My Birthday!

Ok so this last week has seen my first birthday away from everyone i know and it was a heck of a weekend. Dont get me wrong it totally sucked to not see all my friends on my birthday and that was accentuated by the 50+ fb birthday wall posts that all of you sent thank you so much they basically made my day to read all the comments left wishing me a happy birthday.

The week started same as always with long classes and interesting discussions that sent the week spinning by way too fast to the point that the whole thing seemed like a blur. it was interesting to say the least, going to discussions in class and SI and then having similarly meaningful discussions with people that i know here. this week seemed to be full of complicated thought and soul searching which just managed to show me that i have more fun living in the moment lol as if we didnt already know that.

So the thing we want to know about is the weekend! well for my birthday weekend it just so happened that there was someone (a friend of a friend) who had their 21st on the 22nd of the month! so we hijacked it lol. this person (Shireen) a friend of Crystals invited me down to go to her 21st due to the fact that it would continue on to mine!

So Crystal being the awesome person she is drove me down with her on friday afternoon and back up on sunday night it was great here is the list of what we did that weekend:

Friday afternoon: we arrived in salt lake after an amazing drive down with some beautiful views (and company) and got to Crystal's childhood home to meet her sister Amber and get to know her. as the afternoon progressed i met a guy named Rick and we went to hang out with some other old friends named Ian and Russell. it was excellent went to a bar and finally had some drinks with the boys while listening to some great live music by "the American Hit men". We got back to Crystal's around 1130pm (she was out at a slumber party) and had a 5 hour discussion with Rick, Amber and her bf Skyler about religion, politics, business and television was truly brilliant.

Saturday:
Most of saturday was spent at the house with Amber waiting for Crystal to get back from the slumber party. it was great to make some friends and chill out without anything that i had to do. Then the night came around and we where off to Keys on Main (eventually) this is a piano bar in salt lake city, for those who dont know its basically a standard bar with 2 pianos on stage where people pay for certain songs and get drunk while doing so. buying drinks for people was fun and celebrating both mine and Shireen's birthday was excellent. i got all i wanted for my birthday and so had an excellent one.

Sunday: My actual Birthday!!! spent the whole day in bed until 2pm and i was more comfortable than i have been in a long time. managed to stay nice and warm despite outside and finally caught up on all the sleep ive missed over the past few weeks. it was all great and once we got up showered and packed Crystal and i said goodbye to Amber and finally got home! i was so grateful for the weekend i bought my roommates and i some pizza and we hung out swapping stories. it was a great weekend thanks to great people, great scenery and amazing venues!

Thats it for now ill keep you up to date on the rest

Keith Debono

First week past

Ok so we have come to the end of the first week here at logan and ive had a great time getting to know my classes, class mates and random people throughout the uni.

First my classes, this semester i am taking four subjects 3 of which matter one of which does not. they are:
Retirement planning, Estate planning, International Management and Sociology. Of these subjects my favourite so far has been sociology but im also a fan of international management. the other subjects arent so bad but as you can probably see from the names they arent exactly fun lol but the good ones are great and the boring ones are good which is great for me. i have gone from working 8-5 everyday and going to uni at night to going to uni from 830 to 1230 on mon wed fri and from 930 to 1030 on tue and thur with the rest of the week just for me and i am lovin it! the classes are cool and the people are great i have met a whole major group of people in my class of 244 students of sociology and the "Aussie perspective" as they call it has made me a centre of attention in all my classes ... as i like it of course haha.

But now for the interesting stuff my weekend. contrary to popular belief logan is not the typical slow sad ultra religious town that people believe it to be ... or at least thats not all that is here. the students here have developed a serious underground party central with parties being found every day of every weekend it has been awesome. i will admit the most parties are hosted by international students that have managed to acquire off campus housing and so eliminate the problem of religious views getting in the way of all that drinking!!. so this weekend started pretty cool with coffee and a gymnastics meet with Chrystal (an awesome girl who has been my conduit to the good times in Logan) from there we ended up in a night i like to call "My trip to little Mexico" we ended up in a party held at an appartment of some Mexican guys where we danced till 230 in the morning with an unfortunate disproportion of meat to taco which of course meant we cudnt stay long. we ended up continuing the theme of the night by picking up another girl for our little group to make us four. Me, Christian (the hot tub guy), Crystal and a very cool spunky girl named ritu (by spunky i mean little package huge energy! awesome!) we then went to a mexican restaurant named Bato's and enjoyed some breakfast burritos for next to no money was awesome. as we where there the mexican party came with us and so we exited to walmart where i carried both Crystal and Ritu (one at a time) through the halls of the store. from there we went to Ritu's and then home it was 615am wen i got to bed !!!

