In an ideal world no one would talk before 10am. People would just hug, because waking up is really hard.

--- Zooey Deschanel

Easter Break

About a month has passed since I posted last and for that, I apologize. Things haven't been all too interesting. Well they have because I have been in Australia, but I figured you wouldn't all want to read "I made a new friend!" or "class today was really fun" or "hey I was walking to class and I tripped" kind of blog posts so I just figured I wouldn't update you (unless of course you do want to read about the little happenings in my daily majestic life, in which case you should tell me so I can change my blog name to "Cassia's daily happenings" and update you daily on what happened). Any ways with that being said, I did have the MOST exciting Easter (Spring) Break ever! Here's what happened...

Nikki and I embarked on our journey on a Wednesday (two days before break actually started, I'm a bad student, I know), leaving behind rainy old Melbourne and entering the beautiful, sunny Queensland. We stayed two nights in Brisbane with Nikki's wonderful aunt and uncle. While there we took a day trip to Burleigh Beach, which was gorgeous and sunny (credit to Berkley Vopinfjord). It was so nice to lay on the beach again and fully distance myself from the world whilst reading The Hunger Games-- yes I got sucked in. In the evening we went to the footy game Carlton vs Brisbane. You think hockey is rough? You should watch AFL (Australian Rules Football) I am pretty sure the only thing they have protecting themselves are cups for... you know. Other than that they just fling their bodies everywhere tackling and jumping, yes jumping, on one another. It's quite entertaining.

We then took to Yamba with Nikki's brother and soon-to-be sister in law. Yamba is this little surf town in NSW and it is so so quaint. I loved it! I got to go surfing again (which I am now pro at I may add) and I got to go fishing for the first time (again, pro. I caught like 10 fish. I should have my own show). It was such a nice little vacay filled with BBQ's and fun laughs. We hit this little watering pool filled with fresh water for a little dip. It was so nice.

Our last day away we headed up to Byron Bay which was such a fun little town! It was One Day Without Shoes and I fit right in cause everyone in Byron doesn't wear shoes.

I want to go back there and spend a week there but that will have to wait till Australia Trip # 2! On the way to the Airport we hit up a little beach, Cabarita Beach in Bogangar.

It was SO nice! One of the nicest beaches I've been to and it was DESERTED! There was no one there. So i got the chance to frolick my bambi legs out there for some added fun.

When I got back to Melbourne, my friend Justine gave me a spare ticket to the PlanetShakers conference. OH. MY. GOODNESS! Most amazing God filled conference EVER!

They had Reggie Dabbs, Chris Hill, Reinhard Bonke and Rich Wilkerson Jr. come speak and they had Israel Houghton come worship. My life was changed. Most amazing experience every. The presence of God was so strong. All in all I feel like I left there with a better relationship with our incredible creator. God is SO good!!

Over the break I managed to confine myself long enough to finish all 3 Hunger Games books so the week was finished off with a trip to the movie which yes, was amazing. Man, Australia is treating me well. Back to the real world (sort of). Only 6 more weeks of school left! Can you believe it? Time has flown by SO fast. I can't believe how soon I will be re-joining you island folk. Such a bitter sweet feeling. I am going to soak up the little time remaining here and keep it amazing as!

Big Rocks, Bon Iver and Birthdays

These past couple of weeks have been full of fun and entertainment. Now that school has started, it's been hard to find the time to just lounge around or go on adventures. But that being said we still have weekends which makes for a full, fun packed 3 days.

After week one of school, I was able to accompany my good friend Pat on a hike up Hanging Rock. There is a movie about this place that has to do with children getting lost or something like that. I made sure Pat knew exactly where he was going cause, let's be honest, my luck on mountains, not the greatest. It was about an hour drive out of Melbourne to this very beautiful location. The hike took about an hour or

so to get to the top. It was so nice to go on a bit of a hike because I do miss that trek up my local, lovable, Mt Tzouhalem. At the top there were some spectacular views of fields and trees. Man it was fantastic. After our hike we decided to soak in the beautiful scenery for a little bit. We managed to make our way down (only getting slightly lost) and had some ice cream at the bottom. It was quite nice.

