Birthday Down Under

I had a birthday!!  My birthdays have always been family-oriented, but that's quite hard while living in a foreign country.  But even still - it was a great birthday spanning about three days (due to Easter scheduling as well as time conversions).

My pseudo-birthday was Wednesday (because things were nutty on Thursday).  I organized a bit of pool and ping pong in the secure area along with Easter sweets to enjoy.  There was a great turnout, about 10 of us enjoyed a long lunch playing pool and other games in the secure area lounge.  Now how many people can say they enjoyed their birthday playing pool in PC3?  It was an awesome way to break up the day, though I'll willingly admit to a terrible stomach ache at 4pm.  Too much fun and sugar, but totally worth the stomach ache.

Later that evening was Dodgeball.  Wednesday was the first evening we all wore coordinating tie-dye shits made by a fellow PhD student's friend.  It dunno if it was the magic of tie-dye or a phase of the moon buy everyone was ON FIRE!  I've never played a better game of Dodgeball.  Not only did we win, but we won honorably with awesome plays and some slick catches/throws.  Bangin' night and great way to end the day of my pseudo-birthday.

Dodgeball Champs in tie-dye!

Thursday came, my actual birthday, but I didn't make any plans because people were leaving for Easter vacations and such so it was too difficult to organize.  Regardless, I had a very peaceful day in the lab and got to leave a bit early (due to the holiday I wasn't the only one).  That evening, I went out for tea with a few PhD-mates at a nearby hotel.  And "going out for tea at a hotel" really means "having dinner at a bar".  Such confusion with nouns at times, but I'm catching on.  It was a terrific end to my real birthday day.

Good Friday was enjoyable as well.  Like I said, birthdays are very family-oriented for me, so I got to Skype with my parents as well as my sister.  When they called it was Thursday evening, my real birthday, in the states.  I had a nice hour-long talk with both my folks via Skype and then with my sister afterwards.  It was really great to hear from home, but it kind of made me more anxious to get home.  I miss my family a lot so it was super great to hear from them on my birthday, as well as motivate me to get things done to organize my travels home.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to head to Bell's Beach for the famous pro-surfing competition held annually at Bell's Beach - we'll see if I can get in or if it's too busy.  All in all, a great birthday week!!