But that was just friday so what about last night you ask? well last night Crystal, myself, Ritu and a guy from Mexican City named Migel hit a party up off campus till about 2am this one had a great ratio and i met girls and guys alike more than i can actually remember at this point but it was excellent, dancing to hip hop, rnb, and latin music i had some lessons in latin dancing courtesy of ritu and crystal i think i got alright by the end but especially wen the kickass music started, props go out to some of the girls from the dominican republic from last night they can really dance!!! from there we went to an on campus party where most of the first party had migrated to was pretty cool but very warm in a small space to we left there around 3am and ended up hangin with the local logan stoners (no drugs where sampled by this blogger) but it was cool to just calm down for a while. from there it was off home and to sleep finally at 5am time for a serious sleep in. lemme know what you think about logan now cause i tell u wat its not wat i was expectin!!

Alright guys time for me to study

ill keep you up to date

Keith "The Aussie" Debono

Lets see what Logan has to offer

Ok so the last few days where kinda cool though a little crazy with all the flight drama and the new roommates every 15 minutes but its getting better now. so all my new roommates are finally moved in and it seems like its gona be a pretty cool place to live. the view of the valley from my window is insane and the apartment is nice. its still a little soon to tell if we are all gona get along great though i think we will just need to get used to the idea and give each other our space. although that seems to be all the space im gona get.

The Aussie has landed in Logan Utah, i am already known around my building as "The Aussie" in 301 and it has been great to meet people and get to know a whole ton of friends. it has been incredible so far there has only been one standoffish occurrence with a guy but he seems quiet enough so i dont think i need to worry about it. other than that girls and guys alike fall in love with the accent and want to know everything they can which for those of you who know me understand that getting me talking isnt a problem. lol it has been so great here and i am actually looking forward to classes starting ... so enough about that heres my list of what i did today:

11:00am woke up (hell yeah!)
12:10pm went to the local supermarket and bought my groceries to last me probably a few weeks. the busses here are all free so it was super easy to just get on a bus and have it take me exactly where i needed to go.
3:00pm met my new roommates and hung out in the apartment for a bit just sorta getting to know them its now six of us here im sure itll feel really crowded soon.
4:00pm went and bought a "game day" clothing pack which included a USU t-shirt, hoodie, bag, lanyard for my keys and baseball cap all for $40 it was great and now im warm and my keys are always safe! score
now this is when the night gets interesting
7:00pm i went to a womans basketball game, we lost :( i know not all that interesting but the team is great and i had a mad time screaming along with the fans it was great.
8:00pm met with some friends and did the following activities in this order:
1. went to a concert that was jazz and punk music
2. went to my apartment and picked up board shorts for HOT TUBBING!! thats right a hot tub by a pool out in the snow at -10degrees Celsius!!! it was incredible
3. jumped out of the hot tub and sat on the covering for the pool it was full of ice
4. jumped out of the hot tub and belly flopped (shirtless as i was for all of this) straight onto the snow to do drunk snow angels (no alcohol was used in the making of this snow angel)
5. went home to shower and change into dry clothes
6. at 1:00-2:30am watched a dvd at a guys place with the group

This night was awesome i had a great time and im happy to say that Logan Utah is very promising!!

Ill keep you up to date as classes start on monday

Thanks for tuning in again

Keith Debono

The first few days

Alright so it has begun, and so far it has been a lot of work but really rewarding too, im lovin it!.

So the hassles so far have been pretty crazy and my trip went like this:
I left Sydney Australia at a pretty average pace no mad rush and no delays and got to LAX early at 9:30 local time in the morning of the 6th, unfortunately thats where my luck just about ran out. From LAX you have to pass screening, check out and re check your backs, go through customs again and then get across the airport to the connecting flight, i had 1hr and 47minutes to do this, the process took 2hrs and i was only just at customs. Needless to say i didnt make it to my next flight in time. so i got rescheduled to a 425 flight on a different airline which meant a total of 7hrs in LA where i cudnt go outside in case an earlier flight became available.

My 425 flight however was then delayed an hour and i just managed to make it to Salt Lake City airport with enough time for a three minute run in 4 degree weather wearing nothing but i jeans and t-shirt combo. lol incredible, so i flagged down the bus and got here to Logan Utah and USU by 1030pm local time. from there i found out that i couldnt actually check in to my room until morning and i had to stay in the lovely university inn until then.

Oh did i mention that in this time i had my room swapped once already? thankyou Daiki for the update. so next morning i go to check in and a guy is in my room ready to pounce to ask me if i would like to move from Greaves Hall (international house of tiny bunks) to Merrill Hall (big ass apartments with long beds and free gym!!) easy no brainer. finally some luck coming my way.

I actually managed to also squeeze some of that luck into a free chinese dinner courtesy of my roommate nicholas and the chinese christian club ... score!! so thats it i guess, had a cool trip to Walmart with some awesome new friends and i'm going to a woman's basketball game tomorrow, ill keep you up to date thanks for tuning in and ill post more photos soon


Keith Debono