On Monday we all were feeling the effects from a fun, but long weekend of partying and boozing. We had to go on a walking tour of Perth with our study abroad group where we went through and saw all the places we stumbled through over the weekend. There is not a weirder feeling than experiencing places soberly and in the daytime that you only vaguely remember from the night before. The tour brought us to a somewhat famous Irish bar called Kelly’s where we were given a free beer (of course it was a middy or ½ pint rather than a full beer not that I am bitter or anything). D
espite my body fiercely resisting even the smell of alcohol at this point in my hangover, I pounded my middy because beer is like liquid gold down under. After the tour ended, Harry, Ben and I found possibly the only Mexican restaurant in all of Western Australia. The food itself was not terrible and we chose it because it had ½ price nachos and five dollar tacos. Unfortunately, the establishment was as 
authentic as Tiger Woods’ recent apology. Harry tried to spit some game at our lissome waitress by conversando en espanol but she had no idea what he was saying and the whole mood became more awkward than Cave Mary shopping at a Victoria Secret store. Back at Don Watts, Sam, the Million Beers in a Lifetime Man, struggled mightily in his first off day of drinking on the trip. Sober Sam found it impossible to sleep because his mind was so confused on what to do without its liquid co-pilot. On the positive side to his sobriety induced insomnia, Sam became a morning person for the first time ever and quite possibly the last. He made breakfast for himself and Sherry at 630 am and was one of the first people to arrive for our 730 am bus to Rottnest Island.
Rotto is a picturesque island with many intriguing snorkelling spots. Since the Red Lightning came with some snorkelling equipment we decided that we were too cool to each rent a snorkel set before we went adventuring the different beaches of Rotto. Therefore, we looked like special-ed students in the water because each of us wore one fin and only one of our masks had a snorkel with it. The coolest part of the snorkelling came when we saw a sea turtle.
The caveat to this sight was that the sea turtle was on shore and had its head and right fin eaten off. When we were heading back to Curtin, Sherry called Blake and asked him to pick us up from the train station. Now, this idea may have turned out alright if the Tom Tom was in the car, but it was not. Lacking a GPS and in a foreign city, Blake picked us up about two hours later after going on an unintentional tour of the Greater Area of Perth. When we finally returned to home base, we realized that we were redder than a Baboon’s backside. Luckily for me I put on sunscreen, the bad news is that I applied it sloppily and had random tan lines crisscrossed throughout my upper body. Sam looked like the Red Man from the Red Man chewing tobacco cans. Ben was already tomato red from before so I guess he technically did not receive a sun burn from Rotto. Lindsey came to the rescue with her After-Burn lotion, which allowed us to wake up the next morning without too much agony.
Sherry’s 21st Birthday was another excuse to drink excessively. At noon I went
down to Coles, the nearby supermarket, to buy the ingredients for Goon Juice, an Aussie punch that Sydney told me about. Naturally, I made a few mistakes in making it, so instead of the punch being sweetened by Tropical Punch and Fruit, it was straight alcohol. To Sam, Ben and I, the mix tasted sweet enough because wine is plenty sugary for us, but for the Aussies they were a little disgusted by the lack of non-alcoholic drinks in the Goon Juice. While we were drinking the Juice and the T.E.Ds at 12:30 in the afternoon, Christie the Christian walked in, saw what we were doing and swiftly went to her room. To give a bit of context to this story, Christie is Sam’s roommate who seems to come back to the dorm at the worst possible times. For instance, last Sunday, all of us
had come back from Sunday Sessions on the beach and were continuing to party well into the night. Christie on the other hand was participating in a much different event that day. Christie came back that night around 9pm and was telling me about how she spent most of the day at a local Church. During our conversation, Lindsey who had been passed out on the couch for the last hour, stumbles out the door, cries, “Oh No” and turns around, eventually noise-diving back on the couch. After witnessing this mess, I was at a loss for words and let Christie head off to her room to pray for all of our souls. Thus, the next time we saw her was on Sherry’s 21st birthday when she was coming back from
Orientation to see us all tipsy before one o’clock. For these events that have transpired, I am relatively confident in saying that I think she believes we are all going to hell. When we crushed the Goon Juice and finished off the T.E.D.s we wandered up to the Tav, the bar on campus, for Wicked Wednesdays. At the bar, they had the Jim Beam girls there to look sexy, which they accomplished extremely well, and seduce us into buying all their JB and Cola bottles, which they also managed to do. However, I have dealt with these beautiful succubus types before, so when they asked me if I wanted to play their basketball shooting game with a purchase of a JB and Cola, I calmy grabbed one the balls, swooshed it and said, “that’s how I make it rain, bitches.” Okay, that last part is what I should have said, but I did make the shot and avoided spending any money at their station. Then, I sat down at the table that the birthday boy managed to find his way to and started mingling with the people there. One girl who was a former Norweigan soldier, was demonstrating why she was no longer a soldier as she was providing the whole table with unforgettable entertainment. 
