Thursdays of Goodness

Random Thing No. 1
Today started out as an ordinary day. I had class today at 1pm as usual. On the train ride to school I was having a chat to this girl Joana who is in my Appliations of Theory unit. We rode the train back into the city yesterday, but we didn't speak to each because I wasn't sure if I knew her from class or not. So we're talking about about being international students in Australia and whether we like the Translation Studies Program or not. She invites me to her housewarming party on saturday and she also tells me that The Business of Translation (an internship unit I'm really excited about taking next semester) is crap. Apparently, the uni doesn't supply you with a steady flow of translation assignments, like I thought.

Random Thing No. 2
Before class I'm talking to Samantha, my published writer friend in the same class, about this Businisess of Translation trying to dig up some more dirt. Apparently, its impossible to get an inhouse translation job in Australia so everyone just freelances. Plus, in order to provide luxuries for youself such as a roof over your head, food, clothing, etc, you need to be proficient in at least two languages because there just isn't that much work for translators apparently. So, yeah, she can understand why Joanna said that unit is crap.

Random Thing No.3
After class I had to go to my tutorial and today my first marked traslation assignment was due. The really long one about dinosaurs I was supposed to have worked on during Easter Break. I turned that in and we began to go over our assignment for today which was to translate a few paragraphs of the first chapter of 1984. Isabel, the nice and scatterbrained peruvian, in my tutorial suggested that we each give copies of our work to the others so that we could keep track better of what others were reading. There are only 3 of us in tutorial, so that was ok. But, I had to keep flipping through papers and I kept losing myself in the paragraphs and I kept making myself dizzy. Plus my stomach was growling and attracting attention.

Random Thing No.4
On the train ride back home, I was reading this book called Volunteers in Developement. I took the train all the way to Flinders Station. Usually the train stops at this station, every one gets off and the train either goes in reverse and heads towards the uni again or it continues to the next stop. Yesterday it kept on going and today it went in reverse and by the time I realized that it wasn't going to keep going to the next stop, it was too late. So I had to get off at the next stop, Richmond. At Richmond, I wait for the next train, get on and realized it is going to Flinders Station and going in reverse again.

Random Thing No. 4
Before dinner, William and I went to the supermarket to pick up some stuff for dinner (we had stir-fry and egg rolls, which I made in the oven but didn't come out crunchy enough) and go to the pharmacy because I think I'm getting a cold. At the pharmacy, we walk around the aisles looking for cold medicine and find none. All of the cold medicine is kept behind a counter, that's why its called over the counter medicines. Well, I tell a woman behind the counter I need something for chest congestion and a sore throat. She begins to ask me a series of questions about what sort of chest congestion it is. I tell her it kind of stings. So then she calls over another person and he goes over my "symptoms" and concludes that I either have acute asthma or heart problems. I'm sure I have neither. He ended up refusing to give me just regular cold medicine because "it has heaps of other medications and we don't need to over medicate here." So apparently I'm just supposed "to see how I go" and go see a doctor if the problem persists and get a lung exam. A pharmacist refused to sell me over the counter cold medicine. Crazy.

Thank goodness its thursday.