June 25th, Australia Day 124

This week has had its fair share of excitement, not the least of which has come in the last few hours. In the scholastic world, I have completed my exams and today I saw a nail-biter of an AFL game. I also happened to see a friend, completely by coincidence, in a crowd of thousands while waiting to board a train.

Over last weekend, I had another game of baseball where I didn't do too badly, going 1 for 2 for the game. My first at-bat, I struck out swinging and on my next at-bat I managed a double. I got as far as 3rd base before the 3rd out was made. After some brief calculations, my on base average has fallen slightly to 0.714, coming as a result of 5 times on base from 7 at-bats. I'm not entirely sure of my actual batting average since I don't know how beans are counted (this is a very strange sentence). Depending on how they are scored, if they count as a hit, don't count as a hit, or don't count as an at-bat, my actual average could range from 0.429 to 0.500 which I think is still pretty respectable.

I had my last 2 exams on Monday and Friday this week and I think I did very well in both of them. The first exam was for Ancient Greek Religion and the second one was for Solid Earth Geophysics. The exams were straight forward and there was no mathematics required for either test. I feel confident that I have done well in all my subjects this year and my last real challenge now is to complete my Honours Thesis.

Today, to celebrate the last exam of my degree, I treated myself to the AFL game between the Sydney Swans and the Collingwood Magpies. It was held at Telstra Stadium to a crowd of over 44 000 and anyone with a weak heart should have been recommended against watching it. It went down to the final siren with the "Swannies" just barely managing to hold on to a 1 point victory over the "Pies"; the final score was Sydney 77, Collingwood 76. At times it seemed as though the Magpies might be able to pull off a victory but in the end, Sydney hung on. This places Sydney in the 5th position on the ladder, the top 8 go on to the playoffs, an leaves Collingwood lounging around the #12 spot. Collingwood started out the season at the bottom of the ladder but they have managed to slightly pry themselves out of it. Actually, they are the only team to have defeated the 1st place West Coast Eagles and they did so while they were in last place.

After the game had concluded I was going to the train station at the Olympic Park when I spotted my friend Alexandra as she was in the line ahead of me. Of all the places to meet, in the throngs of thousands, somehow we managed to pick the same line. We chatted briefly as she had to make her way onto the train but she told me that this was the first AFL game she had ever been to. I thought to myself that this happened to be quite the game for an initiation into AFL. I have no doubt that this will go down as one of the greatest matches between Sydney and Collingwood ever.

This has been my week in review, and there are still a few more to come in Australia. I'm getting ready to celebrate Canada Day down here though I'm still not sure how. I also tried my hand at writing a novel, and I even got as far as the first line, "It was the best of times, it was the blorst of times", before I decided to give up.