Another really awesome event that I was able to attend at the end of the first week was a Bon Iver concert. I had been waiting for this moment my entire life. I couldn't believe I got to go to a Bon Iver concert. It all started when a friend of mine posted that she got tickets for the next evening's show. I immediately searched it online and saw there were still tickets available. I quickly bought my ticket as did another friend of mine and soaked in that the next night I would get to see Justin Vernon and his beautifulness live in concert. And pee your pants. I was so excited! I can't even explain the feeling. The next day, Caity and I took the trek out to the Sydney Myer Music Bowl which is this awesome outdoor venue. We went early because we only had general

seating and we wanted to get a good seat. We also managed to sneak into a very exclusive-- not really-- 85 person general seating. It was a little patch of grass right above the actual seats and right below the general seating field. Yeah, we lucked out. To say the concert was unbelievably, amazingly, spectacularly fantastic would be a massive understatement. Bon Iver has a way with music. Justin Vernon has a way with the crowd. All in all, it was the most amazing concert I've been to in my entire life. The show wrapped up with a fake encore (the music bowl has a curfew which we and the band were unaware of) so Bon Iver pretended to go offstage and come back on which was rather hilarious. He finished off with Skinny Love and Wolves. Night. Was. Made. So unreal.

This past weekend was filled with some birthdays. My roommate Colleen's and my Canadian friend Kailey's. For Colleen's birthday we went downtown to a club called Eve and had a great time. Colleen works at this club so we got special discounted entry. When we got there we noticed there was a runway in the middle of the dancefloor and were told that there would be a male model show. BONUS! That was pretty fantastic and the models were pretty... well... pretty. I spent a bit the night chatting to my friend Sean who did a semester exchange to Canada. We chatted about skiing, snowboarding and hockey for the majority of our chat. I was almost put to tears with how much I miss Canadian culture. Boy, if Australia had snow and hockey I would never leave.

Kailey's birthday was lucky enough to fall on St Patrick's Day so we hit the town for a little Irish birthday celebration. We spent the night at this little Irish pub called the Young and Jackson. It was so fun and definitely my kind of scene. I love little pubs with live bands. Yeah, there was a live band and yeah, we did get to jump on stage with them. The night was filled with dancing and celebrating miss Kailey's 21 years of living. So much fun.

The first few weeks of school have been super fun and amazing. The only downfall is I've been pretty sick pants. I had tonsillitis for the past week and now am suffering from a pretty bad cold forcing me to miss a bit of school (not the worst thing). But I do hope I feel better soon so then I can live out more fun and keep it amazing-as.

O'Week

So it begins. I have started school and my Australia travels are put on hold to do gross school work. I guess I knew this when I signed up for a SCHOOL exchange/ study abroad program. But with all the winging aside, school here is actually pretty nice. I have a sweet campus- Deakin Burwood campus in Melbourne for those who didn't know- and school is so chill here. Almost half the course work of back home. This is my kind of studying. The classes are broken up into tutorials- the Australians call these tuts and every time I say it I can't help but think of people farting, real mature, I know- and lectures. Tuts--ha-- are obligatory but lectures are not. So in reality you only have to go to half of your classes. It is super chill and I love it.

Deakin is one of the most accommodating schools I know. For all first years and exchange students, they opened campus a week early to do some orientation, what they call O'Week. It is a chance for all new students to sign up for clubs and get to know fellow students. They have music, events, vendors, free stuff, bbqs etc. What more could a gal ask for? Among these events were events like a beach party, superhero party, nerd party and abc party. I got to hit up both the beach party and the superhero party.

The beach party was fantastic! We started out the night at a house around the corner. I dressed in my favourite skirt with an equally beachy top and got to express my creativity in form of body paint on my arms. It gave me a good excuse to show off the old pipes for a change. This inspired a long photoshoot on the tram of us pretending to wake up in the ocean, pretend we found out our fathers were black and even pretend David Beckham was a ginger (my personal favourite). It was wonderful. We hit the club for some dancing and drinks and familiar faces. Unfortunately, the back devils decided to attack my back at the end of the night. On the way home I collapsed in the street and had to lie there for a few minutes. My "California version of Sam Trainor" friend Kyle decided to do some meditation stuff to make me feel better. It was a bit weird and out there, but that's alright. It was a good ending to a fantastically fun night.

