katie goes to college

Cortaca 09 – True Bomination

Katie Woods — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:37:25 +0000

Yesterday was the Cortaca Jug, the annual football match between school rivals, the Cortland Dragons and the Ithaca Bombers. I was very excited for this football match because it’s the biggest match of the year and is kind of a big deal amongst students here. The Bombers had won the match two years in a row so I was hoping this year would be the third time so I could celebrate the victory of Ithaca. Luckily this came true! I still really don’t get the rules of American football, but it was exciting cheering for the Bombers every time we got a touchdown and joining in with the football chants like “let’s go bombers” (not very original) and “na na na na, na na na na, hey hey hey, goodbye!” (when the Cortland supporters started leaving before the match had even finished!)

One of the funniest parts of the game was reading the different t-shirts everyone wore, most of them too crude to put on here, but including things like “Cortland has Swine Flu!”

Overall the Bombers won 23-20 which was followed by a large night of celebrations around campus. All night long I could here cheering and “Bombers” chanting and everyone was united in the spirit of the game.

Such a spirited and fun football game was one of the experiences that I really wanted to have while I was over here so I’m really glad I went.

GO BOMBERS!

Katie

ithaca is GORGES x 2!

Katie Woods — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:19:02 +0000

The next week after Jay and I had visited Buttermilk Falls the International Office sent an email around asking if we wanted to visit Taughannock Falls, which is another of Ithaca’s gorges and is about a half hour drive away. Jay and I couldn’t decline the offer after experiencing how beautiful the other falls were so we went with 3 other international students and a professor at Ithaca who was kind enough to drive us. According to wikipedia “The main cataract the falls is a 215 ft drop, making it 33 ft taller than Niagara Falls and one of the largest single drop waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains.^[1] The water then flows through a long gorge with cliffs up to 400 ft high, characteristic of the area’s gorges that give rise to the common “Ithaca is Gorges” bumper stickers and t-shirts.” It was a beautiful day and the falls were even more beautiful, but again I’ll let the pictures do the talking. Thanks again to Jay for letting me steal his photo’s as I still haven’t replaced my broken camera!

As you can see it was absolutely breathtaking and once again I was astounded by the beauty of Ithaca.

Hooroo!

Katie

ithaca is GORGES!

Katie Woods — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 19:02:17 +0000

A couple of weeks ago my Australian friend Jay and I realized that despite living in Ithaca, one of the most gorge-tastic places ever, for a few months now, we still hadn’t visited one. We decided to change that by walking to Buttermilk Falls, about a half-hour walk from campus. It was very, very beautiful, and we spent at least a few hours walking around the lake and taking in the scenery. But I don’t think words can truly describe how picturesque it was so here are some photo’s

As you can see, Buttermilk Falls were gorgeous, and there is another side of the State Park that we haven’t explored yet where there are more falls so hopefully we’ll go and check that out soon.

Hooroo!

Katie

How Not To Listen To The Backstreet Boys

Katie Woods — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:12:11 +0000

Saturday night was a very, very strange night. Before it even began I was hanging out with my friends Shakini and Francisco in Francisco’s room in terrace nine. We were feeling silly and decided to listen to a Backstreet Boys song and sing along. Apparently this was a very bad decision on our behalf because all of a sudden the fire sprinkler in Francisco’s room erupted, spraying us all with black water that had been sitting in the sprinkler pipes for a few years or so. It was like a scene from a movie, all of a sudden the lights went out and we were being soaked with water, it took me a few seconds to realize what on earth was happening but we quickly fled the room as the fire alarm went off, with Francisco grabbing his laptop and guitar on the way out. As we got downstairs we realized that Francisco’s room was the only room being soaked with 20 gallons of water per minute, which may not sound like a lot, but sprinkler wasn’t turned off for nearly an hour, resulting in the water flooding most of the first floor and creating a waterfall onto the road under T9. We were all kind of in shock, especially Francisco, as we watched the water pour from the terrace. Once the firefighters had turned the sprinkler off and let us go back into the building to look at the damages we saw the sprinkler had pretty much totaled Francisco’s room and everything was soaking with old stagnant water. We removed all of his clothes to wash immediately, but we couldn’t really do much else because the cleaners had to vacuum up the water and the firefighters had to photograph the damages. We still don’t know why the sprinkler went off but one of the Public Safety officers told us that he had been telling the College to maintain the sprinklers for quite a while now and they hadn’t done anything about it. Hopefully, Francisco will have all of his destroyed electronics replaced and it was very lucky that there wasn’t an actual fire in the building, although it is still extremely sad that Francisco has to deal with this right now. As were doing Francisco’s laundry we decided that we wouldn’t be listening to the Backstreet Boys for a very, very long time.

