Happy Last Day of Summer and Marine Bio!!

2/28

I got up for marine bio in the morning, with mixed emotions. First, I was angry that I had to wake up for marine biology after a late night. And then I was happy for a moment, remembering it would be the last time I would have to sit through his 3 hour lecture.

I can’t say I gave him my undivided attention, but I was a little better than usual. For our field trip we went on the “Rocky Shores” trip. It was about an hour away by bus and we stopped for lunch. Tracy and I were the last to order and they were being easy going Aussies when it came time to making our orders- in American terms- very slow.

Tracy had some greasy “fingers” which was bacon and cheese on a slice of bread cut into 4 strips. I had a “gourmet ham, cheese, and pineapple sandwich.” I’d never had pineapple on a sandwich but I like to be adventurous here. Yet, the sandwich was hardly gourmet by my standards. It consisted of two slices of ham, one piece of cheddar cheese and chucks of canned pineapple on top of thin white bread. Haha.

The rocky shores were gorgeous, so as usual I took more away from just being a part of all that natural beauty than actually learning how many creatures populate which areas of the rocks. Tristan had to go down to the water for our group and put two boxes next to eachother and tell us what and how many things were in each box and slowly make his way to the top. Sydney was the secretary, and Tracy, Angie G, Mary, Nikki and I mostly watched.

After we were done with the assignment Tracy and I went for a bit of the snorkel. (Thanks for letting me borrow your stuff kid.) The waves were pretty strong and one of the boys got bashed around in some rocks a bit. We found some shells and I took lots of pictures to make up for my stint without the camera.

In the evening we went to Fishy Fishy for half price Ball State night. It was okay, but I don’t know that it will be a frequent stop for us. We rented “John Q” and watched that. Ash and I sang as we walked down the beach towards home. Craig and JD trailed behind. That was the start to a really good night. I don’t know exactly why, but smiling and laughing- I was just happy sitting there watching the movie or hearing the rubber bands snap.

There were lots of lodgers drunk outside dancing when we got home. They were pretty loud but I was in a good mood so it didn’t bother me much… I can’t say the same for everyone though!

Our Prof: Danny Bucher

Trace and I... just class.. you know

My Group

Stuff we found

Doing the Work for class

Sex in Sport Administration

2/27

Woke up at 10:30- so it was one of my late sleeping days. I wrote another page of my marine bio paper, talked to the family a bit, went to the beach with Angie G and Mary, took a shower and went to class.

People were more talkative in Sports Ad this week (myself included) because of Dr. Arthur’s annoyance with the disinterest shown last week. We also were talking about selling sport with sex… so the boys’ interest was peaked with the TV clip about the Australian women’s soccer team posing for a nude calendar and such.

Most of the class concluded that we have become immune to the use of sex in sports marketing but I didn’t agree. Perhaps its the media, but just as likely its you and I, who still make a big deal about pro-athletes’ spreads in magazines, or our own Brandy Chastain ripping her shirt off after the women’s soccer team’s exceptional win a few years back. Society has definitely become more accustomed to the use of sex appeal in marketing—but immune…? I think not. We wouldn’t be discussing it in class if that were the case.

After class the kids came up and we walked into town for Subway 2 for Tuesday night. I’ve gotten sucked into a new sandwich… the toasted chicken or whatever its called. We tried to rent a couple more movies—unsuccessfully, and did a bit of grocery shopping. I blogged when we got back and then traveled across the field. We watched “Rent” much to the guys chagrin… although there was more discussion and singing than actual movie watching.

We ate some popcorn and I had a cookie too. I decided to ditch that junk food thing. Haha. As long as I’m conscious about the things I eat I think I will be fine. I should start running or swimming again though. Tomorrow is the last marine bio class! I’m pretty excited about that. It means class only on Mon and Tues when we get back from New Zealand.

Had a good long chat with Craig until about 3am

This is during Sports Admin..

with our proff Dave Arthur on the right

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

I found my camera!!

