The week from hell...otherwise known as Week 13

Ok, so apart from the Women's Basketball team losing the national final in overtime and me not being able to go to the Franz Ferdinand concert becuase of a migrane, there was one other things that happened this week that made it clearly the worst week of my time here.

Obtaining a Visa for Summer Camp

So anyone that has applied for US visa before knows that you have to have your visa documents before you can schedule a visa interview. Anyways, while dealing with the YMCA (the organisation thorugh which I applied for summer camp) they took forever to process my visa documents. So when I eventually went to book a visa appointment with the Toronto consulate all their appointments for the next 10 weeks were full, however becuase I was applying for a J-1 visa I am entitled to apply for an "expediated" appointment. However when I requested this over the phone the service agent on the other end told me that I could not have one as I was currently living in the USA, something which the US Government website did not indicate as a prohibition on obtaining an expediated appointment.

As such, after looking into options to have an interview in Mexico and even back in Australia, both of which came up fruitless, I have resigned to the fact that I will be returning home early, arriving in mid-June, to be precise. This is 2.5 months shorter then what I expected, and while I am indeed disappointed at this (since it was not through my wrong doing that I cannot stay longer) I am not going to let this diminish the rest of the time that I have here. As such, from May 15th (the day I am kicked out of Duke) I will be staying with "Crazy Rachel" (who some people at Bond may remember). She has graciously allowed me to stay with her in Lexington, Kentucky until I am "deported" (for lack of a better word, plus it sounds much more sexier then "didnt get a new visa"). I of course will try and make another one or two trips while staying in KY but the alure of $10 all you can drink for 3 nights of the week clearly is strong!!!

When I get back it will be too late to start at Bond for 062 so I will spend that time in Melbourne, having some time off (which is why I was doing the summer camp in the first place), and I will do some travelling around my country I think, like just take the car and go away for the weekend, or going to Tassie to see nan or Sydney to catch up with some friends.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a safe and pleasent Easter, and to those Bondies, good luck with your assignments and exams, mine are just around the corner, so I should actually try and do some work!!!

Chad

Weeks 11-13 & Weekend Trip to Charlotte (March 31 - April 2)

Well the first 3 weeks after break have been more then interesting, and im devoting a whole entry to the events of the past week (april 3-9), but alas, that is for the next entry which I will post after this one!

I'm not going to lie, the first week after spring break was hard. I wanted to do nothing else then be back on break and getting back into the study routine was hard, but I eventually opened a book to try and do some reading...notice I used the word try. The first week back from break was spent bascially catching up with Eric (who went on a medical mission trip to Haiti), and this usually involved alcohol, 4 nights to be precise (Monday, Tuesday, Wenesday and Friday)

The first Friday after break was a big partying day. I started off drinking with Eric at about 3 in the afternoon and we each had a shot of this haitian grain alcohol (which is 95%, thats right, 95%)...1 shot gives you a strong buzz for 3 hours. Eric has since given me the rest, which is about 600ml, so I might try and smuggle it back home!!!! Later that night I attended the Duke OUTLaw party, which was real cool (and had more alcohol) and then proceeded back to campus for some more drinking with Eric and his friends, including another shot of Haitian grain alcohol!!!

Other highlights include seeing the movie "Capote", which I all strongly recommend you go and watch as well as becoming regular patrons at "James Joyce" an Irish pub in downtown Durham!!! I also now have a new favourite beer..."Blue Moon", man it is sooooo good, I wish we would get it back home (Fitzy, get your father onto this, haha)!!!

The highlight of the past 3 weeks would have to be my trip to Charlotte (the biggest city in North Carloina). I went down to catch up with a good friend, Brian. Charlotte, in one word, is just Beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Melbourne, it is very clean with a lot of artwork in the city, so I felt right at home!!!! While there are no "major" sites to see I had an awesome time hanging out and catching up with Brian and meeting his friends and his sister (who is also a Duke fan, so we got along great!!!). I love the city so much I will definatly be heading back before I head home!!!! Some of the pictures above are from charlotte!