A Week without Classes (where everyday is a Saturday)!

            Well I thought this week would feel so long because I didn’t have classes to go to and I have crazy amounts of studying to do for finals, but I have found a nice balance of fun and studying throughout this week. Next week will be the hard core studying before my finals.

            Monday morning I went swimming, since I didn’t have to worry about classes or anything, so being the weird person I am, I set my alarm for 6:30 am even though I had no classes. I like swimming in the morning though, because it’s less crowded and it’s always a great way to start the day, even if it’s cold outside (since it’s winter here). After swimming and breakfast (number 2, since I eat before and after swimming), I headed to the library for the rest of the morning to work on past exams and start studying. Starting is always the hardest part as I usually don’t even know where to begin, but I got a bit done. The library filled up so quickly and people were stalking out spots by sitting along the walls, watching for the first person to get up and take their seat. It reminds me so much of parking at UB. If you get there early, you get to choose where you want to park (sit) and as soon as you leave your spot is taken immediately. I was in the new library too! The rest of the new library opens next semester, so maybe it will be better then because there will be even more study spaces, but I can’t even imagine how it was without this library over finals time.

            After lunch, my day wasn’t as productive and I got distracted a lot, but it was still a pretty good day and I knew that I had time. Dinner time came around and I talked with friends for a while and then I went to watch tv with my friends in the common room. We ended up watching the movie ToothFairy which I know is a stupid movie. I had seen it once before and I think the second time was even better, watching it with other people and laughing at the movie. It was a great night! We even got m & m’s for our 9pm snack, which are served because it’s finals time.

            Tuesday was a wonderful day. It was a nice balance of studying and fun. I headed down to the city to meet up with Michael from my group theory math class. We first headed to the botanic gardens. It was nice to hang out, outside of class and talk as we walked through the gardens. We walked to the Lady Macquarie's chair point with a great view of the harbour. We decided to sit down in the sun and work on a bit of a past exam to study. It’s amazing how easy a problem can be once you have a start to it.

            After a while, it was nearing lunch time. We decided to head over to the Rocks (the oldest part of Sydney and a very nice shopping area). The day was finally getting nice as the sun was out and the temperature was warming up. We went to the Australian Hotel to get some pizza for lunch. We had a chicken pizza which was pretty good, but I definitely think cheese pizza will always be my favorite kind of pizza.

            We stayed at the restaurant for a while, working on math problems again. I swear it felt like we were there for hours, but I think it was really only about 2 hrs that we were talking and working on math. Our heads were starting to hurt concentrating on the math for so long, so we decided to leave and ended up at Darling Harbour for the rest of the afternoon. I had Michael take some pictures of me doing bridges at the Harbour and in the Chinese Gardens. The Chinese Gardens was a cute little place with a couple of waterfalls and beautiful plants all around. It was a great way to end our time in the city. 

bridge at Chinese Gardens

Chinese Gardens

            I got back just in time for dinner. Dinner was alright. I think the highlight of dinner was that I finally tried a Tim Tam which is a type of cookie they have here. It was pretty good. I’m hoping to bring some home with me and hopefully they won’t melt.

            Wednesday was a very productive and fun day. I started my day just like Monday, going for a morning swim and then it was time to study for the rest of the day. I met up with some people from my class at the computer lab and stayed there for most of the day, only coming back to my room once so that I could get lunch. It’s great to study with others as you can teach them what you know and they can teach you what they know. We were even able to use the white board to work out problems, which was very useful. I think we were mostly on track with studying throughout the afternoon until the last hour came and I started doing bridges in the computer lab. Thanks to a suggestion from Jenny, I was able to try to get on my elbows to do a bridge under the table and then I decided to try to do a one handed bridge, since I felt I was close with it yesterday as I was doing bridges at Darling Harbour. I succeeded with both of those! So Wednesday was a day of studying, socializing and doing bridges! 

on elbows success!!

one hand!!