Happy Halloween :)

It's November 1st here in Australia, but it's Halloween at home.  Unfortunately, it's not a holiday they celebrate here, so I didn't have the opportunity to dress up in costume.  Instead, I'm left reminiscing on costumes of the past couple of years.  It's probably better at this point in time because I need to be focusing on my studies (which I'm obviously doing right at this moment).  In any case, I hope everyone at home got lots of cute little kids coming up to the door and enjoyed a scary movie or two.

Air-frosheners, Ninja Turtles, Planeteers, Royal Flush.  Yeah, we're cool.

Last Lecture, Check!

Today marks a milestone in my education (at least I would like to think so)...I've officially attended my final lecture.  I say final because at this point in time, more schooling is not in my future.  It feels really good to know that I've made it this far, but there's still a bit to go.  I have a project due in a week, a final paper due November 11th, and three final exams standing between me and my degree.  I've finished a draft of the paper and next is the project before I can finally turn my mind over to exam mode.  I'm gunning hard for November 23rd, after which I will be free  :)

As a side note, it's 49 days until my parents get here, 50 until graduation, 60 until Europe, and 78 until I land in San Francisco.  I can almost smell that Bay Area air.

"To-Do" List additions:
15.  Ride my bike:  I know it will probably get old quickly, but after walking EVERYWHERE for the past year, it's looking pretty good.
16.  Leatherby's Ice Cream outing:  Yep, I'm in need of an amazing, old-fashioned sundae.

Her Majesty The Queen

Queen Elizabeth II of England has been touring Australia for the past couple of days.  The last time she was in the country was in 2006 for the Commonwealth Games, and many people speculate that this could be her last time here (she's 85 years old).  Yesterday she made her stop in Melbourne to officially open up the new Royal Melbourne Children's Hospital.  I was lucky enough to catch the announcement during the morning news broadcast, and I decided that I should take the opportunity to head down to Federation Square to see her.  I couldn't believe the number of people already there when I arrived, but I was also surprised at the lack of fanfare when she made her grand entrance.  I wasn't close enough to get a good picture of her, but luckily there was a big screen and I was able to zoom in on that.  She walked through the crowd and gathered flowers and cards from her admirers before boarding the "royal tram" that took her to Parliament.  She didn't stay in the city for very long; by last night she was already in Perth on the other side of the country.

Korean BBQ

If you ask me, it was just a matter of time before my Korean roommates introduced me to their native cuisine.  Yesterday, my roommate Liz decided to bite the bullet and buy the 27" Mac desktop computer.  Let me tell you, it is AMAZING.  She needed some help because it is quite large, heavy, and awkward to handle, so Sun and I went and helped her carry it home.  As a thank you, she decided we should go out and get Korean BBQ for dinner.  I'm really glad we did because it was so yummy!  Liz knew of a place that is hidden in one of downtown Melbourne's little alleyways (as are most of the best places to eat in the city).  When we arrived we were the only ones there, but the room quickly filled as more customers filed in.  I let Sun do the ordering, mostly because the menu was in Korean, but I'm glad I did because he made some good choices.

I've never been to Korean BBQ before, so I didn't know how it worked.  It ends up that the waiters bring out your (raw) meat and then you cook it on the grill at your table.  Liz told me that usually the guy at the table does the grilling, so we let Sun take over.  We got three different kinds of beef delivered to our table, along with rice, vegetables, and some other Korean things I either can't spell or just can't remember the names of.

Afterwards, we hit up our favorite dessert place for churros.  We enjoyed dark chocolate dip as well as caramel...mmm.