She was falling all over herself and it was a miracle that she did not brake every chair around her. An hour later, Sherry was dangerously close to that level, so he needed to be taken home. As I brought him outside, he told me that we needed to bring back some chicks before we headed home. Humouring him, I let him go off to attempt to find some girls, but he only managed a few steps before realizing that he was not in the right state to make any moves. Once I guided him back to Don Watts, I did not see Cpt. Hansborough for the rest of the night. I wish I could tell you what happened to him but neither he nor I nor anyone else knows or remembers. Back at Don Watts, I refuelled by drinking as much water as I could in lieu of watching Sherry and the Norweigan's less than brilliant displays and then made the walk to the Tav with the group. Getting into the Tav was easy, staying in there was much more difficult. All the people in our group hit the dance floor and were having a great time busting some moves. When we walked to the bar to order some drinks, I once again was booted from a bar. The bouncer gave me some ridiculous reason why he thought I should not be allowed to stay. He said that I was red in the face and that I was slurring my words. First of all, it was about 100 degrees outside and I just came from the dance floor, so obviously my face was red. Secondly, I am not the most articulate speaker, so slurring my words is never a valid sign of me being too inebriated. Also, when he saw that I was not satisfied with his response, he brought out his manager who asked me if I had had a few drinks. That was the stupidest question a manager at a bar could ask. That is the same thing as asking if the Waffle House has greasy, buttery waffles. When I admitted to him that I had the crazy idea to drink the beer that was sold at his bar, he told me that by section 1.14 that it was illegal to be intoxicated at a bar. Again that is like saying it is illegal to be fat at the Waffle House. Frustrated I walked away from this man and saw that most of the group of ten that I came here with had been kicked out as well. 
Blake and Sam may actually have been legitimately removed from the bar because they were trying to sneak back into the small bar. The fact that they thought that they were not going to be booted again if they somehow managed to sneak back in is beyond me. Blake is an extremely tall dude who would be easy to pick out from across campus much less in the small bar. I left those two and I walked back with the rest of the group to down the rest of the booze and the delicious Chipwiches and cake that Lindsey, Liza, Shannon and Carly made for Sherry’s big day.
The next day I had to go to a four day retreat for this Leadership class/program that I am taking at Curtin. The idea that I was going to be RockStar sober while the other cool dudes were getting RockStar wasted all weekend did not sit well with me. Initially, we had to undergo a three hour personality test, during which time I was tweeking out and seriously considered running for my life. Nevertheless, I somehow pulled it together enough to last the three hours, but I was still extremely nervous about making it through the entire weekend, especially if I had to do more activities like the personality test. The trip did not become much better as we became lost on our way to Camp Simon, the place the retreat occurred, and spent over an hour in this rusty, cramped bus that had no air-conditioning. 
Feeling like a bigger idiot than Chris Webber when he called his infamous timeout, I thought this trip was going to be the worst weekend ever. After a Vickery-style dinner of curry chicken, things began to look up for me as we went out for a night of ziplining and tunnelling. The ziplining was unbelievable as you sped above the tree tops and looked out over the majestic scenery. Even though flying through the air was unbelievalbe, the thing that I will always cherish from that night is the tunnelling that we did. The program leaders thought it would be a tremendous idea if we went underground and crawled and squeezed our way through a series of small pipes intermixed with sharp rocks. Sean Berry, and I ventured down deep into this labyrinth of dust, rock and claustrophobia and pulled each other through the seemingly endless amount of obstacles along the way. The teamwork involved plus the thrill of manoeuvring through the dangerous elements and remarkably making it back out to freedom alive was an experience that made this whole trip worthwhile.
