Our busy Sunday! (6/27/10)

Sunday we had a really busy day. After a long somewhat relaxing weekend, we got up and headed to Darling Harbour. First we stopped at the chinese garden of friendship which is basically a huge park with a bunch of pretty trees, sculptures, plants, waterfalls, etc. Then we had lunch at a place called "pancakes on the rocks" which had AMAZING pancakes, however because we aren't supposed to tip here the customer service was horrible. After that we went to wildlife world where we saw one of the largest crockodiles in the world, some ugly kangaroos, and of course the cutest koalas. Then we headed over to the aquarium which was AWESOME. I'm not sure if its because I've never been to an aquarium before or if it was just this one.. but I was amazed by the HUGE turtles and the sharks. Once we were done there we headed over to the big sydney tower where we went up to the top to look out at the city. I would compare it to the john hancock building in Chicago. It was awesome because we could see everything from our apartments that we are staying, to our internship sites, to the olympic stadium, to the opera house. Very cool. After that we headed to circular quay for our 5489589 attempt at the ice bar. We FINALLY were able to get in and it was awesome. Literally everything was made of ice . The walls,sculptures, the cups usually are however they were out of cups because they didn't get shipped in on time, so we got in for 20 dollars instead of 30, which was fine by me. Anyways, after that we came back and relaxed the rest of the night. It was a great day.

Saturday 6/19/10

Today was an AMAZING DAY! I got up hearly and headed to Paddy's market which is a really cheap souvenir place to get the rest of my souvenirs. This took all of ten minutes, so I decided I would take a walk around Darling Harbour because i've never actually seen it in the daylight. I walked through where Fifa Fan fest was held, I found where the chinese garden of friendship is, where the WORLDS LARGEST Imax is, and also where the Aquariums and Wildlife World are located. It was a beautiful day and I walked around pretty much the whole harbour. Then I headed over to circular quay and caught the ferry over the Manly beach which is about a half hour ferry ride. There were so many sailboats out on the ocean and it was so beautiful. When I got to Manly, I walked over to the beach and pretty much just layed in the sun and took in what a great day it was. Eventually I headed back to get ready to go to the rugby game at the 2000 olympic stadium! After the game we headed to this outdoor bar where we could watch the world cup game on some big screen TV's. I finally headed home around 1:00 and slept until almost 12 on Sunday.

Thursday 6/17/10

Today at work I shadowed Noel (the caseworker) around. I went through goals with one of the kids and he also wanted me to go through goals with ben (the one that I keep seeing out) but thank god I didn't have to because I think that would have made ben a little bit uncomfortable. It was cool to see how the casework was done but to be honest it was kind of a boring day! After work I went home and ate dinner then got ready to go out! I went out with my roommate dana, ashley, and two other girls from our program to my friend Joey's house (the one who is here on the spring semester program from Minnesota) because it was his birthday! Then we headed to home bar/unipackers in darling harbour just like any other Thursday! :)

Tuesday 6/15/10

So today at work I had a meeting with my supervisor and he said that next week I am going to be doing some other stuff such as education, drop in, and freeway (which is basically activity day where the kids go do something such as rock climbing, go-karting, etc.) He also said that I will get to do Francis street within the next few weeks which is medium term care so the kids living there are a little bit more under control. He said he has heard nothing but good things which made me really happy! The only thing he had a complaint about was that I needed to wear longer shorts, or pants. Whoops!

Saturday 6/12/10

I woke up feeing very refreshed and ready to rock. So, I went shopping and again spent way to much money. After that I came back to get Dana and Melissa so we could go to the beach. While I was waiting, there was a knock at the door with a flower delivery for Nicole Anderson! Matt sent me tulips for our 6 month! Awwwww what a sweetheart :). Anyways, we took the train and then hopped on a bus over to the beach. The beach ended up being kind of cold so I ended up buying a sweatshirt so I could keep warm! Then we walked around this 6 story shopping mall for a while, and then headed back. As we were on the train on our way back, this homeless man who was on some mad drugs and reaked of alcohol came over and sat right next to me and tried talking to me. I was sooooo scared! He tried talking to me about how much he loved puppies and I was just nodding my head and trying not to make eye contact . Finally, he laughed, got up, and ran to the other end of the train. Wow, that was an experience. After that we came back and took a nap because we needed to be ready to go at midnight and we needed to make it to the world cup game at 4:30 in the morning. We ended up going out around 1:00, but one of my roommates forgot her ID to get into the game. So after spilling my 8 dollar drink all over my brand new coat and jeans, we came back to our apartment, changed, got the ID, and headed on our 5 million hour long journey to Darling Harbour for the game.

This is basically where we were

http://www.sydneyfifafanfest.com.au/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Sydney+International+FIFA+Fan+Fest

So Dana and I decided to leave at half time which was about 6:30 in the morning already. We got home and I finally was in bed by about 7:30 a.m. What an exhausting weekend. Today we basically just layed around allllll day and relaxed. Not much else to say about that. Tomorrow I start my 3rd week of work and I think I am finally going to be able to start writing case notes!