2/25

I woke up this morning before my alarm clock—which is quite odd seeing as how I only got about 4 hours of sleep. I waited for cabin 2 to trek down to the lodge but that didn’t really happen so I went down to meet them. JD, Ash and I walked down to the closest café for white chocolate chip pancakes covered with ice cream and raspberries. Tracy, Angie and Mike met us there. They were DE-licious. I stopped in the gym to listen/sing with the Barbershop ladies and was there for a couple of hours. Then I brought 3 of my ladies down to the cabin for a little serenade of “One Fine Day.” I miss barbershop. Tomorrow night one of the ladies from the Lennox Headliners (chorus in Ballina) is picking me up to go to their rehearsal. Hopefully that will be fun.

I got one of my 3 pages minimum single spaced marine bio paper done today—thanks to some peer pressure and assistance.

We went swimming and took a bunch of underwater pictures at night. They made us laugh. We were all laughing a lot today. Played some euchre, made some pretty tasty grilled cheese.

What else?... Oh I found my camera! It was in my backpack... the one I’ve been carrying around. I promise I looked in that bag…but I opened it today looking for my Italian dressing…haha…and found my Ipod, camera and keys. I’m so excited I found my camera!! So there will be more pictures going up soon; I won’t have to steal them all. I was locked out of the lodge again tonight…luckily the roomies were still up. I’ll try to bring those keys with me next time. Probably not though. Tomorrow we don’t have a field trip for life and culture so maybe we will get out of class early.

Craig, Angie, Me, Tracy in the pool

Barbershop!

2/24

As I was walking back to the cabins, after a delicious pancake breakfast, I heard singing. I was pretty confused because it sounded like a barbershop chorus. No way, I thought. Well turned out a Sweet Adeline’s Chorus from the gold coast was on a weekend retreat coaching session with an Instructor from none other than Muncie, Indiana. His partner is actually the director of my dorm at school, and he knows Bev and Molly (the amazing women that worked with the Notablez to prepare us for Internationals in South Carolina). Is it a small world or what?

I listened to them sing for a bit and then went back to the cabins. My computer is being stupid. It wont charge most of the time I put it on the charger. Occasionally I get it to.. but I don’t know what else is wrong. My roommates said they had Toshibas that did the same thing and it was a problem with the motherboard. Apparently there is/was some lawsuit about it. That’s pretty fantastic. My budget with definitely entail buying a new camera and laptop along with this trip. Ugh... lets just hope it holds out.

I got ready and went down to the cabins to say hi to Tracy and Ang but they were pretty tired and didn’t have much to say. I then walked into town because I promised the roommates I would go listen to the music at the pub. Of course I forgot my ID so I almost didn’t get in. But we just danced and then headed home. As we got to the cabins I saw some of the barbershop people so I asked them if they were singing tags. They said they would if I wanted to so around midnight I started singing with a group of between 4-7, including the chorus director. We sang tags and songs until about 3am. They liked me a lot, and one of the women loved me. She was talking about finding me a job and having the chorus sponsor me so I could move up the coast, live with one of them and sing in the chorus. And the woman was serious…she was really pushing me that it really was a possibility. She even turned to the “we could just find you a husband” fact. Haha. As much as I would absolutely adore just staying here to live I have already signed a lease for the next semester, among other things. I really was trying to think about it though. It would be amazing to live here...and to sing barbershop! Ahh. Dream come true. Anyway I had to tell them no about 20 times.

I was locked out of the lodge when I came back so I snuck in one of the boys’ back doors.

Brings Back Memories... The Notablez 2005

Certified Open Water Diver!

2/23

We caught the bus at 9:30am for Byron to finish up our SCUBA certification. It was Julie (our GA), Tristan (Berkley boy), and Kelsey (Jones’s sophomore in HS daughter) so a different group than I had been with previously because I opted to sing at church last week. I liked these two dives much better than the first two. Its still a really long day, but the visibility was much better and the current was not as strong.