Next blog I’ll tell you all about my gorge walks in Ithaca.

Hooroo!

Who Says Dressing Up Is For Kids?

Katie Woods — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:14:44 +0000

So today is the first day of November which means I have less than two months at Ithaca College which is a bit sad. But let’s not think about that just yet, this blog I wanted to talk about my great Halloween weekend. On Friday night, I didn’t know that I was going to dress up, but apparently the whole weekend is Halloween themed, not just the day of Halloween, so I spontaneously dressed as the Statue of Liberty (luckily I had a souvenir headband and my roommate had a green-ish coloured sheet I wore as a toga).

Some friends and I went to a few parties where I met a football player, a pirate, a french maid, an apple tree, the Scooby gang, JD and Turk from Scrubs and countless other people. It was a really fun night. The next day my roommate and I went as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum from Alice in Wonderland. We didn’t really have the exact costumes that they wore but they looked quite similar and most of the people we spoke to agreed.

That night we went to a frat house at Cornell but unfortunately the partied had finished so we only stayed there for ten minutes. But just looking around the house was pretty cool, I’ve never been to one before but I’ve seen them in movies and that’s exactly what the house looked like. Seeing the frat almost made me wish Australian universities had Greek life because they’re so community orientated it’s nice. We ended up back at Ithaca College and had fun wandering around meeting people including Dumb and Dumber.

Overall the Halloween weekend was really entertaining and I had a lot of fun dressing up and meeting people. It’s definitely an American tradition that I’ll be celebrating when I go back to Australia. Next blog I’ll tell you all about my first “Ithaca is Gorges” experience.

Hooroo!

Katie

How To Carve A Pumpkin – Amateur Hour

Katie Woods — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 17:28:47 +0000

Tomorrow is Halloween so it’s been a bit exciting doing some celebrating, American style. We don’t celebrate Halloween in Australia, well I think some people might go trick or treating in some neighborhoods but generally it’s not a tradition that we follow. In fact the one time that I tried to go trick or treating with my friends in Australia we got told to, “Go back to America.” Anyway one of the coolest things about Halloween celebrations over here is pumpkin carving. On Tuesday night Terraces and Towers late night dining halls had pumpkin carving so my friends and I decided to go. I have to say that pumpkin carving is a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, but we did have the tiniest tools ever so I guess the serious pumpkin carvers out there have some proper tools. So here is how you carve a pumpkin:

First you have to cut the top off the pumpkin, which is probably the hardest job; I had to hack at my pumpkin for about half an hour before I could get it off.
Then you have to scrape out the insides of the pumpkin, which is definitely the messiest job. There were pumpkin seeds and pieces of pumpkin going everywhere; I would hate to have to clean up the dining halls after everyone was done.
Next you outline whatever you want to carve onto your pumpkin. I decided to stick with a basic Halloween jack-o-lantern face, or what I thought was a basic face.
Then you have to precisely carve the outline with a mini saw and some other useless tools. I saw some people doing really elaborate outlines and I hate to think how long it must have taken them to do it.
Then you’re done, put a candle inside the pumpkin and watch it glow!

Here is my pumpkin, which turned out more cute than scary, so we decided it was a baby pumpkin and when it grows up it will be horrifying!

