Awholelottaphotos

Cafeteria ‘Fancy Lunch’. 

Adam and I got bored of painting our canvases in art.

Hannah and I

Biology buddies! Hannah Evan and myself

He’s a serious man.

Art class

More art class

Fashion

A glimpse at the incredibly rare Marcus Miller.   Don’t get too close! We don’t want to scare him off.

Style.

LEXIE! My sissy poo!

My favourite teacher. Mr Myer- American Studies.

Lester cornflake.

Percussion class!!

All hopped up on donuts.

Levi and I

Old Angie Ripp. Choir accompanist 

Mr Lumer-Art

Main man Aaaron fisher! Most talented boy in the entire world of ever.

Big goof ball Emmalea.

Jessie poo pants.

This little piggy never made it to the market.

Greetings.

 Biology. We have that class in Australia yes, we’re fairly civilised. But I have never heard of any Biology class in Oz doing what I had to do in my Biology class. I can still taste the formaldehyde...

BEHOLD FRIENDS...

...a fetal pig

Eeeeeeeewwwwwwwwiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeessssssss. After I had a little cry (not because I was sad, my eyes were burning from the piggy stench) my lab partner Evan and I got down to business! The number 1 rule our teacher had was NO MUTILATION OF ANY KIND. He told us this everyday because everyday we got a score out of 100 on how well we did and that score goes towards our final grade which was important at this point because school was almost out. Pretty easy to get a 100. All you have to do is listen and try. Simple. 

First we drained the juices from our piglet 

Then we had to pull up on it’s eyelid with tweezers and give it a little snippity snip to expose the eye ball

Then we had to cut up it’s little piggy mouth for some reason. If you hear a crunchy crunchy, you’re doing it right.

So everyday we’d do a little more cutting and peeling and then Friday was what my teacher called FUN DAY. On fun day we could attempt to remove any organs we wanted from our pig as long as we asked our teacher first. Here is a picture of Evan and I on fun day after we removed the intestines and unravelled them:

I don’t understand why surgeons have to go to medical school for so long. 3 days of cutting up this pig and I feel confident enough to perform surgery on anyone. Now our day is ALMOST over. ALMOST. Fun day is the last day of slicing. If we walked away from fun day successfully we would have a perfect score. 5 minutes left of class, I witness this...

This is Evan aggressively hacking the head off our pig. With one foot on the chair for stability there is nothing stopping this guy. ‘Evan, what are you doing?’ I ask charmingly. Suddenly our teacher turns around and shouts ‘MUTILATION!’. Evan and I lose our points for that day...bloody Evan...

After all this you know what I learned? Bugger all. Thats what. 

A few more days pass and it’s the last day of Escuela. That means school for all you squares that HAVENT taken 2 semesters of spanish. I thought I would be sadder than I was to be honest. I said good-bye to some people and I knew I wasn’t going to see them again but it didn’t FEEL like I wasn’t going to see them again. It still felt like I was going to see them the next day. I guess it all hadn’t hit me yet. I leave in 3 days and it still hasn’t hit me yet. Maybe it’ll hit me when I land or maybe it’ll hit me after I’ve been in school for 2 weeks. You just never know when lady reality is going to punch you in the face. 

Look at that sandwich, deeee lish.

Yes yes I know, it’s been forever since I posted. But the truth is, around this time of the exchange, things have kinda...settled down...I’m bored I guess. School is school, friends are friends, everything has become quite routine. INCLUDING the crap food that never stops being crap. Which is why I decided to bring my camera into school and take some snaps of all my delicious meals. I’ve been waiting for 8 months for Jamie Oliver to intervene.

Bob clearly stoked about his meal

Gourmet poo stuffed burrito

Lettuce and unidentified slop

My attempt at being healthy

Another attempt at being healthy

The worst thing I have ever ingested 

The best bit is the anxiety you get before you line up for lunch. Will you or wont you have a big long grey hair cooked into the lasagne!? You just never know!!


And now a word from our sponsors:

Thanks for that Lexie. I will be aggressive. B-E aggressive.


Ta ta.

