Portland baby! And JOHN WULF.

Once again, I am behind with my blogtivity! Darnit! I always have such grand plans to write more frequent blog posts, but  they somehow seem to remain grand plans. Hmmm...So, in my efforts to not have you react with an "ag, (or as my American friend JOHN WULF would say "uck") this is too long to read!", I will try to keep this as BRIEF as possible. The past two weeks have been super busy and filled with all kinds of activities, but alas, I will not give you a complete rundown of EVERYTHING that has been going on - just some highlights.

Saturday night saw the international students venture into the city of Portland for a night on the town. Can I get a woop woop!! Yes, we were going clubbing! Downtown Portland is really awesome and well laid-out: all the bars and clubs are in the same area (how convenient), so there is a great vibe on the street as people walk from one place to another. We went in a couple of cars and got taken to a club called 'dirty' - and yes, the name really does say it all. But hey, the music was good and I was keen for a dance. I also met up with some friends from church (JOHN WULF included), and went to a bar nearby for a chilled drink. After that, I returned to the club to continue jamming with the Europeans. As the night neared its end, we began to move towards the exit of the club, only to be most rudely interrupted by a freaking DRIVE-BY SHOOTING! Right outside the club! Really? I mean, I felt quite at home, but still, it was rather a shock. I wasn't yet outside the club, but some of the other students were, and so they had to do the whole get down on the pavement thing - so crazy. Many of them had never heard gun shots before, and so at first thought that it was fireworks (seriously). So ja, that was our eventful night in Portland! And apparently that kind of thing seldom happens in Portland (although they say that gang violence is on the increase). Obviously it would happen when all the Europeans are there. Murphy's Law.

It was my roommate Ally's birthday yesterday. Yay! I woke her up in the morning holding two muffins with a lit candle in each muffin (a 1 and an 8 - she turned 18, duh), as well as gifts and the happy birthday song (it seemed appropriate). That was fun. The two of us went out for dinner last night and discovered a GREAT sushi place, that is really close to campus and really cheap too! C'mon! It even has a sushi belt and everything. We are both pretty stoked and plan to return soon. We then took a li'l walk to Safeway and bought an ice-cream cake (or ice-cream pie I think). Ally loves them and I had never tried one before...they are good!

Just after we got back from Safeway there was loud knocking (well, banging really) on our door. Four girls from one of the sorority houses on campus had arrived to present a formal invitation to me to join the Alpha Chi sorority house. I was invited there for a little Meet&Greet on Monday night, got a tour of the house and met a bunch of the girls who lived there. And they have now invited me to join! Sororities and fraternities are quite a big deal here, but I'm not quite sure what this would entail, since I don't think that I would actually move in to the house. Anyway, more on this later... watch this space.

What else? Hung out with friends from church last night, which is always fun. I am making good friends in the church I am going to, and think that that, more than anything else, is probably why I feel so settled here. JOHN WULF and his housemates were a part of the party, and they were my chauffeurs (or chaperones?)  for the night (thanks JOHN! (and Ryan and James) Lol.

Hey, our first performance is on Saturday! (The Willamette Singers that is, and not the band of circus midgets that I recently joined). We are performing in a Choral Leadership Workshop. I was chosen to sing the solo in one of the songs, which means that I will be singing solo parts in two songs (fun!), and playing piano on one of the songs too.

The other really important event of this week was the commencement of my internship at the Statesman Journal - a local newspaper. Apart from the fact that it totals my afternoons, and leaves me an ever-decreasing amount of free time (as it adds up to 12 or more hours per week), I am LOVING it. They have thrown me right into the deep-end and given me stuff to write, as well as a business feature story to cover (as of today). Can I get a woop woop!! for journalism experience and a significantly enhanced CV (otherwise known as a resume - to all my American friends out there, like JOHN WULF).

Ok, I'm going to stop! We all know that this is already long, so I'm not even going to try and qualify it (other than by saying, "What can I say? I have a lot to say!"). hehe. Thanks for reading though! (if indeed you are reading this sentence, which means that you have actually read all the way through).

PLEASE NOTE: JOHN WULF was not harmed during the making of this blog post.