Time Flies...

Wow...sorry it's been so long since I've updated this! I was just looking at my calendar and it's hard to believe that I've been here for almost a month! These past two weeks have been busy and full of school and traveling. Classes have been pretty good for the most part. I'm still getting used to the way classes work here and I have a feeling I won't get used to it until the end of the semester. And by then, I'll have to reacquaint myself with the system back home. I almost feel as though I'm not really in school because there aren't small assignments to be done but instead the majority of my grades will be based solely on a midterm and a final. I've been keeping up with the readings though and the smaller tutorial sections help in reiterating the notes from lecture. But enough about school, let's talk about the fun stuff!

Two weekends ago I went on the surf trip I signed up for when we were in Cairns. The bus picked us up around 8:30 Friday night and we spent close to 5 hours driving to Mojosurf's "secret" surf location of Spot X. They took us to our 4-person - and what I can only describe as - huts where we had a short night's sleep before waking up at around 6:30 for breakfast and our first surf lesson. One of the instructor's gave us a run down of the area and what to do in an emergency before we suited up and got our boards. Down at the GORGEOUS beach we were given a basic lesson on how to properly stand up on the board. And then finally, we went out into the waves! They were perfect for learning as they weren't super strong and weren't too big either. I got up a few times which was good for me seeing as how most of you know that I have a weird fear about water. So I was pretty proud of myself! After lunch and walking around the beach for a while we had our second lesson where I got to use a board that had a video camera on the front! It would have been great except they realized after taking the board back to camp that the camera had malfunctioned. So unfortunately I didn't get to see the videos of me getting up :( The night was left to hang out in the hammocks and on the beach, and for some of the others to party a bit. Sunday morning we had one more lesson after breakfast and then left the quiet beach for our ride home. On the way, we made a stop at another Mojosurf camp in Byron Bay where we had some time to check out the town and the bay itself. It was so cute and the bay was absolutely beautiful! I definitely plan on spending a weekend in Byron sometime soon.

This past week included more classes, some school-sponsored stuff like a comedy show and a music festival, and a night checking out some of the nightlife. The week before I also signed up for some school clubs like rowing (yay!), horseback riding (we go on a ride on the beach!), photography, and some other things that I was interested in trying, like a surf club and lawn bowling. Rowing is supposed to be tomorrow and the class that I would normally have that conflicts with the time is cancelled so you can guess that I'm super excited to go and see some boats again!

This past weekend a few of us took a day trip to the city of Brisbane (about an hour north of Bond Uni). The city had tons of stuff and we checked out the cathedral and the Museum of Brisbane. We then went across the river and found a HUGE ferris wheel, and man made beach in the middle of everything! There were beautiful little walkways and flowers everywhere. We also went into town while the local Festival was still going on so there was music and food everywhere. They also have vendors selling all kinds of things every weekend so we checked that out too. They were also having a huge concert similar to something like Warped Tour and we saw a group of people try to break in...it was crazy! But after hanging out and taking everything in we met with some other friends for a pizza dinner (it was sooo good!) and then took the train back to school. I will definately be spending another day in Brisbane and this time I'll be sure to take my bathing suit (or togs in Aussie slang)! Yesterday I spent a couple hours on the beach and tried to do some studying...but of course my knack for people watching kicked in and that was much more entertaining than my psychology book. :)

Well I hope I haven't bored you to death and I'm going to try to be better at updating this more often! Enjoy the photos!

Oh and I almost forgot! Wednesday of last week a dust storm from the outback hit Sydney and then blew up the coast to where I am. It was sooo windy that morning and when I left my first class I could see a weird orange haze down the road. I thought it almost looked there could have been a fire. Then when I left my second class the entire sky was covered in it! You could even look up at the sun and not be blinded the dust was so thick! Unfortunately I got a bit of a sore throat and a stuffed nose because of it, but it was still pretty neat looking.

Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!

So this past week or so has been the longest week of my entire life! I settled into my apartment fairly quickly and finally tidied up a bit as well to get myself into the mood for classes. Last week was our Orientation Week where we set up accounts, got our student ID cards, etc. They also had a few meetings for us to go to which were kind of repetitive, but they had enough social activities to make up for it. There is a tavern on campus where we had a Rumble in the Jungle party and a Tight'n'Bright party (and that's where crazy spandex comes in handy!) They also played a movie (Knocked Up to be exact) outside by the lake one night where I froze my toes off! Although it's fairly warm during the day, it's still winter down here so the mornings and evenings get pretty chilly...and therefore, I finally caught the cold that everyone else is getting over. :/ Oh well...I think the worst of it has hit me, so hopefully I'll be getting better in the next couple days. The school had a barbeque by the pool one afternoon where I got a bit of a sunburn. The Australian sun is much more intense than back home! The o-zone basically doesn't exist down here. I then added to that burn a little bit one day when the school took us to the beach! I've made it to the beach three times in the past week and I hope to make that a regular part of my routine! I've also been meeting people from all over the world. I've met a few Australians and will hopefully be meeting more now that classes have started and I've talked to a couple people from Germany and I have a neighbor from Sweden! I keep running into a lot of other people from the States as well. But it's been great meeting people from so many different places!

