Flunkyball

Hello again! I write this post not because I have fun stories to tell (although the last few days have been thrilling enough), but because I have discovered a wonderful new game. It is from Germany, introduced to me by Eike's overly competitive friend Philip, and it's called Flunkyball.

Now is the part where I wonder to myself why I've decided to write this post about Flunkyball, given that I have no pictures of us playing it and I can't easily demonstrate gameplay, but I'm going to try to explain it to the best of my ability:

To play Flunkyball, you need a tennis ball and a mostly empty plastic bottle, partially filled with water to prevent it from tipping over on its own. Each person playing also needs a freshly opened beer. You split the group into two teams, put the bottle in the middle, then measure off paces to each side, where you make a line and set each beer down along it, with the drinkers standing directly behind.

You then have to perform the Flunkyball "theme," which I cannot possibly describe in a text-only environment, so I'm not even going to try. I'll just have to teach you all when I return.

Then game play starts. The first team throws the tennis ball at the bottle, trying to knock it over. If they succeed, every member of that team begins chugging their beer while the members of the other team scramble to retrieve the tennis ball, straighten the bottle and get back behind their line. When the second team makes it back, they shout "STOP!" and the first team has to stop drinking, and it becomes the second team's turn to throw. This goes on, back and forth, until all of the people on one team have finished drinking.

Every member of the team has to take a turn throwing, so you just move down the line. If the tennis ball misses the bottle, it's the other team's turn. If you tip your bottle upside down after you've declared it "finished," and even the tiniest drop falls out, you have to start a new beer. If the tennis ball hits your beer and knocks it over, you have to start a new beer. You may or may not be allowed to protect your beer to prevent it from tipping over, depending on what all the players agreed on at the beginning of the game.

And that's how you play Flunkyball, a game that I am utterly terrible at, although we were playing it in the dark so that's my excuse. Yes, UW students, we will all be playing this game next year. You can count on that.

In other news, if you haven't already, go see Inception. It's not perfect, but it's more than worth your money for the experience. See it in IMAX if you can.

Much love,
Morgan

Always Remember Your Keys, Children

Well. Last night was certainly an interesting one. I went out with Emil and his three roommates, Chantal and Laura (Aussies), and Georgia (Californian), to the snow party. We didn't leave until around 11, though, so by the time we got there the snow was mostly melted. Emil and I got in line for the tobogganing anyway, but they literally stopped letting people go right before our turn. That was a disappointment, so we didn't stay there long.

Instead, we went to a bar downtown called O'Malley's, which was having a Brazilian night. True to form, every time I met a new person there, they asked if I was Brazilian. I have half a mind to give up and just learn Portuguese. XD We stayed there until around 2 AM, when we decided to head home, but not before stopping at Hungry Jack's (sort of like Burger King). Emil and I both really wanted to get ice cream, but they were out, so I bought a slushy instead. That turned out to be a bad decision. Never have I had syrup from a slushy congeal in my stomach like that before. It was pretty gross.

We all caught a taxi home, and there were so many of us that it only cost like a dollar each. I then walked home from Emil's house, feeling slightly nauseous from the stupid slushy, but reassuring myself that I'd be fine once I made it home and into bed.

I arrive home at 3 AM, only to discover that I'd forgotten my keys. I tore my purse apart looking for them, but to no avail. Considering it was 3 AM, I didn't want to wake anybody up, so I went to the front door to see if maybe it was open, but it wasn't. Admitting defeat, I pulled out my cell phone to text Joe or Eike to let me in, but I got an error message back: insufficient funds. In a perfect storm of events, I'd managed to run out of money on my phone just when I needed it most. But, I did not lose hope: there was still the doorbell. It wasn't the most gracious way to wake somebody up, but I didn't have any other options. So I rang the doorbell. And I rang it again. And again. As it turns out, my roommates sleep like logs.

At this point, I was more than distraught, and I seriously considered sleeping outside, or walking back to Emil's house to see if I could crash on the couch. But I decided to persevere, and set my sights on the bathroom window. This bathroom window:


Even slightly buzzed, my ninja skills did not fail me. I pried off the screen, hoisted myself up the drain pipe and went through that tiny little window head first. I then used all my years of ballet and tae kwon do training to gracefully twist myself around and climb down the toilet to the floor. It was actually pretty impressive, if I do say so myself, because the window isn't exactly close to the floor on that side, either:

All I have to say is I'm very lucky that I'm not any fatter, because I think another ten pounds and I wouldn't have been able to fit. For reals.

On another note: Brisbane girls get so dressed up to go out! I felt silly in my jeans and t-shirt. I guess it's time to buy some heels and a dress or two. XD

Much love,
Morgan

SILENCE!

Yesterday, my friends, was the much-awaited Market Day. I joined about a million clubs. It was pretty fantastic, but ultimately not very exciting to write about. Instead, I'm going to write about what I did last night.

