Mid-Semester Break, yes!

Since I've last written to you all, a lot of good things have happened! First, I finally found a job. It's kind of far away, takes a little over an hour to get there from my school, but it's in a safe area of Sydney called Surry Hills, and it's only a couple minutes from the Central train station. It's at Contact Centre Australia, which, yes, is a telemarketing company. But, I sell raffle tickets for good charities that help cancer research and provide volunteer firefighter funds and donate a cerebral palsy center, so I don't mind to do it. It pays well, I'm not on my feet all day, and I'm getting the chance to work on my phone and sales skills. I think it helps having a southern accent, on my 3rd shift I got best customer service, which means a free lunch voucher at work tomorrow!

In other news, I've just had an amazing week of mid-semester break. To start off the festivities, last friday I went and saw my high school friend Matt in Coogee Beach after work (how funny is it that we're in NSW at the same time!) and we hit up Oxford Street. Last Saturday I went to Darling Harbour and Kings Cross with some friends from res, and it was my first all nighter. Train stations close around midnight in the city, so we got back on the train at 5:30 a.m. and back to Kingswood station around 7:00 a.m. Then had to walk back to campus....and it was cold! Bed time that night: 7:30 a.m. Luckily my nights don't usually go that long!

Last Tuesday some friends and I flew to the Gold Coast to hit up the beach and clubs for the week. The weather wasn't great the first day, but several days were nice and sunny, so we spent our mornings and afternoons soaking up the Australian sun. With sun cream on, of course. And we all still managed to get spotty burns on the places that we missed. At night, we went out to enjoy the nightlife that Surfers Paradise has to offer. We did too nightclub crawls with a company called Wicked, and for $60 each several of my friends and I went to 5 different clubs on Wednesday and Saturday with a big group of backpackers and other student travellers like us. We got food at several locations, and a free drink or shot at each place too, and free entry. In all, it was a good deal and I'd recommend the tour for anyone heading to Gold Coast at some point.
Getting back was interesting. JetStar has these handy little kiosks for quick check-ins, and they usually take about a minute to do if you have no luggage besides carry on. For some reason, my ticket wouldn't show up. Even at the check-in counter they couldn't find it. So I went to the service desk, and we finally figured out that when I had called to cancel my tickets to NZ, JetStar cancelled the wrong flight. Luckily I was able to re-book, but had to re-pay since apparently the refund had already been granted. Very frustrating, but my friend travelling with me was able to re-book his flight for the later time with me, and we both finally made it home.

Now to write an essay that's due tomorrow, I hope you all at MC are enjoying the fall weather that's approaching!