! Then we have a full week of vacation for break, and when we return we have only three weeks of classes left before finals. Where has the semester gone??
This afternoon after I got done with class I headed into Melbourne to go see “The Impressionists” exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. The exhibition is made up primarily of 91 paintings that are on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris (plus a few that the NGV already had). It had been running all winter but was closing this coming Sunday, so that’s why I finally decided to go in and see it. It was amazing getting to see so many famous paintings, from artists such as Monet, Manet, van Gogh, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, Malliol and Cezanne. My favourites were several by Monet and Pissarro in particular, but the painting that captivated me the most was “Starry Night Over the Rhone” by van Gogh. Last year I bought a poster of that for my dorm room at Gustavus, so I was thrilled to get the chance to actually see the real thing in person. It took me probably two and a half hours to make my way through the entire exhibit, there was more to see than I thought there would be. 
And I was expecting to pay $20 to get in as well, but I decided to try for the $16 student concession (I’m not usually able to get concession prices for things (e.g. train/bus tickets) since study abroad students like myself are not allowed to even apply for a concession card). So when I showed the guy my Monash ID he gave me a ticket for $10, the student after dark concession, woohoo! I think it would’ve been worth seeing for $20, but it was most definitely worth it for just $10! Afterward I snagged a few cool photos of Melbourne at night again, but this time mostly from over by the Arts Centre, so it’s a different angle from the rest that I’ve taken. And I was really pleased with how my shots turned out too, so I’m hoping to upload some of those soon as well. I would’ve taken some photos inside the NGV, but they banned all photography, sigh.
In some strange news, never captain a ship while talking on your mobile, it’s just bad news. Maybe when Josh is teaching English to some local Japanese students while he’s studying abroad, maybe he could also teach them some basic astronomy. Like that the Earth goes around the Sun. It just might be helpful. And what will those crazy Canadians do next? A Toronto man telephoned his own funeral to let people know that he was actually alive. Apparently he thought something was amiss when he spotted his own obituary in the newspaper. And a new land speed(ing) record has been set in Minnesota, as cops near Wabasha pulled a motorcyclist over and issued him a ticket for going 205mph!