School's Out!

[At UniMelbourne, there's a week of reading period (called SWOTVAC) before three weeks of finals. It's pretty bizarre, especially when you have one final per week like me. Most people would be jealous of my well-spaced out exams, especially my friends with Chem, Physics, and Calc back to back, but I reckon this schedule is a drag to my travel plans. I'd much prefer an intense three days of pure hell followed by two and a half weeks of roaming the country.]

Classes ended last Thursday, marking the beginning of SWOTVAC week. A full twelve days of studying before my first exam? Yeah, right. I took advantage of the break to catch up on some local Melbourne cultural activities.

On Friday, I caught the footy at the MCG with a few friends. I was barracking for the Melbourne Demons, but they just couldn't get their act together. My Demons expert made the excuse that almost all of their top players were injured.

I had high hopes at the start of the match.

Anyways, it wasn't a complete disappointment though because in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness, Olivia Newton-John performed, and my friends and I were within catching-her-spit distance! What a dream come true.

She performed "You're the One that I Want" with TWO men - Russell Robertson, a former Melbourne player, and Jim Stynes, the Melbourne Football Club President. My heart melted.

Saturday afternoon, D and I caught one of the short film showings at the St. Kilda Film Festival. We saw five of the top 100 short films. The films had nothing in common - between 4 to 30 minutes long, from documentary to sci-fi, comedy to drama. They were all excellent though, and I was inspired to start making my own doc, as well as reignite my skateboarding/longboarding days (okay, so it's debatable whether I actually know how to ride) after watching one of the docs about these sick sk8r bois.

Here's the trailer for Share Path Skate Path:

To wrap up the evening, we made our way to the National Gallery of Victoria, which was celebrating its 150th birthday. We had been learning about Dan Sultan, a contemporary Aboriginal singer, in our Aboriginal Cultural Studies class, so when we heard he was performing (free) at the NGV, we were sold. It didn't hurt that he was young, sings country, and looks quite fine in flannel.

He loved our side of the venue, we made so much eye contact!

Early Sunday morning, we took off for the airport to spend a few days in the glorious sunshine of the Whitsundays. I've got heaps more to say about that soon.