We saw a ton of marine life: a huge Loggerhead turtle (they are endangered and this one was about 5 or 6 ft), 3 regular sea turtles swimming around us as soon as we got down the line, eels, puffer fish, tons of Wobbegong sharks, and a 6 ft leopard shark. We saw a lot more than that, and the skills weren’t that difficult. So now I’m a certified PADI Open Water Diver. Yay rah.

I bought myself a pink “rashie” in Byron (thin long-sleeved surfing shirt), got a smoothie for lunch and got some groceries at Woolworths.

I came back and showered, and then went down to the cabins to cook some spaghetti. (since Tracy and Angie were gone) It was pretty cheap sauce but I added some stuff and made it a touch better I think. See family... I can cook. We watched "Finding Nemo" and “Shawshank Redemption” and I slept with Ash again.

PS- We caught.. and I disposed of two mice this night... the boys and Ashley couldnt do it

My SCUBA group with our Instructor Fiona

I Saved Ashley from the Mice?

2/22

We said goodbye to the girls and attempted to do some work in the morning/afternoon. Later on we went to town. Got Mike a birthday card and a little blue candy man that reminded me of him. I did my laundry and hung it to dry right at dusk. Good idea huh?

Ash and I had chicken burgers for dinner, JD had 4 cheeseburgers, and Mike had a veggie hot dog. Haha. We also had corn. Gotta get your veggies ;0)

Then we watched what “Dreams May Come” at the cabin because both Mike and I like it. I spent the night in the girls’ room in the cabins because Ashley was convinced I could protect her from the mouse/mice that live in their cabin.

Mike's Birthday Dinner

2/21

Luckily I woke up at 8am to finish my Marine Biology. I felt pretty lousy. I barely got it done and went to class. I did a better job staying awake than I thought I would. Perhaps that’s because I was writing a blog and writing a follow up paper for Life and Culture.

I only had class until 11 or so and then went back to bed. We did have a field trip for marine bio but it was optional to pay to SCUBA or snorkel at Julian Rocks. I didn’t want to pay the money to snorkel and I will be diving twice on Friday (to finish my certification) so I just stayed home. I took a bit over and hour nap and then got ready to go lay out. As soon as I sunscreened up and everything, Tracy and Angie came over to make Mike’s birthday rice crispy treats. They don’t have regular marshmallows here so the treats turned out a little fruity tasting. Imagine rice crispy treats made with fruit loops? They looked lovely though. haha.

I hung out in the cabin for a while—doing homework and such then got ready for dinner. We went to the Indian restaurant for Mike’s birthday since Craig, Angie and Tracy will all be in Melbourne tomorrow night for the weekend. It was good. I had this spicy coconut chicken thing...though I couldn’t really taste any coconut.

After dinner Tracy and I went back to get the cake crispies ready. We all played euchre and UNO until I was too tired to do anything else.

The Best Picture of Mike ;0)

...or the first one I came to on FB

Update on The Family

2/20

I didn’t do much in the morning time. I got to talk to KR and my family on SKYPE. Maggie (I still have trouble using that name) thinks she’s going to go to prom (as a freshman) and she’s loving "Peter Pan." I’m glad she got into theatre. Abby has decided to attend Transylvania University and has been given an awesome scholarship to do so. She is also going full speed with "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" which debuts this weekend. Good luck to her!! She’s the narrator- I can’t believe I’m missing it. Dad and I talked a lot about the new house. My sisters seem to like the farm and they are usually pretty picky about houses so I suppose I will trust them. A family friend is going to board her horse at our house a couple times over the summer- I’m pretty excited about that. Mom and I didn’t talk too much- mostly gossiped. She's got a lot on her plate right now.

I went to lie out on the beach to do homework. Surprisingly enough—I didn’t get much homework done but I had a good talk with Jade. Following that, Courtney, Mary, Angie G and I went for a swim in the pool.

I attempted to do some more homework and then went to Sports Administration. It was a pretty good class other than the fact that nobody was responding much…so Dr. Arthur was getting frustrated. Who could have known?!

We played capture the flag as a large group in the field at night. That was pretty cool. Then it was off for Euchre and some fun. Fat Tuesday. I’m not going to eat junk food for lent.