First I went to a bar called the RE, with Eike and two of her friends, Philip (Germany) and Beccy (England). It was this large, open bar with a roof and no windows, and there was an old guy in the corner playing acoustic covers of about every mega-hit from the 80s that he could think of. We'd been there for about half an hour when Emil flounced in with a group of kids he'd met at a dance class, one of whom turned out to be another friend of Eike's who she'd been trying to get to come. Emil was very excited about having learned to salsa, and he showed me the dance step he'd learned, and I promptly trounced him at it. Engineers, you know--they just can't dance.

There were about forty various exchange students at the RE because it was a QUEST event, so I met some girls from Brazil, a girl from California, and a dude originally from Australia who was raised in Miami, who was intent on getting me to join the wake boarding club. I told him I'd consider it, but frankly I think the Brisbane River is not somewhere anybody should be swimming. It might mutate your eyeballs into ping pong balls or something.

Around 11, once the RE had lost its charm, we swam to the Regatta hotel, with Eike and Philip complaining the whole time that it was winter and therefore suppose to be dry, and it was all my fault for bringing Seattle weather to their tropical paradise. Yeah, it was raining that hard. But we made it to the Regatta, where the most amazing thing was going on: silent disco.

You went into the back room (called "the Regatta Boathouse"), and they handed you a set of radio headphones, and you put them on and danced to one of two different DJs both performing in the same room. It was fantastic because you could control your own volume, you could take the headphones off if you wanted to talk to someone, and if you didn't like the music on one channel, you could just change to the other one. The best part was whenever a really good song came on the channel you weren't listening to, and you'd hear all the people around you start singing along to it, and then you'd have to switch channels really quickly to get with the program. The best one was when "What Is Love?" by Haddaway came on, and people just went nuts.


We left the club around midnight, and since the Brisbane public transport system is absolute shit, we ended up taking a taxi home. This is really stupid, since technically my house is about half a mile away from the Regatta, but directly across the river. You have to go all the way west to Campus, or east to the downtown area where the bridges are.

Today I have one class, and then a lot of time to kill until 7 o'clock, when I'm going to a snow party. Yeah, you heard me. Snow party. In Brisbane. We'll see....

Much love,
Morgan

P.S. I feel like I complain about the Brisbane transport and navigation systems a lot without ever justifying myself. So, in validation of my whining, I give you this test:


This is a perfectly average Brisbane street sign. Now say, for a moment, that you needed to go down Hardgrave (the street in question). Based on the information from this sign, which way would you go: straight, or right? Have a guess. I'll tell you the answer later.

Day 20

Well. It's been a while, hasn't it? That would be because I haven't been up to terribly exciting things. I discovered that my insanely cheap bike didn't have functional brakes. That was a fun discovery. But then Emil discovered it as well, and an hour and a half later the brakes were as good as new. He then tried to go home, leaving my house around 11, and then at 1 AM I got a call from him asking if he could sleep on the couch since he'd missed the last bus. I found this very interesting, as at least four buses had gone by since he left, and he'd apparently managed to miss all of them. He says he got distracted taking pictures of the stars. Crazy Danish man.

Yesterday I had my first class! It was a three-hour lecture about Aboriginal Cultural Heritage, but it felt like far less than three hours, which I'm taking as a good sign. I had thought it was going to be a huge class, but looking back I'm not sure where I got that idea. There're about 25 kids in the class, 10 of whom are international students, 8 of whom are from North America. Apparently, I go halfway around the world to meet Americans and Canadians. I did mean a couple Australians who seemed really cool, too.

Then, last night, I spent about an hour and a half talking to my German roommate Eike, who I've seen very little of up until this point because she's been gone, but she turns out to be awesome. She's a biomedical major, doing a research project about magnets at UQ. We're going to this thing on Wednesday where people get together at a bar to drink and make new friends. It's organized through a group called QUEST, which I haven't actually joined yet, but I plan to find their booth on Wednesday at Market Day and join then, along with as many other clubs as I possibly can.

Today, I have 7 hours of class: 1 hour of Marine Biology lecture, then 6 hours of Australian Cinema broken up into three separate sections. I'm pretty sure the first 2 hours of that are to be spent simply watching a movie, though, so it shouldn't be too bad. I'm planning to bring candy and share with my neighbors. People are surprisingly easy to bribe into friendship.

As for extra-curricular activities, I guess there's a festival of sorts going on in South Bank next weekend. I have no idea what to expect from it, but I have been promised free concerts, so it should be worth it. This weekend, I have no plans yet, but I know that the crazy Danish man wants to rent a car and go camping on top of Mt. Tibrogargan, so roasting marshmallows at the summit of a "mountain" is a distinct possibility. :P

Hope all is well,
Morgan

Grafitti

More on my photo dump. Go see! :)

Backlog.

Emil FINALLY loaded a few of his pictures to facebook, so I can FINALLY show you the best ones from our hiking excursion. Prepare to be amazed:

Day 14: Things are Accomplished!

Yes, something large and exciting has been accomplished. I finished setting up my room! And it cost me almost no money to decorate, because I'm a genius. Observe:

And yes, that's pretty much all I did today. I also bought some awesome earrings that look like cupcakes at the UQ market (which happens every Wednesday, apparently). Tomorrow I have a safety information session. I'm hoping I will gain important knowledge from this one. If not, though, maybe I'll make a new friend instead. That would also be okay.

Much love,
Morgan