Shayla vs. The World

I apologise in advance. I have decided to keep up my blog as I continue going to school here in Sydney. I currently have 2 maybe 3 posts in the works. HOWEVER, this is in fact my first week of classes, as well as still my first week back. Which means, I. am. swamped. And still slightly jet lagged (although it's not nearly as bad going this way, and I don't think I ever quite fully adjusted to Iowa time). So patience is appreciated :) As proof of how busy I am, each of those sticky notes is a task I need to get done, by like yesterday. :) (Yes I know I'm wasting paper but my sticky note system work well) ALSO, as far as how much I'll be blogging. It probably won't be as much as I was before. This semester is going to be pretty hardcore for me. I have a wonderful reset opportunity. Since I am a new student here I do not yet have a WAM (weighted average mark, equivalent of a GPA). This semester is a very big deal for setting that, so I plan on taking it with ful...

My trip from home back to Sydney proved to be quite interesting. I still have more posting material from home but I feel the need to tell this story first. For my flight back I went from Moline to Detroit to LA to Sydney. The jet you take from Moline to Detroit is one of the really tiny 2 seats on each side you can hardly stand up straight in them they're so little. We boarded for our flight, the guy in the seat next to me REAKS, they taxi us out to the runway, then get notice that there's a terrible storm in Detroit so no flights are allowed in at the moment. We proceed to sit there for 2 hours and then finally a half hour after we were supposed to be landing in Detroit we finally take off. We had to circle Detroit for almost a half hour because so many planes were trying to get in after the storm cleared, and when we finally landed I got off to discover that I had missed my connecting flight to LA. Detroit was total chaos because of the storm so I was sent to a help area ...

Being home has been quite interesting. It's been full of very busy moments because I'm trying to do everything possible in so little time, and it's also been full of the not so exciting there's nothing to do around here moments. It's been so great to see all of my friends and family that I've missed so much, but this trip isn't all fun. I have a lot of business to attend to as well. For starters, my first Saturday home my parents and I headed to Ames with their motorcycle trailer. When I moved out of my apartment last December, I anticipated coming back and getting another apartment, so I had a storage garage in Ames I kept all of my things in. Saturday was filled with cleaning that out :) The extent of my possessions. We actually pulled this off pretty quickly and were home for dinner. We had lunch at our favourite place in Ames, Hickory Park. It was delicious and hopefully we'll be back sometime in the future to enjoy it again. Then it was t...

Finally made it home. It took three separate flights to get me here, but I made it. I started tearing up already on the final 45 minute flight to Moline. Luckily the guy in the seat next to me was very friendly and we had a nice chat to take my mind off it. Good old Muddy Mississippi. Flooded at this point. I landed, tried calling my mother but she didn't answer, so I hoped they were there already to pick me up. I expected only my parents but was overly delighted to see this... Home <3 Lala! Welcome. I cried a little. So many hugs. The girls brought me flowers <3 This is apparently what I didn't see before hand... Watching for my plane. Practice round. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful family. If it weren't for them the decision to move to Sydney would have been all too easy. These kids mean the world to me and I couldn't have asked for a better welcome home. My good friend James surprised me as well by driving 3 hours...

I apologise if this post makes absolutely no sense. I haven't gotten enough sleep. I left my apartment for the airport about 6:30am. Went to the bus stop where I managed to meet a guy from Drake University. When I saw his Drake sweatshirt I was like OH EM GEE SOMEONE FROM IOWA. I think I freaked the guy out, but I hadn't slept in like 2 days so it's whatever. Made it to the airport and through security okay. Got some Maccas for breakfast then it was time to board my plane. I had a window seat (that was my choice) towards the back of the plane. The couple occupying the two seats next to me was a little weird but they were quite nice so I can't complain. Take off = 9:45 am Tuesday. Babies. My plane was full of them. None of them were too horrible, and I don't really want to complain because honestly I feel awful for any parent traveling with a baby on a 14 hour flight, but it can get annoying. I really felt awful for the lady in the row behind me traveling wit...

I cannot express the amount of excitement I feel about going home. I just went out to eat with a friend and poor her had to listen to me going on and on about home. The concept of moving so far away has definitely made me appreciate home much more than I used to. But first let's talk about what I've been up to the past few days. Saturday I did some last minute shopping with my friend Diksha. We went into the city, did some browsing, found things we couldn't afford to buy, got depressed because we can't afford the awesome shoes we found, had some lunch, and headed home. Delicious Street performers are half the reason I love living in a city. With my excitement about going home I packed a few days early, and was completely packed and ready to go last night. That left all of today for me to wait anxiously with nothing to do. So I headed to Circular Quay to kill some time. The weather was BEAUTIFUL (Finally! It's been raining non-stop lately). It was ...