Prom

The classic American prom. The reason it’s classic is because it’s the first thing you think of when you hear the words ‘American Teen’. At first I didn’t really know what to think of it. Was it going to be as crap as it looked on tv? Most likely. But after a brief discussion with myself I decided that this was my year in America and I was going to do every crap cliche thing there was out there! I didn’t really know what to expect. All I knew about prom is what I had seen on tv and from what my host mother had told me. “Our prom pretty much means you’re gonna have sex”. Thanks for the words of wisdom Lisa.

First lets start with shopping. I certainly was not one of the many girls in 11th and 12th grade who had been planning what they were going to look like for prom since they could walk without falling over in their mums heels 10 sizes too big, so basically I left everything to the last minute. Procrastination! Only way to do anything. So about 2 weeks before prom I went a shop shoppin’ for the perfect dress. An easy task I assumed, I’ve always known I was picky but surely I would have a decent amount to choose from. Nup. None for me. Turns out that all prom dresses are hideous. At least 98% of them anyway. You know when you watch those old 80’s movies and the girls have those bright coloured, poofy, and just down right ooogly dresses? Yeah, well not much has changed. It was a NIGHTMARE. Everything was so puffy and fluorescent! Lets not even talk about the hideous rhinestones and beading on all of them. I felt so bad every time my sister or host mum would hold up a dress suggesting I try it on because it was just ‘so cute’. All I could say is, no. Gross. Back on the rack. I was grateful they were trying but each of their suggestions was a swing and a miss. I guess only I would know what I wanted.

Tried on about 15 dresses and each one was more repugnant than the last. I needed a hot chocolate and bed by this point. Adam and were just going to have to go to prom dressed as Deb and Napoleon which was our original plan. Second day I had a bit more success. I went to a different store where the dresses weren’t GREAT but they would do. I didn’t LOVE my dress...lets just say it was the best of the worst. I was going to have to rock it anyway because I had nothing else! Yay. Turns out, pale people do not look good in a LOT of colours and I wasn’t about to go start fake baking like the rest of the girls in my school. Oh yes, cancer boxes are all the rage around here.

Skipping all the boring bits...

Now for prom. Before we actually headed to the dance part of things, everyone attending prom went for a meal first at the local country club. Adam and I had the prime rib. Adams was so red, I swear if you put your ear close enough, you could still hear it mooing. Munchy munchy munch. Done and dusted. Now to hitch a ride with our friends Jack and Tressa because they had this sweet 1960’s convertible. Adam and I decided to be cool guys and ride on the back of the convertible like they do in the movies. Seemed like a good idea at the time but I spent most of the ride holding down my fake hair to it wouldn’t fly off onto the road. So we eventually arrive hoorah!

 The theme for our prom was ‘born to be wild’. No it was not a sweet biker theme, it was an animal theme. So you can imagine how much leopard and zebra print there was. Not to mention the giant 15 foot tiger poster taking up most of the side of the gym. Mmmm. Classy. If only there had been an exotic animal petting zoo...that would have been the icing on the cake. So we danced for a little bit but then they started playing all country songs which Adam and I refused to ‘boogie’ too. Country music is bad for the soul. Adam requested ‘satisfaction’ by Benny Banassi but they wouldn’t play it.

So after prom they have...the after prom. The after prom party is basically a thing the parents organise to keep the kids off the street after prom. Our parents club spent $10 000 on this party! It was our town hall. You walked in and the stage is covered in prizes to win and the floor is games galore. Poker tables, photo booth, and this big inflatable jousting arena. You know, two people stand on two stools and try knock each other off. Yeah. The prizes weren’t ordinary prizes. Not your average bag of lollies. They were giving away 32 inch plasmas, a futon, microwaves, ipod speakers, free massage vouchers, bags, gift cards, ipods EVERYTHING. But the best bit of the night by far was the hypnotist they hired. NOTHING is funnier than watching your friends be hypnotised. Seriously. You should try it sometime.
 After prom was the best part of prom! Twas great! Then after the after prom at 4am all our friends and I headed over to Adam’s host for a french toast breakfast. I ate some fruit, toast and bacon, then passed out on Adam’s floor.

And thats prom! A little bit crap but overall I really did have a good time.

The end.

Fun fact: In Nebraska, it is considered ‘fashion’ to wear your trackies (sweat pants) inside out. First of all, they’re trackies so you’re not doing yourself any fashion favours by wearing them in the first place. Second of all, wearing them inside out just makes you look like a goon. Lexie I love you but please, enough is enough. 

