Approaching the Half-Way Mark

Sorry for the long delay since the last time I posted, but I’ve just been pretty busy with class and other important things (enjoying the beach, attending barbies and hanging out with Europeans).

So anyway, last week I attended my first professional soccer match and it was a really fun time. Sydney FC is playing in the Asian Champions League and last Wednesday the match was against the Urawa Reds, probably the best team in our group, so we weren’t expected to win. However, Sydney scored after the first minute and then took a 2-0 lead later in the first half. It’s really cool the atmosphere and the coordination of the cheers by each team’s big fan club located behind each goal. The match ended up in a draw 2-2, but I still had a really fun time. Of all the sports that I could have really gotten into over here in Australia, soccer is the last one I would have picked, yet it’s provided the most excitement and interest from me so far. I’ve even gone so far as to check out the schedule for the US National Team to see when they’re playing!

This past weekend we had a pretty massive barby at our house for Maya’s birthday. It’s just so cool having all these people from so many different countries all in one place having a good time. It’s amazing, really, and I absolutely love it! The most common everyday things in America can be funny when you are talking about it with someone from a different country. We make fun of the different words that don’t make any sense and even the English words that Americans use that Australians think are silly and vice versa. For instance, Shannon, one of my housemates, thinks it is so stupid that we say “flip flops” instead of “thongs”. One of these days I am going to have a post about all the subtle differences from Australia to America. You’ll be surprised, it’s actually pretty funny some of the things I’ve noticed.

I’ve also recently started getting into trying out some of the different wines that Australia has to offer. They are also very cheap to buy, so I figure I might as well take advantage of it while I’m here. So far I’ve tried a few different types of Shiraz and I like that a lot, not to sweet, but not too dry. It reminds me of Grandma and Grandpa Lamppert’s wine, yet not nearly as strong as theirs! J

Yesterday was the Global Exchange Expo here at UNSW, which is where representatives from universities in countries all over the world all come together so that UNSW students can explore some opportunities for being an exchange student. So, I was there for the afternoon trying to help out people that had questions about USA. I gave a presentation on Purdue as well and I was actually the only representative from the USA to get the opportunity to give such a presentation, so I’m quite proud of that. It also fills a big part of the requirement for my travel grant, so that’s very good as well! It was sort of frustrating though throughout the afternoon trying to help students that wanted information about schools in the US other than Purdue. I realized that I really don’t know too much about other universities as I probably should. People would come up and just randomly ask me where is a good place to go for food science, so naturally I say that Purdue has a food science program, but aside from Purdue I really have no idea of any other places that have good food science programs. UNSW students are also somewhat limited to what universities they can go to as well. But I think the day went well. Hopefully a lot of people will want to come to Purdue now, so that students from Purdue can come here and have the same great experiences that I’m having!

Now, as per many people’s requests, I’ve added a few pictures to some of the previous posts, because I got heaps of good photos from Dom the other day, so sorry for the delay and I hope you enjoy the pictures!

Cheers, mates!