Wednesday, September 18, 2013

The "Study" in "Study Abroad"

Pictured below: Me bringing Gary Clark Jr to the streets of Melbourne.



I was out with some mates last Friday night and we came across a street performer playing some depressing old tunes. I asked him if I could give it a go and he, as any friendly Aussie would, said yes. As he handed me the guitar I realized that this was no ordinary street performer grade instrument... it was a Fender Strat - the most holy of all electric guitars. Now, I am slightly ashamed to admit this, but I had never before held this holy a guitar in my hands, so it was a bit of a spiritual moment. I eagerly threw the strap over my shoulder and let an E7 ring out with a few of the sloppy licks I've picked up. This guitar was made for playing the blues. Next thing I remember, me and a bunch of random passerby's were grooving right along to Gary Clark Jr's "If You Love Me Like You Say" on the street corner outside Hungry Jack's in the middle of Melbourne, Australia.

Aside from Friday nights, school is definitely picking up here. It seems like all of the class projects worked together to make sure that they were due at the same time. Along with such pleasantries is the fact that they are all group projects, which, lets be honest, is just the worst. It is stretching me but I think that one of these days in the very near future I will break my addiction to perfectionism, therein curing my hatred towards group projects :)

On a relevant and hopefully helpful note, for those of you preparing to study abroad I recommend doing your research and being prepared in terms of cellular phonage. Personally, I am off the grid and it is working ok for me. I suspended my US contract with Verizon and am now using my iPhone as an iTouch while over here. It works quite well, especially since the device functions almost completely as an iPhone when in a wireless network. Obviously, this can be inconvenient at times when I am out and about. For such situations I decided to buy a prepaid phone. Theoretically, this is a good solution and can be used in the rare case that I need to establish contact with someone while outside a wireless network. However, there are a few problems that I've had with this setup - first, I never use the prepaid phone. I don't even carry it around. The usage costs are pretty expensive and I'd honestly rather not be contacted in the case of an emergency than pay to use my minutes. Second, it doesn't help that the prepaid phone is repulsive to use. If I'd have been smart, I would have found a way to unlock my iPhone so that it could accept the Australian prepaid simcard. I think there are sketchy, underground ways of doing this, but I didn't. Like I said, do your research.
Any questions, ask!

Cheers guys

-Lucas

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