Note: it took me two hours to carve Baby Jack!

Happy Halloween!

Katie

Oh Canada!

Katie Woods — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 03:02:24 +0000

So what can I say about Montreal?

Well firstly it’s the coolest city in Canada. Okay, okay, it’s the only city I’ve been to in Canada, but I have no doubt that I am correct when I say no other city is as awesome as Montreal. Why?

Well Montreal is in Quebec, the French half of Canada, so straight off it seems to have so much culture and liveliness and everything is in French so it made me feel like I was really, really far away from Ithaca which was a nice change, especially because we were really only a 7 hour drive away.

just before we crossed the border to Canada!

I went to Montreal with five of my international friends so we had a nice mix of Australian, Chilean, Brazilian and Israeli which really seemed to confuse the border patrol officers, especially when Nick the Brazilian also pulled out his French passport! But nevertheless we got into Canada in our awesome 4WD Dodge Durango hire car easily enough and trekked it up to Montreal. We were told it would take us about 6 hours to drive there but for some reason it took us 9, but it was definitely worth it and was a fun drive.

outside our hotel on St. Denis street

We were staying at a hotel on an amazing street called St. Denis which was lined with restaurants, cafes and bars to keep us entertained. And because the drinking age is eighteen in Montreal we were all able to go out together without being restricted to under-21 places, which was a nice change to the intense ID checking of the US.

During the days we spent our time shopping, hiring bikes and riding around the city, and eating at delicious cafes. During the nights we went to hookah bars, normal bars, irish bars, clubs and wandered around in the freezing cold.

riding around Montreal

The biggest shock for me was that everything is in French! I even attempted to have conversations with people who only spoke French and knew zero English which I didn’t expect because we were still in Canada after all. But it was really fun to attempt to learn French, although I still only know Bonjour, which I thought was amusing to say to everyone I passed!

eating some yummy italian food

Overall the time we spent in Montreal was deliriously fun, and just an amazing way to spend the long weekend aka. Fall break. I could not think of a better place to go, better people to go with, or better things to do!

Bonjour,

Katie!

Marge the SNOW is ‘ere!

Katie Woods — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 01:28:52 +0000

So I’ve noticed it’s been getting pretty cold around here, but I didn’t think it was that cold. That was of course until it SNOWED! Unfortunately I wasn’t here to experience my first snow and Ithaca’s first snow of the season because it was fall break and a group of friends and I decided to road trip to Montreal, but that’s another story. As my friends and I were driving to Canada my roommate sent me a message saying it was snowing, which made me sad and happy at the same time, sad because I’d missed my first opportunity of seeing snow, and happy because I pictured driving back to Ithaca with the whole town blanketed in snow. Apparently this was completely out of the question as we came back on Sunday night to a coldish day and no snow to be seen! It was really quite disappointing but I wouldn’t trade my Montreal trip for all the snow in the world, next blog up I’ll tell you all about Montreal and my activities there but for now take a look at my friend Austin making a snowman at IC, photo credits to my roommate Theresa.

Eagerly awaiting the next snow,

katie the hooroo’er!

An Unhappy Little Vegemite

Katie Woods — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:43:01 +0000

I mentioned in an earlier blog how much I enjoy living on campus, one exception however, is the food! The dining halls at IC are great and they offer a lot of variety, but somehow the food has all started to taste the same and I’ve gotten a bit sick of eating on campus all the time. So when my friend suggested we go to an Indian restaurant last week I got really excited to eat something different.

The Indian restaurant was great, albeit my mild lamb korma was a bit spicy, but it reminded me of all the times I’ve gone out to dinner with my friends at home and it was nice to have a change of environment instead of eating in the dining halls.

Vegemite- most Australians I know were raised eating this for breakfast, lunch and/or tea!

I also really miss my mum’s home cooking, being able to cook my own meals, and Australian meat. As well as having vegemite on toast, I mean I brought Vegemite with me, but the bread in America is actually really sweet so the saltiness of Vegemite (an Australian spread) is a really, really bad combination.