I thought I was walking home by myself but Angie, Craig and JD came running up behind me. It turned out to be quite a good night...until it came to sleeping.

The Group: hanging in the Cabins

I Caught a Sea Turtle!

2/19

Made myself French toast for breakfast—it was decent. A politician came in for part of our lecture and we went to the Mayor of Ballina Shire’s office for the second half of Life and Culture. I wasn’t overly impressed with the mayor himself—he was a pretty nice guy but he didn’t seem to know too many hard facts—at the local or national level. I asked him what some of the controversial issues were for campaigning politicians—particularly social issues- like abortion or gay marriage at home. His response was that locals didn’t really want more people coming into their town. There was no real homophobia that he noticed on a large or small scale. He basically said that Aussies were pretty laid back- “they didn’t worry about little things such as the moral beliefs of judges that were appointed to the high courts and such- like we do in the states.” Overall things really are much more relaxed here. There were no metal detectors at the doors and no one other than the mayor was in the room with us. I was told he was just the mayor of a small town- so it wasn’t a really big deal, which is true, but it just seems like we worry about everything 10 times more in the states.

After the meeting, we went to a seabird rescue place. The volunteer that started it was a very good speaker, so that was good. Then we went and saw the sea turtles that they had rescued. There were a bunch of sea turtles in a pool and the guy wanted to catch the big one to show us out of the water…but he couldn’t get it and neither could a couple of other people that tried. So I caught it! It was pretty cool, he was splashing everybody and wiggling around and kind of heavy. I had an awkward grip on it so I gave him to JD to hold while the guy talked about it.

The last stop of the field trip was to this tea tree oil place. We watched a dumb video and then wandered around looking at sculptures and I climbed a tree…and fell out of it.

We had a short meeting, and Craig and I had noodles with cabin 2 for dinner. We went and got groceries and then hung out and talked with the roomies for a bit.

Watched Talladega Nights for the first time later on. It was pretty funny- although a little too much of the over-the-top dumb humor for me to love it.

This is the sea turtle I caught.

Somone took a picure of me holding it..

but I havent been able to steal that yet.

Beating Your Children?

2/18

Woke up at 7:40 to get ready for church, and walked into town. We practiced our three songs and then it was time for the service to start. It was a lot of fun being up there not having to be quiet or anything. Craig, Angie, JD and Tracy all came, along with the Jones family and “Mr. Australia man” (quote by KR) – Jim Coffin- who has been here visiting.

The service was pretty interesting. It lasted almost 2 hrs this time, and they had a guest speaker who seemed a bit sexist to me. He was talking about how the leaders of the church needed to be husbands and fathers, and some other nonsense. Actually, I was able to pay more attention to him that I did to the sermon last week. I think he was a better speaker and presenter but some of the things he said completely turned me off. The minister also went on a rant because apparently Queensland is trying to pass a law to ban parents from beating their children. He went on and on and on (heatedly during the “prayer”) about how it was a parents God-given right to discipline their children…because it made better Christian adults or some rubbish of the sort. He seems like a very nice man but it made me worried seeing his 5 or 6 young children sitting in the front row.

We left pretty much as soon as the service was over. Jones gave us a ride home so that was nice.
I was pretty lazy the rest of the day, stealing pictures, writing blogs, sitting around. I fell asleep for like 60 seconds when Angie and Craig came into the room to force me to the beach. I tried to do some homework down there, but ended up in long conversation about relationships and religion mostly. Its nice...it seems we have more intellectual conversations here.. about politics or religion or somthing of that nature. I think the beach brings it out...everything is just so amazing it makes you think about life. I had some 79 cent Alfredo noodle packet and garlic bread for dinner- It was okay. I need to start eating healthier again… I don’t like how I look in these recent photographs.

We were supposed to go into town after that, but Angie never came up like she said she would…so eventually Craig and I just went down there. We played euchre, watched 3 episodes of The Office and went back home.

I’m going to fall asleep in lecture tomorrow and then off for birds and the mayor. Oh boy. Maybe they will have my camera on the bus?! Probably not… but I can always hope.