Mall of America and a bogan

Yeah yeah I hear all you worms complaining ’She doesn’t even post regularly’ ‘she is so lazy’ ‘whats even her deal?’, WELL to all you moaning margeries I SAY...you’re probably right but STILL    shut your dairy queen hole.

Well I suppose I should start with my most recent endeavour in the U S of A. Mall of America Minnesota! Now I must admit, I wasn’t sure if this place was going to be worth the 780 hour drive it took to get there but I was pleasantly surprised. Getting there was an absolute nightmare I must say. Girls are the worst. We bitch, we moan, we complain we fight! It’s ridiculous. I was quite content in the beginning heading up to Minnesota. Most of the students left in two cars from our area rep’s house but there were two other girls we had to pick up closer to Iowa. Fine. Whatever. Don’t care. Lets drive. So we’re just driiiiivin along for around 4 to get to Iowa looking for these girls to pick up. We couldn’t find them. Jen (area rep who is in a separate car) calls us and says she’s got the girls. Good. Dandy. NOT. Apparently it is crucial that we split these girls up because they absolutely cannot stand the sight of each other! GAH! So we go from Iowa to Nebraska then Iowa and BACK to Nebraska just TRYING to find Jen because these two girls just can’t suck it up for a few more hours. After two hours of back and fourth we finally found them. The cheerful dynamics of our recently FUN car had been...squashed. I was not a happy camper so I just plugged myself into my music for the next 7 hours until we FINALLY got to our hotel, who by the way, did not actually book our rooms. 15 minutes of arguing later...we’re in the room.

 < Before the car ride got crap

Wakeup bright and early Fridee morn and I am PUMPED and READY. I was ready to shop till I popped. On the way over to ze mall we learned that the mall itself is something like the size of 4 football stadiums....BAH! Let me at it LET ME AT IT!!

And yes I had got word that there was some kind of little roller coaster in there or something...oh yeah. Thats pretty cool eh? I didn’t realise there was gonna be a HUGE FRIGEN NICKELODEON AMUSEMENT PARK PLONKED DEAD CENTRE!

 
Obviously I bought the all day wrist band and went on EVERYTHING 3 times. Awww yeeeeh.

And of course, a girls gotta eat. Supper on friday was eaten at the rainforest cafe. This place is seriously a rainforest. Vines all up the walls, fake snakes hanging from the roof, exotic aquariums everywhere, giant butterflies on the walls, water falls, fruit trees, the whoooole shabang. We’d be eating our food and then suddenly the roof would change from clear blue to dark purple and lightning would flash and thunder would start roooaring! It was one of my more stressful dinners.

< Gift shop area

< Rainforest bar

< Scary talking tree...

< Chelsea’s dessert fit for the most obese person in   the entire universe of ever. 

I think what made the trip so fun was having my aussie buddy by my side the whole time. I always found it annoying when you’d be stuck in a car with two norwegians for example, and they would only EVER speak norwegian leaving EVERYONE out. Used to drive me nuts. But in a way...Chels and I sorta did the same thing. We spent the whole weekend quoting Kath and Kim ‘My marriage has gone UP the preverbial!’ ‘Who ate my last fat free fruche?!’ ‘We’re finished Bret, over, burrito’. Or pretending to be Mr G ‘Thank god you’re here! Grandmas been raped.’ ‘ So all it would take is um..just a bit of poo on the floor?’ ‘ E E E E ECSTACY!’ or even Daniel and Nathan from Dunt ‘I live on a farm, I drive a tractor, me and craig have got the X factor’. Classic characters!!! It really was like we were speaking our own language. Everyone thought we were nuts when we’d look in shop windows and say ‘Aw yes it’s noice, it’s noice, yeah it’s unusual, yeah it’s noice, unusual.’ I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much. Love you Chelsea! Ahh...what a bogan.

More shopping, then sleeping, then waking up, shopping, walking, eating, drinking, jumping dancing, laughing, singing, swimming, screaming, sleeping, driving, driving, sleeping driving, home. 

Obviously I could go into greater detail and tell you more stories but I don’t want to. 

Prom next week gang! Just you wait, you’ve never SEEN so much mutton dressed as lamb! Gonna go off!

Ciao lovers. We will chat again soon. Maybe.