Fortunately its fall break this coming weekend so I’m planning on heading to Montreal with my friends where hopefully I’ll be able to have some different food, including hopefully some Canadian and French dishes.

Also the International Club is holding an International Dinner on November 6^th so I’ve been contemplating what Australian recipe to submit. At the moment meat pies, pavlova and lamingtons are contestants so I’ll have to give it some heavy thought.

Any Aussie readers of this feel free to suggest some Aussie meals that I can consider.

Katie

Here’s an ad for Vegemite from a very long time ago, the song however has spanned the decades and most Australians can still sing along to it.

Flashback to July 2009

Katie Woods — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:30:16 +0000

So the month before I came to Ithaca College I traveled around the U.S going to LA, San Francisco, New York City and Vermont. I’ll be posting some flashback blogs occasionally to share the adventures and experiences I had in that time. Here is the first installment from the land of celebrities, Hollywood, LA.

with my friends in Australia the morning of departure

After months of planning and stressing I finally made it to America to do an exchange. My flight over here was pretty good, well as good as 20 hours of travelling can be, but I was pretty tired by the time we finally arrived in LA. Luckily, I made it through immigration and customs with only a few hiccups, and fortunately the customs guy didn’t seem to care that I’d packed a tube of vegemite, I don’t know how I would have survived without it!

As soon as I exited LAX I was approached by a woman in a volunteers outfit who asked if I needed directions, I said I needed to get a shuttle bus, seeming friendly she asked what I was doing in LA, and then gave me some spiel about saving the children and that I should donate some money. I felt like telling her to go jump considering she didn’t even give me directions, but instead I gave her $1.50 in Australian coins which I think was more effective! She was pretty pissed off and asked for some paper money and then told me I should start carrying some notes around so I can tip people. I’m really glad I’m not a sucker and that I’m not really pressured easily because as I was waiting for the shuttle I saw some guy give her 10 euro’s and then hand over another 20 euro note. It was good to learn that lesson early, because in LA, and probably the rest of the US as well, people really try and take advantage of tourists.

I rode shotgun on the shuttle bus and had a nice initiation to driving in LA. It is so hardcore here I seriously can’t understand how sixteen year olds handle it. It also felt really odd sitting on the right hand side of the car and not having a steering wheel but I think I’m starting to get used to looking in the opposite direction when crossing the road.

As soon as I arrived at USA hostel Hollywood I met a chick named Gemma from England, we went for a stroll down Hollywood blvd and had some dinner at a little Italian diner. Later on at the hostel they had a comedy night at the hostel bar with a few local comedians, it was alright, but I was pretty knackered so I left early and went to bed.

The next day Gemma and I went to Venice beach on the bus, it was such a nice day and the water was beautiful, it felt awesome coming from winter in Australia to perfect beach weather over here. Once we got back I had to check into another room where I met 3 other Aussie’s from Queensland, two of them being from Brisbane which was cool. Then I had to get ready to hit the town in a stretch hummer limousine for a tour of Hollywood and Beverly Hills with a few stops at Rodeo Drive, some rodeo bar that was on Sex and the City and then another club.

After the limo ride with some of my friends from the hostel

The limos were really awesome with leather seats and flashing lights inside. I met heaps more Aussies that night, including several that were under 21 like me so we all stuck together, and had to sneak past the security guard at the rodeo bar. I literally had to wait for the guard to look away and then run past him, lucky he didn’t notice because there was such a big group of us. The bar had a rodeo bull in the middle where people could have a ride but I didn’t get a chance to go on it because we didn’t stay for too long. At the bar I randomly started talking to this stereotypical blonde bimbo chick from LA who introduced me to her husband and told me about her nine year old kid, she thought I was in high school, which I played along with, and then she hugged me and squished me with her rock-hard boobs, I felt like Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls when Regina’s mum hugs her. We couldn’t get into the last club because they were really strict with their ID checking so we hung out at the hostel bar instead and also took a walk down Hollywood.