One of the many adventures in Cabin 2...

Angie and I trying to repair the table with duct tape

The Australia (Steve Irwin) Zoo

2/17

Woke up at 5:30, made my egg sandwich and got ready for the zoo. We boarded a little after 6am. It was a 4 hr bus ride with a halfway stop at this dumb popular “petrol station” that we ate at on the way down here initially.

I’ve been complaining about going to the zoo for quite some time now. It was 66 bucks for transportation and admission and I didn’t think a zoo was worth it. But The Australia (Steve Irwin) Zoo in Brisbane is quite different from the zoos at home. For example, there was this thing called Kangaroo Heaven. There were kangaroos all over, mostly eating or just laying down relaxing...and you could just walk up to them and pet them, or even cuddle with them. It was so awesome. We also got to pet koalas, saw a croc, snake and bird show… the guys would dangle a hunk of meat above the water and the croc would just sit there for a minute and then jump up and snap it hard with its jaws.

I picked up a lizard...kind of. They are really squirmy. We also saw tigers(that climbed up a tree), elephants (parading around the zoo with their trunks holding the one’s tail in front of them), endangered birds, an echidna, dingoes (look like regular dogs), the worlds most poisonous snakes (lots in Aussie!), and many more things. I hung out mostly with Angie, Tracy, Mike, Courtney Angie G, and Mary. Everyone took a ton of pictures (except for me.. who has lost my camera.) I’m hoping I left it on the bus on Monday…they are supposed to be looking for it soon. I really, really hope its there. I love my camera and the awesome pictures I take with it! We were at the zoo for 7 hrs.. and while we didn’t really run out of things to do, after buying a few souvenirs I was definitely ready to go.

I fell asleep on the ride home—until I was awoken because we were at the same rinky-dink eating place for the 3rd time. I tried a meat pie…because my church singing friends told me I had to. Very popular Aussie food. I wasn’t too fond of it. Then another 2 hrs on the bus. Long day. Tomorrow I sing at church.

Me and the Roos

Mike Let us Get In His Koala Picture!

Ocean Dives

2/16

Sundive picked us up at 9am for day of diving. We had a bit over an hour of pool training and then lunch. During the pool session I was completely miserable. My stomach felt sick my throat felt “cold”-y, and I just didn’t want to be there. I had even gone to bed fairly early the night before to prepare for the day. Anyway, we had lunch at Subway…I tried something new so I was proud of myself.

After lunch we got our gear together and drove down to the beach. It is about a 10 minute boat ride from the shore to Julian rocks and let me just say—I don’t like boats on the ocean. I took my Dramamine but I guess not enough in advance because I was feeling pretty sick by the time that we got there.

So I was the first to fall back into the water because “seasickness would go away as soon as you get in the water.” Not a true statement exactly. The waves were pretty big so I still continued to be rocked with water splashing over my head. The current was REALLY strong so as hard as I kicked I wasn’t getting anywhere… then I had the sensation of not being able to get enough air into my lungs. So I was the only one in the water, felt like I was suffocating and couldn’t get myself to the dang mooring line so I started to freak out a little and breathe very poorly. It made me think of Dad telling me not to flip out when I got stung by the Fire Coral in Cozumel because that was how people drowned. Diving made me want him there but thinking about it also calmed me down.

I was the first one down the rope. My ears didn’t present as much of an issue as I thought they would but I probably did plug my nose and blow about every foot or so.

We stayed right by our buddies, Dave was mine. He’s a pretty big guy and used the most oxygen of anyone… so I kept hoping his would run out and we could go up. But it wasn’t so bad after a while. Though the water conditions were not great. Visibility was about 10 meters and the current was taking us everywhere. You would feel like you couldn’t swim forward to catch the group and then you would be pushed 10 feet really quickly.

The first dive was a pleasure dive. Meaning we didn’t have to do any skills check-offs. The second we had to do a half mask clear, alternate air source buddy breathing and ascents, fin pivots, and regulator recovery.