Once home, we helped Liz set up her computer before catching most of "Marley & Me" on TV.  By the end of it, it was time for bed.  I woke up a little later this morning and am now contemplating on how I want to spend my day.  After a couple of days of rain, we finally have some sunshine again and it seems a shame to spend such a nice day indoors.  I finally finished all but one of my clinical engineering models on LabView, which I have to present to my professor tomorrow before turning in my final report by Friday.  There is no final exam for that class and I will be more than happy to rinse my hands of it come the end of the week.  I also have my anatomy paper to work on, but it's not due until November 11th and I already have a draft done, soooo I'm thinking the sun is calling my name.  Maybe a nice run at one of the parks is in order to clear my head before I jump into the beginning of my FINAL WEEK (of course I'm going to have to wait until the Stanford football game is over...reunion homecoming this weekend!).  I can't believe it's already here, but my brain is so thankful.  One month from today and my exams will be over.  Thank goodness :)

Another One Bites The Dust

My Friday class was cancelled, meaning that I am now done with another week of school, meaning I only have one week left of being a student who attends daily lectures.  One word for that...CRAZY!  I can't believe how far I've come and how much work I've done this year.  I still remember how I felt at Stanford, looking up at those grad students and thinking about how smart and amazing they were.  And now I'm here, almost done with my Masters, yet I still don't feel like I have joined their ranks.  

I have been counting down the days I have left until graduation and until I land safely in San Francisco.  All I have to do is get through this final week, a week of exam preparations, and then three exams and I'm home free (I guess I should also include my electrical engineering project and my anatomy term paper).  I know this final push is going to be the most difficult, but I also have renewed drive due to the light at the end of the tunnel.  As much as I've enjoyed learning the content of this course, my brain is tired. After 18 years of school without a break, I'm reading to step away for a little while and dive into something different.  It's a little scary, especially because I'm not really sure what the immediate future holds, but it's just time to change up the routine.

I don't think I've got any exciting plans for the next month or so.  It's going to be a whirlwind and I've got to try and cram as much into my brain as I possibly can in order to achieve that H1 status.  Bring it on...I'm ready (I think).

Pumpkin Time

After a stressful week, I decided to unwind this afternoon by baking pumpkin bread.  I found the recipe online at some point last week, inspired by the fact that it is the month of October.  It called for a can of pumpkin pureé, but I found out that the Aussies don't carry the canned kind.  This meant that I had to embark on an adventure and make it by hand.  I bought a pumpkin, scraped out the seeds, cut it up, steamed it for 20 minutes, then peeled away the skin before taking a fork to it.  In the end, it was probably a little lumpy, but it was good enough for my purpose.  I also decided to save the seeds and roasted them in olive oil and salt...mmm.

I then took the mash and combined it with eggs, butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, flour, nutmeg, and baking powder.  It thickened up quickly, and the aroma began to fill the kitchen.

The recipe actually made a lot more than I had expected, so I had to bake the dough in two batches.  Though all the whipping and beating took some work, the results were worth it.  My roommate couldn't stop talking about it and I thoroughly enjoyed a piece myself.  This might be a recipe I use again in the near future.

Tell The World I'm Coming Home

What a roller-coaster these past few days have been.  I'm almost through another week of school (two left!), but it hasn't been easy.  On Monday we went to the Royal Melbourne Hospital to take a look at the variety of electrical medical devices and to perform some safety tests on them.  While I can't see myself being a technician like that, it was fun to walk around the hospital and see all the action in the different departments.  I have to say that at first I didn't really like it because the sights and smells took me back to when I had my surgeries, but once I got over that I was able to enjoy myself.  On Tuesday I turned in my term paper for Biomaterials (woohoo!!) and am now in the process of preparing for tomorrow's presentation.  I've finished writing everything up and now my partner and I just need to go over it a few times to make sure we stay within the time limit, have smooth transitions, etc.  So far, the presentations have been pretty good, and I'm just excited to get ours over with.  The only part I'm really nervous for is the Q&A afterwards.  You can practice and prepare for a presentation, but you'll never know what questions your classmates and professors will come up with on the spot.

