Our New Little Friends

2/26

We had Life and Culture this morning. It was nice because we only had to go to half of it since everything is planned poorly here and our field trip to the "alternative" Nimbin was cancelled. We talked about education and it was pretty interesting especially when we started the spaghetti war :0) Yeah, I had left 40 bucks and a pack of spaghetti in the gym one day and finally went to get it. Aren't you glad I keep track of my belongings?

At night we had our group meeting to discuss the bed bug situation as well as our trip to New Zealand. Oh yes.. I guess I ought to explain the bed bug situation.

Apparently some of the girls that went to Sydney brought back bed bugs from a hostel. They are now covered in bites and the cabin is infested. Well apparently the little guys are pretty quick at populating spaces and can move quickly from one thing to the next.

So I was talking to Mag on SKYPE and in busts Steve Jones. "Is there anyone in your room?" he says. I responded that I thought my roomies were sleeping and he asked me if I could go wake them up. I said I would as soon as I said goodbye to my sister. Well he was pretty rude and continued to tell me to get up. So I abruptly stopped talking to the already upset Margaret so that I could go wake up my roommates so that the flea sniffing dog could inspect the room. Well the bug guy came through and didn’t see any on our mattresses but the dog apparently found bugs in one of the boys' bed in the room next to ours. They didn’t even bother to bring this flea sniffing dog (lol. sorry I find it quite amusing) into the rest of the rooms because "if they were in one room- they would be in the rest soon."

So to shorten the story...we were ordered to put all of our clothes into black trash bags and put them out into the sun. We also had to drag our mattresses out into the sun to bake. (Oh...this is all supposed to be part of a daily ritual, if you were wondering.)

They will fumigate while we are in New Zealand and we will have to stop by the laundry mat on the way back home because "the bed bug problem is about 10 thousand times worse in New Zealand"- S. Jones. Wish us luck.

The one good thing about the whole ordeal is that it made me clean my room. My section is actually the cleanest now in the room...my roommates were quite pleased.

After our weekly meeting two barbershop ladies came to pick me up. We went to this church in Ballina and sang. It was not as good of an experience as this weekend. The women weren’t as much fun, weren’t as good and don’t sing real barbershop for the most part. Its a good experience none the less, I like being around locals... I learn a lot just listening.

I made mac n cheese from scratch when I got home. It was a quick version...as I was starving… and nothing like mom's but I was still fairly pleased with myself.

Went down to the cabins...where a spot was made for me to move into the girls' room. Hah. There is no room there.

We moved my mattress back into my room in the darkness and I just crashed on it without any sheets. Yeah, kind of gross…but if there are human fleas on everything, and it had been sitting on ant hills all afternoon...how much worse can it get?

New Flesh-Eating Roommates