Don't worry mom, we played safe.....kinda

Well, I promised a busy weekend, so here it is:
Friday was pretty relaxing actually. After a mind-numbingly boring physics lab, my academic constraints were gone for the day. I enjoyed a nice and HOT run, but only went about 4k, it was more a pleasure run, then for conditioning, and I just wanted to go fast for a bit. After shower/dinner, it was kind of uneventful for a friday. We stayed up super late, watched a movie, and I fell asleep to Star Trek Voyager. (my new favorite way to end the night)
Saturday was when all the fun began, with hearing people come back home, drunk, at about 6:30. Well, that really wasnt the exciting part, but it was a little astonishing to say the least. It's good to know that stupidity is international, and not unique to America :P. After a few more hours of sleep, it was up for a satisfying breakfast, and a little reading. Around lunch-time, a group of us decided to head down to the river and swim for a couple hours. Well, swim and jump off the rope swing. The water was very refreshing, and the swing/dock area was just busy enough to be fun, but not enough to be crowded. Jimmy and Marisa took plenty of pictures of us being idiots for their photography assignment. Well, to be honest, it was mostly me and Jason being idiots. But nevertheless, we all had fun, and you can reep the photographic harvest of our afternoon via shutterfly. Daring each other to jump off the dock, out of trees, and 0ff the swing was great fun, and after a couple hours, we tired, and headed back for diner. Much to our delight, it was hamburgers in the DC, so all of our tummies were as happy as we were. We hung out in the dorms for a while in the evening, waiting for everyone to congregate, and decided all of us wanted to head out to the small casino down on the strand. We got showered, dressed up all spiffy, and got on the bus for Jupiter's. It's a pretty small place, but it was fun. Some played blackjack, some slots, a couple roulette players, and we all spent some time watching the rugby match on outrageously large tv's. It was a really fun night of socializing, and when we left for the night, I ended up with a net gain of $12. I was pretty excited to come out of my gambling debut with a 60% profit; but dont worry, im not getting any ideas of quitting school and making a career of it. After a sleepy bus ride back and a cup of hot chocolate, I went to sleep.
Sunday was a fun day, packed with education, if you can believe it. The early afternoon was our scheduled time for our field trip to the Reef HQ aquarium. My Biodiversity of Tropical Australia class was assigned to go, and collect data on species richness and diversity. We had sample areas in the main tank to approximate the number of different species, and when they appeared in our sample area over time. To sum up: we got to sit there and look at all the pretty fish for a while, writing down which ones we saw, and when. Well, it was a little more in depth then that, but needless to say, it was a very relaxing and fun experiment. Jimmy, Marisa, Melanie, and I decided not to head back on the bus with the rest of the class, but take our sweet time at the aquarium, and then spend the day at the strand, the surrounding parks, and have dinner somewhere along the way. We headed to many of the small park areas along the strand where all of us enjoyed taking lots of pictures. Jimmy and Marisa had photography asignments to complete, and Mel and I just wanted to take pretty pictures! We climbed some trees, did some swinging, got some sun, and walked alot. It was all very relaxing. When it was starting to get a little dark, we went down to the corner to get some dinner. We found a couple great places to get a burger and chips, and I had a large bacon and egg burger. I have kind of fallen in love with that sandwich since I have been here. Dinner was great, and afterwards, went to Juliette's for gellato. We frequent this place every time we are at the strand, and are determined to try every flavor. My two for the night were Ferrero Rocher and Coconut. It was definetly a winning combination. We played hearts for a while while we waited for the bus, then headed back for the night. I got some more reading done and headed to bed.
Today (Monday) has been pretty standard. My morning was occupied with finishing my revisions on a paper for my nutrition class. I'm very pleased with it, and it was kind of a tricky assignment. I wrote on the accuracy of Bioelectric Impedance Analysis on determining body composition. We were only given 500 words, so we had to be very concise with what we wrote. I actually enjoyed writing this way though, since usually I up filling papers with fluff to fill page requirements. I tend to have a rather concise writing style anyways, so it was nice to have the criterium align with my own preferences for once. Well, a busy day in Academia awaits me, so I need to get some sleep. Enjoy the latest batch of pictures on shutterfly. Mom: try not to worry, and Rob: there's a couple pictures up now that you've been waiting for.
Love to all,
Matt