Tuesday seemed to drag on and on, and I was tired, stressed, and wound up to the point that I thought my head might explode.  It was looking like a very long week, and I began to get overwhelmed with everything I have left in front of me.  Then I received an email from my mom and guess what...MY FLIGHTS HOME HAVE BEEN BOOKED!!   I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was; pretty sure I started crying a little bit.  It's time for everyone to get out their calendars and write "Carter Comes Home" in big letters on January 13th.  Equally as exciting is the fact that my brother and I are officially going to Europe!!

The timing of all of this couldn't have been more perfect.  It's what I needed to propel me through the next two weeks and into final exams.

In other news, my prediction about the banana/honey bread was correct.  By Tuesday night, it was all gone.  In honor of autumn (at home), I've decided that this week I'm going to make pumpkin bread.  It's going to be a little bit harder than usual because apparently Aussies don't ever cook pumpkin pie or anything, so they don't carry pumpkin pureé in the store.  Every time I asked, I got a weird look that said, "Wow, you're definitely American."  So instead I bought some pumpkin and I'm going to have to prepare the pureé myself.  We'll see how it goes.

Thursdays are nice because I don't have class until 3:30pm.  This morning I got up and before 10am I had been to the grocery store, eaten breakfast, and went to the post office.  I have to thank my mom and dad for the Halloween package they sent me!  I'm really excited to eat the candy corn, so thank you!!  :)  It's not a big holiday over here (in fact, I don't think it's really anything at all) but I'm proudly displaying the Halloween card on my desk  :D

Back At It, One More Time

I've been such a slacker lately when it comes to this blog.  I can't believe how quickly things picked up once school got started again.  It was like a whirlwind, and before I knew it, the entire week had flown by.  Sorry in advance for what will likely be a lack of new postings in the next couple of weeks.  I'll do my best, but school comes first (as the good student in me would say)!

The matzah ball soup I made last week was a really big hit.  It ended up that the recipe made a lot more than I had anticipated, so there was enough to go around.  My roommates appreciated the warmth on a cold, rainy evening, and I was happy they enjoyed what I had prepared.

School started with a bang, as I eluded to before.  I arrived to my first class of the week and was greeted with a new assignment.  We are going to be visiting Royal Melbourne Hospital (where we got our EKGs taken) again tomorrow to complete some safety testing on electrical medical equipment.  That means that all the necessary preparations need to be made.  Luckily I'm done with that now and printed it out earlier this morning.  Also on the list of things to do was my Biomaterials term paper.  I'm working with my friend Bahar, and we finally finished, read-over, reread, edited, read once more, and printed out a copy to take to class on Tuesday.  We've also prepared the slides for our presentation on the topic that will take place on Friday.  I think we're in a really good position to do well.

In addition to tying up loose ends on those couple of projects, I still have an Anatomy paper (topic yet to be assigned, STILL) and Tissue Engineering to worry about, as well as my final Clinical Engineering project.  This is all in addition to the three final exams I have to take, starting on November 7th.  I'll be done November 23rd, so quite a long finals period.  But luckily, I'll still be done before Thanksgiving (which excites me even though the Aussies won't be celebrating).

Friday afternoon I decided to continue with the Jewish theme and cooked my first kugel.  I've decided that combining the recipe I found with my absolute favorite one my mom cooks would lead to the most amazing kugel anyone's ever tasted.  I'm going to have to add that to the "to-do" list.

Last night was fun and eventful.  My roommates and I decided to stay in instead of venturing out to get food.  A request for an encore performance by the matzah ball soup turned into a pot-luck style dinner, where everyone contributed something.  It was nice to be in the kitchen (though it's rather small and at times we bumped into each other, etc.) while playing music.  Little did we know that Liz had decided to buy a couch off of a secondhand furniture website; at 7:30, a couch came through the door.  After we finished our dinner and a movie, we rearranged the living room and went on a major cleaning spree (we also got a new vacuum) and our flat (I call it an apartment, but they don't really use that word here) looks awesome!  It actually resembles a place where people are living, instead of just being empty.  After we were all done, we plopped down on the couch and watched TV, just because we could.

