Segway'd

My dear devoted readers, I do apologize for my wholly unblogginess. There has been a drought in Brisbane these days and I'm afraid my will has wilted. Also I've had a visitor crashing in my bed these last two weeks, rendering exciting adventures a thing of the past.
I finally returned to Aus to settle into the grind, yet there was no grind to be settled into or upon as 2 days later my girlfriend, Hyeshin, came to town. Since she's been here, time has been a bedlam of cooking and eating, walking and biking, talking and laughing.
See, I like segways. No, not the kind that you use to walk your child; rather, the kind that allow a gentle sway, an overlap, from one period to another. As we all know, it ain't easy going from vacation straight to school - you might get a case of the schoolies. For me it's indubitably tougher in that I went from USA-summer-freefood-family-oldfriends-nostudy to AUS-winter-payfood-nofamily-newfriends-studylikeanoffice, and so a segway or two is indispensable. Time in Sonoma was a good segway1: I had some family, but not all, no friends but free food. Going to bed early and getting up early was a transition toward schooliness, too. Now, these last two weeks, segway2, have been a great slide into school: study but not a lot, pay for food but not the only one cooking, seeing friends, having psuedo-family. She will leave tomorrow and then it's finally back into the grind, only 3 weeks late. And I have to catch up and it's reproduction unit!
Exciting things, for you, are limited but I guess I can present them in that ever-so-easy manner: the bulletin point.
-Eatin'! I don't know if I'd mentioned this before, but about 2 months ago a local gym, FitnessFirst, had an open day where you could do some classes for free. I went in for a two-step class that rocked my body. There were 35 people in the class and afterward, the instructor went around handing out little prizes (t-shirts and water-bottles) to hot bitties to sponsor FitnessFirst. He had one special prize that he handed to me for whatever reason (hottest; sweatiest; tried the hardest; best for a newbie; worst for a newbie; smelliest; only person doing it in sandles): a gift voucher for 2 to a buffet restaurant in Bumblefuck! So fast-forward to last week (I guess it would require a rewind, no?) when melady and I hopped on a bus to go way up north to this restaurant. This was a weird place. It was an 'Entertainment Services Club' but there were no hookers. It was a whole complex of stores and restaurants and bars and a casino, owned by some group, but it wasn't a mall. Anyway we went to one restaurant, the Coral Sea Cafe (which had an aquarium, projector screens showing The Living Sea, but no seafood) and had a very mediocre all-you-can-eat. The desserts were the best so I took about 10 brownies home with me. We ended up catching a bus or two back, with an annoying altercation with the driver that's still leaving me seething (let's just say I got pwned out of a dollar).
-Bikin'! In Korea, the only place you bike is in a parking lot. It's not a mode of transportation and barely a mode of exercise, so I needed to kick it up a notch and learn Hyeshin how do bike. The first day we went about 5k (RT) to a beautiful park on the river to have Brie, avocado, bread, and wine. The next time we went about 15k (RT) to the markets that I love so much to purchase an obscene amount of food. The next day we went about 28k (RT) on a full-on tour-de-Brís to see the sites, eat the foods, and bike the river. It was glorious. She was in pain.-Cookin'! One Friday night, I decided to invite my PBL discussion group over to meet and greet and eat. I cooked up a Mexican feast (guac, salsa, steak, chicken, nachos, rice, beans, tortillas, lime daiquiris) and we all had a laugh and a bite and got sauced (and I'm not talking molé). Other nights we have been alternating cooking, which has been a real treat for me because, though I love cooking, I do it every night and it's nice getting different shit every now-and-then. She does Korean stuffs, and I do my own.
-Drinkin'! The nice thing about having a guest is that there's always an excuse to drink. Gin'n'tonic for lunch? check. Beer for the walk? check. Wine at dinner? check. Last week was our last class with the current tutor. Our discussion groups switch tutors 3 times a year; last time we switched a tutor was wine & cheese. This time we decided to class it up a notch with pizza and beer. It was great, discussing the genetics of Down's syndrome while getting fully wasted and wastefully full. Since there were extras and I'm in a hypermetabolic state, I ate, I believe, 12 slices and half a calzone, with 4 strong beers.
Jesus, I didn't know that!1
Thesedays, abortion is quite the hot-topic. Or nowadays. Or the last 10 years. But especially these last 3 weeks. The legality of abortion is a tricky little momma that will have any discussion ending in name-calling and use of dog-doo on a stick. Here in 'stralia, it changes state-by-state. In most states, early term abortion (first 12 weeks) is funded by Medicare and legal, as long as it meets Section 232: the termination must be in the interest of the health of the mother. 'Health' is an operative word, as it can refer to mental, emotional, physical, economical, or whatever else you want. In order to try a doctor for aborting, under the Menhennit rules, you must prove that his first intention was to end the baby, not to help the mom out. This is nearly impossible.
As far as the medical side of the abortions go, I was surprised to learn how not-a-big deal they are. A medical abortion, taking a pill, RU-486, can actually be more stressful and annoying than a surgical abortion. Medical abortion the woman might feel nauseous and bleedy and need to be supervised for at least 3 days and upto 2 weeks. A surgical abortion (where they take a tiny device, the size of a pen, insert into the uterus and vacuum out the fetus) takes 6-10 minutes (!) and usually people are okay later that day. Hmm!
Speaking of things that make you go 'Hmm!' is heroin. We had an extremely tangential lecture that ended up discussing the merits of heroin. Yes, you read that correctly: merits. This doctor said that taken in the right dosage and purity, these being a big problem in the illicit drug scene, heroin has pretty much no real damage on any organ of the body and all-in-all is much healthier than alcohol or tobacco. As per its addictive quality, he said that during the Vietnam War, ~45% of US soldiers, in Vietnam, were using heroin. They had to stay clean for 10 days to get back to USA; post-return studies showed that only 2% were still using. Addictive? Harumph!