The superhero party was... how to put this... not as fun as the beach party. I started the night with my friends Brendon, Natasha and Nam at Brendon and Nam's house. We had some dinner then hit the guitar for some jamming. It was so chill and fun we should have just stayed there the whole night. It made me miss my guitar though, forever in my heart Charlize <3. But since we bought the tickets I figured we should probably go. So we did. It was crowded and I was so not in the mood to be in a crowded place. I was dragged upstairs by Rebecca only to meet a guy who was talking to me about killing all Canadian animals before they killed us. Yeah, cool buddy.

Then school started. A bit overwhelming to start but that was expected. The units (in Australia, courses are called units) I am taking are economics, marketing, management and dance. Yes, dance. It is not the type of dance you are thinking of though. The course is called "Body Awareness and Improvisation". Yeah. The instructor basically turns on music and you have to move whatever way your body, mind and soul take you. It is actually quite fun and relaxing. A great little elective to take while I am here. All for fun of course.

Now that school has started, it is time to cut the fun and get down to business. HA! Yeah right. School is so chilled down here I have no doubt that I will still be having the time of my life. Time to buckle down and keep it amazing as.

Kony 2012

This is probably going to be the most controversial post I will ever write. There has been so much going on about this subject and I have so many thoughts on it I need to express my thoughts. Many of you are not going to agree with me and many of you will. Keep in mind this is completely my opinion and I have no intention on swaying any of your thoughts nor do I want to get into arguments with any of you. This is what I think. This is what I see. This is what I feel. You all have a right to your own opinions as do I. Now, with that said, here we go.

To start off, I wonder, how many of you who are reading actually knew about Kony before this whole blow up? How many were aware of what was going on? To be perfectly honest, I was pretty ignorant. I knew that there were child soldiers in Africa and I knew about sex slavery as well. On some level I had an idea of Kony but never bothered to actually find out anything. To sum it up there is a man named Joseph Kony who worked in Uganda abducting children and forcing them in sex slavery and child armies. The group he leads is called the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) a group motivated to purify the Acholi people. Since 1986, Kony and the LRA have abducted over 60 000 children, forcing them out of their homes and into the LRA. As of right now, the LRA have moved out of Uganda but that doesn't mean it has stopped. There are still children today being affected by this in other parts of Africa and there are still children being killed. Some children were even forced to kill their whole family. These children don't have a choice with the LRA, it is either join or die and many more are fearing their lives every night when they go to sleep, running from Kony and the LRA. Kony is the number 1 wanted person in the world. In my opinion, no child should be going to bed at night scared for their life. Scared that they will be abducted or slaughtered.

After watching the Kony 2012 video that has sparked so much over these past few days, I was left speechless. I could not believe what I was so oblivious to. Kony and the LRA need to be stopped. The non profit organization "Invisible Children" have been working to make this happen.

Here is where it gets ugly. A lot of you have been posting that people need to do research before they jump into helping Invisible Children. There are many people out there who believe that the Invisible Children fund is a fraud. They believe the the organization is only in it for the money. From what I have read and observed I don't believe this. I think that the Invisible Children are a trustworthy organization who just want to do some good and put an end to a huge problem. They use film and social media to raise awareness and put an end to the use of child soldiers in Kony's army. Let's be honest here, this is what our society is most impacted by. We are a generation that runs on social media and technology. The proof is the the last few days after observing the 70 plus Facebook posts I saw of the Kony 2012 video. This is what we notice and this is what gets us up and moving.

There is also another problem of people mocking the fact that people feel accomplished after posting the video. The freeze frame pictures with text that say "watched a 30 minute video, became a social activist". Here's the thing: because we are a generation that relies on technology, we are affected by the 30 minutes we spent watching the video. Even if you are mindlessly posting the video on your wall you are doing something. The whole point is to raise awareness and that is what is happening. Even if it didn't affect you deeply enough to do no more than just post the video, it would have affected someone else who would have watched what you posted. You are doing more by posting the video than you know. Passing it on and sharing it has made a great deal of a difference because it made that many more people aware of the problem. Like I asked earlier in the post, how many actually knew how big of a problem this was before you saw it? I know I am more educated now and I feel like I need to do something to stop it and I am not just stopping at re posting the video. This has always been a desire close to my heart I have just never done anything about it. A lot of us were not raised in social activism and it takes one video to trigger that desire to help. So yes, watch a 30 minute video become a social activist.