We saw Wobbegong sharks, a HUGE sting ray sitting in the sand (probably at least 7 feet across), bright colorful fish (Nemos and Dorys), huge purple fish- I touched one, Sea Turtles (I pet one!), an eel (his needle teeth were sticking out), huge starfish, and many other things.
After the first dive we basically came back and switched out our equipment with new oxygen tanks and went right back out. The Dramamine was doing its job the second time but the visibility had gotten worse.

It was very cool to see all of the marine life, and I did enjoy it. In the morning I hated it but by 6pm when we finally got done I thought it was pretty cool.

We have two more open water dives before we get certified. I was supposed to do them on Sunday but they were leaving at 9 and I’m supposed to sing at church so I got my last dives moved to another BSU group next Friday. That’s perfectly fine with me considering we have a full day tomorrow going to the Australia Zoo. I will be fine to not spend another day diving this weekend afterwards.

I came home, checked my email, took a 45 min nap, made dinner (chicken nuggets and cheese pasta), took a shower and then headed to the cabins. I don’t want to go to the zoo…but everyone else is so I am. Oh peer pressure. 6am for 66 bucks and lots of bus travel. oh boy.

Getting ready to roll off the boat

PS.. these pictures arent mine... or even my trip

But we saw the same stuff.. and they are Craig's so its cool!

A Wobbegong Shark

Can you find Nemo?

Julian Rocks.. the location of our 4 open water certification dives

We're Moving

2/15

The day started off pretty slowly. I did a bunch of stuff on the computers when I woke up… talking to the family, putting up blogs and sending Facebook gifts and messages for V-Day in the US.

I talked to the American guy at church on Julie’s phone and he decided to pick me up at 3:30 pm so I could practice with the praise band. I picked up my room a bit then went to practice.

It was pretty fun. They gave me a little tiny echo solo and said I had a pretty voice… although I’m sure they would have said it regardless of what I sounded like since I was volunteering to sing with them. It was cool to just be on my own with the locals. It’s funny how they speak the same language as us but because of the slang and accent I often find myself answering questions to which I never understood.

It was me, the American guy, his 17 yr old daughter, a woman about my parents age, an older man and the worship leader. We learned about 4 songs and listened to some differing viewpoints about what should be done where- in the order of repetition.

Then it was time for the cookout with Jim Coffin. He wanted feedback about the program. Went to the cabins for a bit then I came back here because they were all doing homework. Tomorrow is SCUBA. Oh boy.

Oh ps my dad told me we were moving this morning. I pretty much flipped out but I’m better now. Hopefully they will like it...they’ve been talking about moving forever. I just don’t know if we’re the cow-raising type. Haha. It’s a farm house in Warren’s district apparently about 10 minutes from our house now. What an adventure.

The new house

The barn... where the cow will live.

Swamps and Stars

2/14

So we went on a marine bio field trip today. It started our miserable. Everyone teased me for “falling asleep” during lecture in the morning but I couldn’t sleep last night. I don’t know why. And I didn’t actually fall asleep in Marine Biology…I was still listening.

Anyway our field trip in the afternoon was to the Mangrove swamps. We got off the bus in the middle of nowhere and had to find “the path” which was basically created as we walked through the ankle deep mud. It smelled bad, there were bugs all over, and I don’t care much about identifying mangrove trees.

After that part was over, we went to a beach type place and collected sand samples looking for creatures. We saw a dolphin fairly close to us, and billion Soldier Crabs. There were so many of them that you could hear them walking. It was pretty cool. We all picked them up and played with them. Then we set nets out to collect fish for identification. We all pulled the nets in and there were a million fish including 2 large stingrays, a crab, a couple with poisonous spines, huge ones, little ones, and many, many herring that liked to get caught in the nets. Our job was to release and count all of the extras, as well as free the ones that got caught.

On the ride home I got dropped off in town to do some Valentines shopping. The girls all did a kind of secret santa exchange and went to dinner. I got lots of caramel chocolate, and crispy M&M’s from Mary.

