Oh right, I have a blog to write. And Oz slang

So I'm about a week past the midpoint.

Since coming back from Kangaroo Island, it's been a lot of work. Physics, a DE midterm, two big presentations and my half semester physics experiment due. And you guys back home are done with classes, hell, you start finals later today!

Not much happened in these two weeks, obviously because of all the work, but a few interesting things did happen. The Wednesday after break, all the Colgate kids came out and apparently none of us remember what happened that night. I was told that I was a dancing machine, and I have pictures to prove how crazy the night was.

And then there was ANZAC Day. Australia and New Zealand Army Corps Day. It's Australia's Memorial day, and boy are they patriotic. In America you have tons of people going barbecuing and going to the beach. Here, even the uni kids go to the ANZAC Day memorial service. At 5AM. Yep, it's a dawn service. I stayed up with the Australians until 4AM. We played a few LAN games. Eventually we all got hungry, so we gathered $50 in change (mostly the freaking huge 50 cent coins), put them in a plastic bag and had one dude go to maccas to buy 20something bacon cheeseburgers. at 2AM. A few of us had 5 bacon cheeseburgers and holy shit was it a lot. I barely finished. When 4AM hit, The Aussies started blasting Australian music, most notably the song "Land Down Under", and knocking on everyone's door to wake them up. The RA of A1 (building A, floor 1 which is like 80% American) got two huge speakers out into the hallway and was blasting terrible music to get people to wake up. Needless to say, not a single American from Weerona got up except me, but I was already up. One guy said the morning after that the music was so loud that his bed frame was shaking. After the Aussies went to their service, I went to bed and woke up at like 1PM.

Two days ago (Saturday) we went to go play basketball, but found that there are literally no free basketball courts in the city, and the only one that was near us that was free was fenced off. The closest one was in a nearby gym but it was $3 per person. Didn't matter anyway, they had a team about to play a game so we had to come back 5 hours later if we did want to play a game. So instead, we climbed a mountain.

Mount Keira is a short walk up the road from uni, so we decided to just go there. The very start of it was super steep, and eventually we got up to the parking lot where the actual trail starts. We went up the trail and came to a T-road, so we made a left...big mistake. We ended up coming to a dead end, so instead of turning back, we did what any sane-minded person would do. We climbed the side of the mountain to the top. Steep as hell and being scared of heights didn't help it. Just don't look down. We eventually got to a small area where you could see all of Wollongong which was amazing. We also found a random plastic sword, so one of the girls jammed it into a rock, King Author style. We still had more to go, and our makeshift path wasn't that easy. Right past that area we climbed a little more and met two random girls who were sorta lost. We ended up climbing up some rocks and after passing through heaps of bushes, we got to the other side of the gate from the big parkish area on the top. Going through the gate we found a big park area with a restaurant and a road leading down. Needless to say, we were all exhausted.

To make up for all the lost time, I've been keeping a list of Australian terms I've heard while here. Y'know, just whatever I remember to write down. These are all very common phrases.

American - Australian

how are you - how it goin'
Thank you - cheers
Thank you - ta
no problem - no worries
McDonalds - Maccas
Flip flops - thongs
class - subject
homework - assessment
major - course
lab - practical
friend - mate
enthusiastic - keen
awesome - sweet as
it's okay - she'll be right
football - footy
bbq - barbie
the outback or anyplace that isn't town - bush
breakfast - brekkie
really drunk - pissed
root - sexual action (thus you never "root" for your team in sports)
Nothingness in the outback: GAFA (Great Australian Fuck All)
party - rage
exclamation - strewth (Guy 1: I just found $20 Guy 2: Strewth!)
swagman - hobo
xxxx - four x, brand of beer

And other random things:
Ugg boots - Australian sheepskin boots WORN BY SURFERS since at least the 1960s to keep warm while out of the water. Also worn by airmen during WW1 and WW2 because of the need to maintain warmth in non-pressurized planes at high altitudes.
aussie salute - brushing flies away from your face
our ham - their bacon. They don't have American crispy bacon.
nesquick - milo, although they still haev nesquick here. It's just not nearly as popular
all candy tastes better except they don't have reeses or hersheys
baby - joey (people i've heard pretty much use it for all baby animals)
Native Americans - Indigenous Australians
Tim Tams - awesome chocolate wafers that almost make up for the absence of reeses
zero - nought (was really weird the first week of math/physics)
z - zed (like Dragon Ball Zed)

Here's a big dictionary of Oz slang, some of which you may here in places other than New South Wales. http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html