Well I am embarrassed to admit this (the fact that I have never done it, not the fact that I did it) . . . . I missed my first ever college class today. It was my social justice class and it is very basic and repetitive information from previous social justice classes I have taken in high school and college. Let me just say it was so worth missing! Families from the East Perth Yacht Club graciously invited the study abroad students at Notre Dame to go out on their sailboats for a night, and I mean who could turn down a night of sailing in Australia to go to class? We had to arrange our own transportation so naturally, since I am the RA, everyone assumed I would check the bus schedules. No worries I got us on the right bus at the right time. We jumped off at the bus stop and had a 2-mile walk to the club, since we have to walk everywhere we don't usually get away from the 8 block radius of campus so it was nice to see other parts of Perth and see actual houses with grass yards. Once we arrived at the yacht club we were greeted by one of the ladies in charge of hosting us. The owners of the boats were waiting around and we were divided into groups for the various boats. My group had all five of us from port lodge and we went with Luke and his crew. He had 4 sons and a daughter, 3 of the sons came along to help with the boat and also some of Luke's friends, there was 13 of us in total, it was crowded so we sat on the ledge of the sailboat. We set sail and after about 5 minutes of being on the water he made a sharp turn and the side of the boat that I was sitting on dipped really deeply towards the water out of shock we all screamed holding on for dear life. We quickly became used to the procedure of what to do when that happened and throughout the rest of the trip when Luke would say "go" we would have to crawl under that bar in the middle (the one that you always see in the movies hit people in the head and throw them overboard) watching our heads and everyone else (there wasn't a lot of room). The sun set, and the stars came out it was a beautiful sight. Once it got dark Luke put me in charge of steering the boat, let me just say there is a reason my sisters refuse to drive with me in a car. Because it was a sailboat there wasn't a steering wheel but rather a bar that you pushed towards you or away from you it took a little time for me to get used to it (next year look for me competing in the America's Cup). If you weren't on your game the whole time the boat would dip really low one way or another. He let me drive for quite a long time because none of the other girls were willing to try driving. After a couple hours we pulled back into the dock. We went into the yacht club for an amazing dinner; for someone who has been cooking for herself for the past four weeks I was so grateful to have dinner made and it was delicious. As if the night wasn't already amazing enough the commodore of the yacht club ate dinner with us and insisted on driving 40 of us back in his three-story yacht so that we wouldn't have to take the bus. The boat was beautiful, with carpet hardwood everywhere, balconies on two floors out the back and a sitting area outside in the front. It was amazing!!! We had a 45-minute ride back and he pulled the boat into the dock right in front of our dorm, talk about door-to-door service.

St. Patrick's day here was definitely a disappointment. It wasn't like the days we used to dance in the Cleveland parade or in the hospital for Mrs. LoPresti and to mass with her. Most people didn't even know it was St. Patrick's Day, the domestic students in our dorm asked what the point of celebrating such a "public" holiday was.

On different note I had to take another girl to the hospital on Tuesday night. She texted me asking to meet her at the gym because she had hurt her knee (ironic again, I know) and couldn't walk. She decided it was so bad she wanted to go to the hospital, after hours of waiting she finally got x-rays to find out it was just a bad bone bruise. The couple from Ireland was waiting behind my friend to get an x-ray, he had put his hand in a running engine and it was so bad he could see the bone. I will not go into any more detail but his injury was just was not that bad compared to some of the horrible ones we saw that night.

As for my service placement I am going to be working at the local homeless shelter, St. Pat's community centre. But let me tell you getting the service coordinators signature was not an easy task. I met with her on Monday to discuss the possibility of me working there but since I am under 21 she had to check with her supervisor. When I emailed her to see if I was approved I never heard back and the singed forms are due one Wednesday so I was getting nervous. Naturally I took the three-mile walk back to the centre today to talk with her only to find out she was not there, she had gone down the street to the shelters shop. The shop was closed so I stood there knocking at the door hoping she would be there to answer. She apologized for not emailing me back and signed the forms. I start training on Wednesday.

I am traveling to Melbourne this weekend; my flight leaves right after my class tomorrow!