Dinner was delicious and being able to walk on the beach and look at the amazing stars here in the middle of February on Valentines Day was pretty spectacular. I know how lucky I am…you all are fighting the blizzard to do anything and I was on the beach.

I miss and love all of you and am thinking of you on your American Valentines Day.

The Soldier Crabs

The Mangrove Swamp

Sting Ray we caught

Surfing and Dog Racing

2/13

Got up in the morning at 7:30 to go surfing with Angie, JD, Tracy, Mike and Mike Hab. We were running late to catch the bus (I hit snooze 3 times without even thinking about it) and it was raining- so we left a message at the surf school that maybe we could do it next week. An hour later I was informed that we were catching the next bus to Byron for a lesson because the surfing conditions were “perfect.” That’s what I call cold and raining don’t you?

Anyway, we took the lesson with Greg at Byron Bay Surf School. All of us got up but didn’t stay up too long. Not me anyway. The rip tide was horrible. You could barely stand in one place, let alone walk forward with your board. But we did learn the basics, and had fun doing it. It definitely wore us out though. They gave us ½ off surf board hire for another time because the water was so sucky.

We walked around Byron for a bit while we waited for the bus back home. I bought a cute little brown sundress for $10 AUD. Good deal.

Upon arrival at camp I showered, did some homework, and then it was off to the dog races for Sports Administration. I lost $10 bucks gambling.. oh peer pressure. But it was fun. Go “Ima Defastest!” Haha.

Came back, watched Miss Congeniality.

This is the group of us with our boards!

Out dog racing!

In front of the track..our dogs always lost.

Planning Trips

2/12

For Life and Culture class we went to Gnibi College at Southern Cross University in Lismore. Gnibi is the aboriginal college that has classes open to non-aboriginal students as well. I wasn’t so excited about this trip because it meant the 3 hour lecture in our classroom, a 45 minute drive, and then another lecture.

The lecture was not very good. I thought it would be interesting to learn about the aboriginal lifestyle but the first presenter was quite a dull speaker, and the second professor gave us a “talking to” about needing to be thankful for being in Australia, and also lectured at us that they didn’t lecture at their students like in the states. Ironic we weren’t allowed to share any information or express how lucky we know we are that we are in Aussie.

The coolest part of the field trip was that we got to ride on a double Decker bus. I sat on the top in the very front and got to look out the huge window.

When we got back, Tracy and I did our marine bio. Later we had our weekly meeting/cookout then we began the long, stressful process of booking our trips to Cairns and Sydney. Ashley JD and I are leaving for both trips on Wednesdays and returning on Sunday. Tracy and Angie are Thursday, and Mike and Craig on Friday. There is also going to be a big group from the lodge in Sydney at the same tie as us.

Next weekend we have free, the next two we will be in New Zealand for Spring Break, the next we will be in Cairns (pronounced Cannes... not Carnes) for our diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef, the next we will be on our Tenterfield fieldtrip for Life and Culture, and the following is Sydney. We got a Valentines buddy-airfare deal so the flights aren’t as bad as we thought they would be. After Sydney there are two more weekends and then I’m off to the Cook Islands for 10 days before I come home. Its going to go fast!

This is my real cake.. decorations by Angie K

The bus!

I'm 20 Now

My 2oth Birthday present from the Family...

A COLTS superbowl jersey! !

Of course this is just an addition to getting to live

in Paradise for 3 months

2/11

So I woke up about 7 this morning feeling a little homesick and such. So I walked down to the beach to remind myself how amazingly lucky I was. It worked but I still thought about home. Then Julie and I went to the market that was set up beside the lake on the way to town. There were fresh fruits and veggies, jewelry, food vendors and lots of different things. It was pretty cool.



Then I came back and got ready for church. I walked through the market again to meet Steve who was picking us all up. Matt and I were the only people that were there on time so he shuttled us to his house to wait for everyone else. So Steve, his wife, his son Luke, Angie, Tracy, Jd, Ashley, Chelsea, Brie, Matt and I walked to a non-denominational church that was a couple blocks from Steve’s house.