For the next two days at the retreat we did various physical activities in the morning such as playing chase in canoes, racing rafts that we built and doing our best Sly Stallone from Cliff Hanger impersonations while going through the high ropes course. Although these activities were a great deal of fun, the leadership workshops we did in between were equally as amazing. We made balloon animals, took on Lego challenges and even competed in the classic game, Chubby Bunny. The true brilliance of this retreat is how they managed to turn those seemingly innocuous games into intense and moving life lessons. 
The workshops reshaped our 
image of the world and revealed the truly magnificent attributes of everyone there. The bonding that took place there was so strong because everyone effused with positivity and genuine compassion. The retreat was like a Hallmark Channel Original movie, except that it was real life and you did not question your dignitiy after sitting through it. The weekend culminated in the formation of our project groups. In my group’s project, we are building hope village by village to save Africa. We are planning right now to work with charity groups such as Hope for Africa, One Laptop per Child, Nothing but Nets and others in the intention that we can build a modern infrastructure to support the villages where new schools are being built. With that said, all readers prepare to open your mind and wallets because I will be asking for some donations and love for this endeavour.
On Sunday night I had to go to OBH to pick up my mates from a Sunday Session when I finally made it back to campus. Even though I was not too excited to drive out there, I had been without them all weekend and wanted to hear their stories. I walked all the way over to Vickery to pick up the keys from Harry. 
For some reason he was not picking up his phone, so I creepily roamed around his building hoping to find him. When he came out to the kitchen, he saw me staring through the window, he looked back at me like I was a dodgy bloke. Fortunately, he let me inside because it was getting really awkward tapping and looking through random windows. It was great to see Harry and he told me all about their trip down to Margaret River. They had a great time camping and surfing down there, but the real fun apparently was on their way back home where they stopped at six different wineries. They would have gone to more, but the wine owners caught onto the fact that they were more in it for the getting hammered part rather than actually appreciating the quality of wine. After hearing this story, I took the Red Lightning to bring my drunken friends home. When I made it down there, Sherry found me immediately, but Sam had much more trouble. I saw him down the street while Sherry was on the phone with him and tried to guide him to the car which was no more than a 200 feet away. I told him go left, he went right and then I said go up the hill and he went down the hill. This game went on for about five minutes before Blake, Syd and him figured it out. On the ride home, the yugs recited their stories to me. 
The one worth mentioning is that Sydney was the make out king. He apparently was snogging face with the whole bar and even scored himself a lunch date with one of the girls. Although we were making fun of him for going on a friendly lunch date tomorrow, he will probably have the last laugh as the girl was cute and seedy (I personally think the Aussie word seedy is offensive, but I wanted you to know what it is. I prefer slutty it is a much more respectful way to describe loose women aka Trinity Girls).
When we returned I found out that the Canadians that are on campus with us were planning on waking up at 4am to go to the casino to watch the Gold Medal Game live. 
Hearing this, I decided to one up Canada and stay up the whole night partying and meet them at the casino for some USA domination. Unfortunately, my plan was not meant to be. First, Blake and I decided to go at around midnight to the casino and use the free drinks that we would receive gambling to get a little rowdy and then use the thousands of dollars we would win from gambling to throw down at the casino pub during the game. This idea immediately failed as the security at the casinos threw us out for “too much beach” attire. What’s new, I thought, we were once again too American for an Aussie establishment and were booted. Not to be deterred we went back to campus and munched on a bunch of pizzas to keep us ready for the long night head of us. Sherry, however, was the first one to leave the group as he was sloppier than TK eating a PB and J sandwich. He was falling into bushes, walking around with one sandal on and his ass exposed and doing almost anything else he could to embarrass himself. I am sure Jeffy would have been proud to see his captain during this display of grace and self-control. Next, we brought out the skateboard to shred to pass the time. Atlee was the first to go down the hill and she set the bar real low. After going maybe a foot, the skateboard flew out from under her and she came crashing down on her left side. She responded like a champ though. She dusted herself off, put on some Neosporin and grabbed a beer. When 3 am rolled around and the Canuck faithful woke up for the game, I went inside to shower and change. When I sat on my bed to put on the proper attire for the casino, all my energy left me and I passed out. In the morning, I woke up to the full beer that I left open and the image of Sidney Crosby celebrating his OT goal. The wasted beer and the dashed USA dreams of Gold have left me almost too depressed to write anymore. It is unfair though to leave all my readers on such a dour note so I will remind everyone that USA is still number one as they cleaned up in the overall medals and the USA Junior Hockey team won the World Championships in Vancouver a month earlier. Suck it, Canada.
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