Another problem I would like to address is the fact that people are wondering how this got so much attention when there are equally relevant problems out there. I just want to say, yes there are, but with the Kony 2012 video someone made the initiative to put an end to child slavery with the LRA and was extremely successful in doing so. The 30 minute video made by Invisible Children has had a HUGE impact. Jason Russell took the situation into his own hands and made an impact. I know there are more problems out there just as important, but the fact is, this video was done. This video was made to raise awareness of Joseph Kony and the LRA and it did. Jason stepped up and made the effort to make this known. To make this problem stand out. To make this problem a big deal so it can be put to an end. It all starts with an idea.

So to conclude, I believe the Kony 2012 video was an amazing accomplishment that has already made an impact on our generation and how we live. The awareness was raised and that was the main objective. I am almost positive that if someone were to do something like this for another problem, it would get the same reaction and the same awareness. We are humans, we have trouble doing more than one big task at a time. After Kony is caught and the LRA is taken care of we will continue to focus on other problems. But for right now, it is to stop Kony. Even if you don't support Invisible Children or the movie, you have to admit, it is making a difference. It did what it was meant to do and it did it well. I will continue to stand for this and yes I am going to cover the night on April 20th. Kony needs to be stopped. These children need to be saved. Working together, whether or not it is with Invisible Children, we can do this. Make Kony famous. Stop at nothing.

For those of you who live in caves:

The Great Ocean Road Trip

Sydney ended my travels for the time being before school. I arrived back in Melbourne ready to move into my new place and get settled in. Well, this place was not at all what I thought it would be. I went through a program called Semester in Australia. The school sent me a link to hook up with them to get some off campus housing with other exchange students. I was told I would be in a dorm style house with 2 other roommates. Well when I got there I noticed I had 6 other roommates. Apparently all the Semester in Australia houses were full so I got the shaft and placed in a Burwood Student living house. Not my idea of a good thing. I met my roommates, who are all pretty nice. That's the thing, even if you are living in a dodgy house, the roommates really make it what it is. Plus there are loads of students living in this area and we are all pretty much in the same boat. So as much as the whole set up sucks, it wont be too bad in the end cause I have already made a hand full of new friends.

The majority of the people I've met have been exchange students and they were all going on the road trip planned by the university for all exchange students. Get this, the trip was a three day trip down the Great Ocean Road. We got to do surfing, kayaking, hiking, biking and yoga. Our meals were set for us and we had nightly accommodation. ALL FOR FREAKIN FREE! YAY! How could you say no to that? I got to go on this great trip with all the new friends I've met. So awesome.

So away we went, on a Monday morning. The drive was 3 hours to get to our accommodations in Lorne. Once we got there we were given orientation packages and lunch and put through a little seminar and ice breaking. I met up with Natasha, the other girl from VIU. It was great to see all the new faces and potential friends in the group. On our orientation packages it told us where we would be sleeping and mine said "tent". I foolishly thought this was a name for a hostel or something. NOPE. Legit tents. Hahaha, I seriously could not stop laughing when I saw. The funniest part was that other exchangies were staying in double bed hotel rooms down the road. Definitely got the shaft on that one. But it was kind of expected because the trip was free so hey, I wasn't complaining. Other girls were though. One went home and a couple others paid for a hotel to sleep in. LAME-O'S! I loved the tent. That night we took to dinner and socializing with little games for all of us to do. We danced and had a great time.

The next day was our activity day. We started the day off bright and early with surf kayaking. This was superbly fun! I was teamed up with a girl from Sweden named Michaela. We were pros at it. Catching all the big waves in and paddling hard out. The instructor had to keep telling us not to go out too far, the crazy dare devils we were. After the kayaking was our hike which was nice but I was hoping to see some cool waterfalls or something. I should have gone on the biking tour instead. After that we breaked for lunch with burgers and yumminess. Then we jetted off to do yoga which of course I fell asleep in as did everyone else. Then it was our turn for surfing. I was super excited to get out there considering the last time I went, my shoulders didn't hold up too well. We took a quick lesson then headed out into the water. Once I got out there I was terrified, and I mean TERRIFIED! One of the instructors came up to me and asked me how I was going and he laughed when I told him how scared I was. So he gave a little nudge and pushed me into the giantest wave there was. I took it, rode it, and even stood up on it! Yay! After that it was a piece of cake. So much surfing fun. Natasha and I joked about doing a routine on our boards and jumping back and forth. We decided to save that stunt for next time.