On Friday I signed up for a walking tour around Beverly Hills and Rodeo Drive, another activity organised by the hostel. The tour guide was an awesome guy named Adam that is a comedian and told us all he played a character named Shuttlesworth on Flight of the Conchords, but I’ve seen quite a few episodes of that show and I don’t think I’ve seen him once! Anyway we took a bus to Beverly Hills and walked around the streets looking at houses and gates around the houses of famous people. Some included the house where Michael Jackson died, the houses of Ben Stiller , Snoop Dogg, Marilyn Monroe, Tom Cruise and several others. The highlight would have to be MJ’s house because Adam being a huge fan made us do a tribute to MJ where we stood in a circle holding hands in front of the gate and sang ‘we are the world’ whilst other tour groups drove past!

Here’s a video of the tribute, it’s not the best quality but you get the picture!

After a long walk around the area we walked down to the diner that used to be the Peach Pit on Beverly Hills 90210, it was a traditional American diner with jukeboxes and yummy hamburgers. Then we strolled down Rodeo drive where I had my first celebrity encounter. We noticed a large group of people gathering outside a store on Rodeo Drive, and when Adam saw some paparazzi he ran across the road to see who it was, I decided to follow and nearly got hit by a tour bus, but it was funny and I ended up getting some photos of the chick getting into her car. It was only after she had driven off that I learnt it was Ali Larter who plays a main character on Heroes, which was kind of cool.

I was exhausted by the time we got home and went to bed pretty early, and without an alarm clock I ended up sleeping till 2pm the next day, it was ridiculous, but good to catch up on sleep because I felt awesome after that. At night I hung out at the hostels bar with everyone, it was fun and an awesome way to meet a lot of people.

On Sunday I headed to the Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park with some guys from the hostel, it was pretty busy when we got there so six of us bought this flash pass that let us reserve a place in line and cut the line down by 75% so we only had to wait a few minutes for each ride instead of a few hours. Magic Mountain had some wicked rides including one called Tatsu where you’re strapped in like superman and you’re facing down the whole time, it was by far one of the coolest rides I’ve ever been on and was probably my favourite ride of the day. Another rad ride was the X2 which is just ridiculous in the way it spins and flips, I don’t even know how to describe it but it was the most intense ride I’ve ever been on, unfortunately it seemed to be the parks most popular ride because we had to wait ages, but it was worth it.

The next day a lot of the friends I had made were leaving, but I met a cool German chick named Sarah at breakfast and we decided to go shopping on Melrose Avenue and at another fancy shopping centre called The Grove. We didn’t really find much and Melrose Avenue was a bit underwhelming but we probably didn’t go to the right part of it. The next day Sarah and I got the hostels free shuttle to Venice beach and met some guys that we ended up hanging with for the rest of the day. It was perfect beach weather again as we went swimming, sunbaked and walked along the beach to Santa Monica and the famous pier. After another swim at Santa Monica we all fell asleep in the sun and consequently my albino skin cooked until I was bright red, especially on the backs of my legs which turned out to be very painful. I didn’t actually realise how burnt I was until I got back to the hostel and looked in the mirror but it was epic. One of the other guys had really bad sunburn as well so we took a late night walk to a 24hr pharmacy and bought some after-sun gel, which was heaven!

with my friends at Santa Monica pier

The next day, the seven of us that had hung out at the beach decided to hire a car and go to Disneyland. It took us an hour or so in the morning to find a car, but soon enough we were cruising down the 101 and got there at about 10am. We spent the day wandering around going on the coolest Disneyland rides we could find, the funniest thing was that I’d gone to Disneyland with my family when I was five and the park seemed to be exactly the same, besides a few new rides. It was fun though and definitely took me back to my childhood.

The next day I spent my last few hours in Hollywood buying some souvenirs and then I took an 8 hour bus ride to San Francisco.

Overall I really loved Hollywood and LA and I’m looking forward to going back in January.

Stay tuned for the next installment- San Francisco!

Hooroo!

Katie