Classes started yesterday and the setup seems pretty interesting. I have a photography lecture on Mondays and then we can basically attend any of the smaller tutorials at any of the times they are offered. So that gives me some freedom as to when I want to go for advice or anything else. Today I had two psychology lectures one right after the other. And each of those were two hours...and in the same room. I guess I'm lucky then that lectures are only once a week! Later in the afternoon I had the tutorial for one of the psych classes and there are only five of us in there! So it's a very intimate environment. We're assessed very differently here as well. Instead of having three or four tests throughout the semester with some smaller assignments to turn in, we may have some assignments but only a midterm and a final. For one of my classes, the midterm is worth 40% of my grade while the final is worth 50%. That's 90% of my total grade based on two tests! I haven't had a class like that before so I'm hoping I'll make it out okay!

I'm excited for this upcoming weekend because I'm going on the surf trip I signed up for while in Cairns! We're supposed to leave on Friday evening and have three surf lessons and get to check out some of the surrounding area while we're there for the weekend. I'm excited to learn how to surf! Even though a lot of you know that I'm kind of weird about water sometimes, I'm trying to tell myself that learning is totally worth it and that I most likely won't drown or anything. haha. I'll be sure to give everyone a play-by-play as to how my lessons go. :) We get to check out the clubs we can sign up for on Friday as well, so I'm really excited for that. I'm hoping to row while I'm here and I also want to check out some of the other stuff I can do!

I hope everyone is enjoying their week so far! I'm on Skype now so everyone should try to get a hold of me through that because it's free! My Skype name is apotter10, so download it and make sure you have some kind of microphone, and then find me! Just remember that I'm 14 hours ahead of everyone on the east coast so you'll most likely catch me during your early mornings and most of your evening hours. So until next time, Skype me and we can talk! :)

So Much to Say...

Wow...it's been an eventful week! On Tuesday, Steph and I walked around LA and saw the Chinese Theater and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It was pretty neat seeing all the stars with so many names...we never made it to the end of the walk because it was soooo long! After that we went to the airport and started meeting other people from the AustraLearn group. We passed the time waiting for that late night flight by playing Catch Phrase. We must have been quite a sight at the airport. The flight was long but tolerable. After we arrived in Brisbane we had a short flight to Cairns which is absolutely amazing!

In Cairns we met up with our AustraLearn leaders and we went to our rooms in the hostel we stayed in. We had an information meeting and then went to dinner at the local brewery with everyone. The next day we went to Rainforestation where we got to feed and pet animals like kangaroos and wallabies. It was amazing! We also took a tour of the rainforest and watched aboriginal dancers who then taught us how to play the didgeridoo and throw boomerangs! (I wasn't very good at either). We then had the rest of the day free and some of us went to the Esplanade where we were right by the water and had a gorgeous view of the mountains and the boats coming in from tours on the Great Barrier Reef. The whole place was beautiful!

We spent the next day on Passions of Paradise, a boat where two of our leaders work doing scuba dives and snorkeling on the Reef. We all got to snorkel and dive to see all the coral and the fish. Steph even saw a turtle at one point! I was really jealous. I took some photos underwater and hope they turn out well, so those will be put up for everyone to see! After spending the day on the water, we had dinner with the group and one last information session. Then some of us went back to the Esplanade and the lagoon. We got 50cent ice cream from the McDonald's there and watched two guys twirling fire around. It was neat because we got to Cairns at the very end of the festival they were having so there were all kinds of neat things and people around to see.

We left this morning for Brisbane and the flight wasn't bad. Then after some frustration with the bus rides to the Gold Coast and someone accidentally taking my bag to their accomodations on campus and then me having to go get it, I finally made it to my apartment! It is so cute and the whole complex looks so nice. It's bigger than my apartment in Fredericksburg. It's also just a very short walk to campus (which is beautiful from the 10 minutes I've seen).

I'll probably do some more unpacking and then there is a barbeque on campus this evening where other students from the school will be as well. It's such a relief to be in the place where I can settle in for the next four months and stop having to live out of suitcases. I'm excited for this upcoming week of events so I'll let you all know how everything goes! I'll be posting pictures on Facebook and possibly another photo site for everyone to see as well. :)