Dinner came and went and we were all left there feeling exhausted. Some stayed out partying but Michaela and I took the role of grannies and fell asleep at 9pm. We had an early morning. No judging.

We hopped on a bus on our last day of adventure to start the long journey to the 12 Apostles. After taking a few stops, and having parrots visit my shoulder, we finally got to the 12 Apostles. They were unbelievable. There is only about 6 of them left but man was it such a gorgeous sight! We were all entranced by the beauty and managed to snag a giant group shot at the gorge.

I managed to make some really good friends along this trip. It was so much fun and such a great way to start the semester at Deakin. I am all enrolled in my classes and I managed to snag a time table where I have Thursdays and Fridays off for adventuring! I love it! It is going to be so much fun! I can't wait for the rest of the semester to be amazing as.

Sydney

This is what I was waiting for. After Finding Nemo making the city of Sydney famous, I knew I had to visit P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney. Not actually though cause it isn't an actual place and there is no actual Wallaby Way-- Disappointed. But no matter how many bad spells, nothing could have stopped me from falling in love with the wonderful city of Sydney, Australia.

My first excitement was that I got to catch up with my lovely friend Emily Laura Hall. Emily, Emily, Emily. I love this girl so much. She is such a fun, awesome, lovely person. She picked me up from the airport just after 6 in the evening and took me to her place 20 minutes outside the city. I got my own room and her amazing boyfriend, Adam, made us meat pies FROM SCRATCH that were so delictable and delicious! Such a nice change to sleep in a double bed instead of a little hostel mattress and have a beautifully cooked homemade meal instead of instant noodles in my tummy. Needless to say, I slept like an angel that night.

My parents stuck around in Sydney for an extra day so I got to see them before they left for Singapore.

It was so so good to see them again and I enjoyed every minute of it. We went out to Watson's Bay for a little day trip. Hiked up to the Gap Bluff and got some beautiful views of both the city and the pacific ocean. We escaped the huge rain storm in the city and had beautiful sunny weather at Watson's Bay. We had some lunch and hiked around a bit more but their departure time came all too quickly.

We went back to the city and they boarded their train to the airport. But once they left, the sad feeling, the missing feeling and the homesick feeling all seemed to go with them and I felt really good about my staying.

I took the rest of the day to myself- it was Valentines day by the way- went up to the Observatory and got some great pictures over looking the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It was fantastic. On my way back to meet Emily to head home, I was sitting in a little place in the city waiting for her and a young man came up to me selling flowers. He asked me if I wanted one and I said no cause I didn't want to pay the 5 dollars he was asking. Plus who was I going to give it to? Instead of walking away he just gave me a rose instead and sat down with me and we had a nice chat. He was such a nice guy and by the time I had to leave to meet Emily he asked me out to coffee. I so wanted to go, but I felt really weird about it so I ended up calling it off. It would have been nice to make a quick friend but God had a different plan for me.

The next day was my trip to Manly beach where I met up with my friend Teni again. We did the whole Manly hike which is a 10km hike over looking the ocean and beaches and beautifulness. Man was it ever GORGEOUS! Got some good exercise in and by the time we got back we were both pooped. It was so good seeing Teni again. We had such a good chat and again I am pleased to say I have another good friend from travels.

My trip to Sydney was short and sweet. Emily took me around at night to Bondi beach and around the city a bit. We had wonderful meals of Thai and Mexican food. My last day was really relaxing, I hit the city for a bit of shopping, caught up with Emily for lunch and then spent the rest of the day in the Goverment Gardens just overlooking the famous Opera House. I spent the rest of the afternoon just laying in the grass and reading my book. All very nice and peaceful. The weather was beautiful the whole time I was there. Which was great for Sydney because they were getting nothing but rain before I arrived.

I loved Sydney so much and I can't wait to get back there! The bridge, the opera house, the beautiful parks were all worthwhile. They were all beautiful. They were all what I expected. They were all amazing as.