Winning the Party

It's safe to say I'm really missing Berkeley.
I've actually been missing it ever since I left, but it's been 3 months and I am craving Moccachino and Pieology like no other. It doesn't help that most of my friends are heading back to Cal this weekend and I'm getting invited facebook invites to frisbee tryouts, frat rush events, and a cappella performances.
ALL OF MY FAVORITE THINGS.
Ha. Ha.
But really what I miss the most is Hillel. Which goes to show that Berkeley Hillel is pretty freaking awesome, because I am the kid who locked herself in the bathroom to avoid going to Hebrew school back in the day. But I think it's really the fact that I have made such AMAZING friends through Hillel that makes me want to go back. Shout out to Alana and all of Kol Hadov (Lol Hadov, amirite) for being the truest homies.
It's strange because no one here is outwardly religious. It probably prevents a good amount of conflict, or something, but no one talks about religion or admits a certain set of beliefs or anything. I looked for some sort of Jewish club on campus when I first got here to replace the hole in my social life that was Kol Hadov, but there is nothing Jewish, a cappella, or both (actually I don't think a Jewish a cappella group is a very normal thing anywhere...). I think most people just aren't religious in general, especially compared to the US. Australia's missing out on so much! Yiddish sayings, kugle, the awkwardness of people calling Hanukkah the Jewish Christmas...and just the fabulous connection that comes with being a part of a community I'm used to finding at home-and am still finding here with other American Jewish kids I've met.
And let's be honest, who doesn't love Jewish boys? (We call it having Jew goggles when you only find yourself interested in Jewish boys. There's also frisbee goggles. Joggles + Froggles = sadly unrewarding.)
So I'm missing Hillel and my Jewish pals. Alana, I'm counting down the days till our weekly BBQ gossip sessions can resume. And boys, I fully expect the Menschtet to be a thing.

This week hasn't been too eventful. Frisbee, frisbee, studying, and more frisbee.

#OneclassWednesday was spent at the farmer's market! I bought SO MUCH fabulous produce. We got lunch there too.

Raw Pad Thai and Cranbery Quinoa.
And of course, that jar.

NOM BROWNIE I HEART AUSTRALIA

After Wednesday the weather returned to, well, ABSOLUTE CRAP. Because Friday was so rainy, Martha and I went shopping and met some other friends for a movie in the afternoon. We saw The Hundred Foot Journey, and as usual, the book is better. The movie is great, don't get me wrong, but since the plot follows a few people in different places the movie did a strange job of switching from story to story.

...I'm obviously not Matthew, so I'm going to stop my movie review here before I embarrass myself (my cousin's blog is myreviewkorner.blogspot.com #ANOTHERSHAMELESSPLUG).

This weekend I played in an ultimate tournament! If your eyes are now glossing over every time I mention ultimate, I apologize. Buuuuuut I'm gonna write about it anyway.

I signed up with a team of people I didn't really know, but they were mostly from UQ or QUT, another university a few miles away. We were called Disc-Respectful and wore horribly obnoxious "hi vis fluro" yellow polo shirts (high visibility fluorescent. Aussies don't like to say entire words.), which thankfully I have ZERO pictures of. 

Saturday we played in the rain. ALL DAY. IN THE RAIN. Gosh I miss California ultimate because, as I told my team, I've NEVER had to play in those conditions. Insane wind and pouring rain is not something I know how to handle (that's a frisbee pun! a box of tim tams to whoever gets it).Regardless, we had a good time. The other teams playing were from all over Australia-Byron Bay, Cairns, Sydney...and they were all full of older, more experienced players. Since we had never really played together as a team before we hoped our youth and athleticism would get us the points.

Well...it kind of worked.

we wear supper flattering things when we play ultimate

We struggled with the weather while the teams from Sydney OWNED it. We held our own, but went 1-3 on Saturday. So we changed our goal from winning the tournament to winning the party that night.

I'm sooooo not used to going out during tournaments, because our college league in the states doesn't really like us doing that. But it was Gatsby themed and frisbee people will probably never see me in normal-not-athletic clothes again, so I went. I recruited Martha to come with me so I didn't have to do public transit alone at night and we met up with some of my teammates before heading out.

Not Gatsby...left my flapper dress in America. Ha. Ha.

Needless to say I lasted about an hour before my muscles were like HAHA NOPE TOO TIRED and we bailed.

Sunday it was DRY! No rain! Thank goodness, because I'm pretty sure it took me about half an hour to detangle my hair after Saturday's games. Sunday morning ultimate is always rough, but of course was made much more difficult by the fact that there had been a party the night before. Our team was slow, but not quite as slow as the other teams. We won 2 and lost 1, and all were close. After watching the top two teams play a super impressive game, I made it home, where I have since been avoiding doing uni work and have been cooking myself a massive feast as a reward for my playing this weekend.

Disc-Respecful at the end of Halibut

Yeah, not a very exciting week, but for now things are sort of chill and it's nice. I know if I take a week off from blogging I won't get back into it so CAN'T STOP WON'T STOP gonna keep recording my life

This coming weekend we're celebrating Martha's 21st-which means nothing here but we're gonna make it special anyway-and the weekend after that Reina, Martha and I will be in Melbourne!

I am going to be sore for SO MANY DAYS. #thankshalibut