Also, I put my Third album of pictures up on facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=182140&id=515348694

2nd week of work

So this week of work went extremely fast and I'm really starting to enjoy it!! I interact with the kids mainly .. but I also do things such as answer the phones, read over the kids case notes, fill out paperwork, etc. Next week my boss told me that I'll actually be able to start writing some of the kids case notes.. which basically means that I'm treated like a staff member, so i'm really excited about that. One of the kids there I am starting to get really attached to, his name is ben and he's 19 and he's pretty much the only normal one there (and by normal I mean he doesn't get stoned out of his mind every day and night, doesn't shoot heroine or snort coke, and doesn't rob stores or mug people.) He beat me at connect four 11 times in a row, no joke. I honestly could not figure out what he was doing either. Crazy! But anyways, on Tuesday night me and my two roommates went out for 5 dollar steak and potatoes at a place right down the street from my work, and we ended up running into him. He asked us if he could charge his phone by us because that is where the outlet was, and so he ended up sitting down and drinking with us before we got our meal. I was extremely paranoid the next day that I was going to get in trouble at work because I'm not supposed to be hanging out with clients. Oops. Anyways, yesterday (thursday) my roommate and I went to the library after work (which is also down the street from my work) and we ended up running into ben again. He was telling us his plans for the night and apparently he was going to the same place that we were going to go. Anyways, so we went out and ended up running into him at the bar. I talked to him for a bit but then tried to stay away because I didn't want to run into any problems with that at work! I can't wait to see him on Monday though, he's pretty much the only one that I can hold a decent conversation with there.

So today (friday) Dana woke me up at 10:00 because she wanted to get up early and go shopping! Well, we all know how pleasant and fun I am in the mornings after a night of drinking. So, we didn't end up leaving until about 12. But anyways, we went into china town and got some chinese food at this chinese food court ( i've never seen so many asians in one place in my life). Then we went souvenir shopping and I ended up dropping 300 dollars on souvenirs for people .. uggghh.. but it was actually quite fun picking things out!

"I'm sorry, you can't eat that here."

After doing some shopping, Danielle and I decided that we were hungry and we wanted to get some pizza hut bread sticks. So, we walk in and go up to the counter to order. Before we told her what we wanted she asked "for here, or takeaway?" and we of course said, "for here." So we order breadsticks and the lady tells us "i'm sorry you can't eat breadsticks in here, you have to get takeaway" (the place was nearly empty) . So we were order takeaway and sit on a bench right outside of the restaurant but before you go outside. After about 20 minutes (does it really take that long to make 5 breadsticks) they called our order. So we got our breadsticks and go back to our bench to eat them because the only other place we would be able to eat them is outside as we walk on a crowded sidewalk. As we are eating, the lady at the counter comes up to us and says "i'm sorry, you can't eat that here." REALLY?! We just bought your food and you are kicking us out of your restaurant?

Moral of the story = customer service here... SUCKS.

Anyways, the rest of the day we ended up shopping a bit more and then coming home. I'm staying in tonight with Danielle because I am EXHAUSTED and I want to be feeling great tomorrow because I think we are going to the beach. But thats all for now.

This was a really long post. Sorry.

Surf Weekend (6/4-6/6)

What a weekend!!!!! Thursday night we went to a place downtown called side bar and it was SO fun. One of our friends has an internship at the hotel that is above it and so he got us all in free cover and free wine and beer all night. So we can imagine how that turned out! Anyways the next day we basically just layed around all day until it was time to leave. So we get on the bus .. only to find out at this place was SIX hours away AND we were basically going to be CAMPING!!! WHAT?! I swear they never told us that. BUT it ended up basically being like a party bus for the last three hours. They didn't care if we drank and they cranked the music up super loud. It was SO much fun! We didn't end up getting there until about 2:00 in the morning. I ended up getting less than an hour of sleep that night! So the next morning they woke us up at 7:00 for breakfast and then we had to put on our wetsuits to go SURFING!!! It was one of the most fun things i've ever done, even though i kind of sucked! However, I DID end up getting up and making it all the way the the shore ONE TIME! I was quite proud of myself. So after we surfed for a while we layed on the beach all day and then came back and ate lunch. After that we hit the beach again and brought our wine with us this time :). Soooooo after THAT we came back and ate dinner and then had a bonfire and drank the rest of the night on the beach! Sooooo this morning we ended up being woken up AGAIN at 7:00 in the morning to eat breakfast and surf for the last time. Then we packed up and left!! So I am running on about 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours right now. UGh. Anyways, that was my weekend.. and I didn't die!

So my pictures should be up sometime soon .. Unfortunately I didn't get any videos or even really any pictures of me actually surfing because no one was on the beach to take them for me!

First week of work! (Thursday 5/3/10)

So today was my 3rd full day of work and it was definitely a lot less boring than the first two days. I got to interact with all of the kids and chat with them for a while. Some of them i'm a little bit afraid of still, but for the most part they all are really nice to me. They think i have a really weird accent and they all could tell I was american right away. I also did wake up calls and one kid told me he didn't like me because I woke him up this morning, and then when I told another kid what my name was he told me he didn't like me because that was his mom's name. Ouch. The only thing that really bugged me today was that the police called today about one of the kids and apparently he beat up and mugged someone last night. It seemed as though no one even thought twice about it or even cared that he was out doing that last night, it was like no big deal. I'm not sure how much I believe in providing food and shelter for someone who beats people up and steals all their money. But oh well I guess. Anyways, tonight we are going out on the town and then tomorrow we are going to go shopping and then heading north to the beach to SURF!! Pray for me!