Today I listened to the Stanford football game on the radio stream from home while doing some work (we beat Colorado 48-7, extending our nation-best win streak to 13 games).  Because the kugel disappeared so fast (my roommates love Jewish food!) I've just whipped up a banana/honey bread with cinnamon.  It smells so good in the kitchen right now, and I'm confident that the loaf won't be there by Tuesday.

I'm going to continue to relax for the rest of the day and follow along with the men's prelim competition at the world championships.  The women were amazing last night and easily qualified to the finals.  There are so many media outlets now that I kind of feel like I'm right there, watching live.  It's great!  Tomorrow it's back to the grind...three more weeks!  I'll try to get something up in the middle of the week, but no promises.  Study, study, study  :)

Jewish New Year

L'shanah tovah, everyone!  Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, began on Thursday.  When I was younger, I used to look forward to mid-September because it meant taking a day off of school for synagogue services.  My brother and I got the whole day off, and we would spend the morning hours with my mom at the temple, in the kid-friendly services.  We would sing songs and hear the rabbi speak about the importance of the holiday.  Afterwards, around 11am, we would be done with the service and would go out to lunch with my mom and enjoy the rest of the day together.  Fond memories  :)

This year, after only attending services once at Stanford, I decided that I wanted to go again.  I found a temple in Melbourne, which is no easy task given the small group of Jews in the area.  Thursday morning I woke up, put on a nice dress, and went out in the rain.  When I arrived, my shoes were soaked and I had to sit for three hours with wet feet.  Needless to say, not pleasant.  The service was really nice, though it's always a little intimidating to be alone in temple where you don't know anyone.  I quickly learned that the women were to sit upstairs and the men downstairs, which I found a bit strange.  When I told my mom about this later on in the afternoon, she said that my grandpa experienced that kind of thing in his congregation growing up.  Apparently, he would come home with stories about how the women would sit upstairs and gossip while the children ran around and the men tried to keep some sort of order down below.  The thing that bothered me most about this was the fact that the women didn't get the chance to embrace the Torah (when it is taken out of the ark, it is walked around the congregation...it is customary to touch your prayerbook or tallit (prayer shawl) to it, and then kiss that object).  Even though I was a little out of my comfort zone, the temple was beautiful and I have to say that I enjoyed listening to all the Hebrew (my attempts at following along were somewhat "successful").  The rabbi gave a nice, short sermon in English, and blew the shofar (a ram's horn which is blown like a trumpet) at the end.  When I looked down at my watch, I was surprised to learn that three hours had passed.

To keep up with the spirit of the holiday, I decided I wanted to make matzah ball soup for dinner (perfect for the rainy weather).  I went to two different grocery stores in the city, and neither had the matzah meal I needed.  I ended up having to take the metro to Balaclava to find it, and when I got there, there were only two boxes (so I took them both).  I got home, got the recipe, and got cooking.  It's pretty easy to do, though I found out that making the actual matzah balls is quite a messy task.  I watched with anticipation as they plumped up in the chicken broth and mixed with the vegetables.  I have to say, for my first time cooking it, it turned out pretty well (I'm hoping my mom would approve).

On another note, it is now officially October, and we are getting ready to change our clocks tomorrow.  It's time for daylight savings, though there really isn't a sign of Spring anywhere!  Ugh.  I'm planning on having a cozy day tomorrow, resting up before school starts again on Monday.  I just finished reading The Help this morning (and would highly recommend it to those looking for something to read), so I'm thinking I might go tomorrow afternoon and see the movie.  Besides that, I just have to get my brain back into study mode for the final push.  One more month of classes before finals, and in that time there is a lot to get done.  I feel like I'm in a decent place, but I also know that things are going to pick up quickly once we get going again.