The service started out great. We sang several praise songs. It was awesome to be in a church service that you can just kind of let it go. You aren’t pinned down. You can sing and move and clap and.. rejoice however you please. The rest of the service was alright…my main problem with it was that it lasted too long. (We’ve discussed my short attention span before.) After it was over they said we had to have some tea and snacks and talk to three people.


Normally I like talking to and meeting to new people, but I had to hold myself tight for most of the sermon because he said “home” about every 3 words. I just had a hard time coping with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to see my family at all, or my best friends that would have made the day special for me even if it was just random hugs throughout the day, or not having an annual jess and tom birthday bash…which probably won’t ever happen again.


But that’s life. We’re put in different places at different times, and blessed with the company of different people for various sequences of time. Its how life is meant to be.


Anyway I didn’t go talk to 3 people; I stood my the door and watched until a man came over to me and asked me what was wrong. I told him it was birthday and I was feeling a little homesick, he told me he was American and still had 3 sisters living in California so he definitely knew what that felt like.


So he told the song/worship leader that it was my birthday and everyone sang to me. I was a little embarrassed but I think it was just because of the mood I was in. Then they asked me if I was a singer because I seemed to be really into the praise part, I told them I was and they asked me to come to praise band practice on Thursday to sing. So I might be singing at that church on Sundays.


After we left the church we went to the bakery. I was still in a weird mood and just kept wandering off on my own. We shopped the market more on the way home and then I laid out for a while, went to visit the crew and went back to start getting ready for the night.


Most of the Ball State crew ended up going to the Chinese restaurant in town to celebrate… it was pretty cool that so many people went. The mass walk into town kind of made me giddy. ;0) Dinner was nice, we played telephone, took pictures, made an awesome video and of course ate. Tracy bought my dinner… she’s a sweetheart, and cabin 3 had a card for me.


After dinner I went down to the cabin for my “surprise party.” They had baked me a cake, had a happy birthday sign and balloon table cloth. We all ate cake and ice cream and then went stargazing on the beach. It was pretty spectacular.


It was a nice 20th birthday indeed. I am so thankful to be here and have all of you amazing people in my life…near or far.

Angie cutting the awesome birthday cake they made me..

they didnt even have a cake pan!

At the Chinese Restaurant (Craig, JD, me, Tracy)

Crazy Night

2/10

So today was a fairly lazy day. I woke up and got on the computer, went to lay out, got in the pool, did my math homework, and talked to Tracy and Ashley. After a while, Ashley, Tracy, Mary, Courtney and I went in to town for a couple different things.


On our way back home we ran into the SCUBA and surfing crew. We showered up, Mary, Angie G and I ordered Dominos (which is not the same here... the pepperoni tastes like slimjim) Then we went down for a little celebrating at the cabins. It was quite an interesting night.


I was given a birthday cake… which was a pb&J with a rolled up post-it note with orange marker colored at the end to look like a candle. I carried it around all night... but never actually ate it. I also had a giant card made by cabin 2 on a dry erase board.


I was in a talkative mood I guess you could say. I tried to help people out, and make people understand things, listen to and give advice, as well as telling people fairly openly about myself. Not sure if that was a good or bad idea… you've got to open up sometimes though.


I ended up sleeping in Mike’s bed while he slept on the couch because both Mary and Angie were upset with me. It wasn’t the best way to kick off the birthday… but there were some fun times for sure.

My "Birthday Cake" from Chelsea and Brie

JD, Tracy and I with my first birthday card

Day in The Pool

2/9

I was up by 8 this morning to go to the beach club for white chocolate chip or banana pancakes with JD, Angie, Tracy, Ashley, Mike and Craig even though the bus was leaving for Byron SCUBA at 9.Well, as we finished our beach walk we discovered that it wasn’t even open, so we debated for a moment and decided to go to the bakery in town.

Tracy and I power-walked there—knowing that I had only moments to spare in order to get back on time. So we got there and shoved a chocolate muffin and iced coffee down our throats before the rest of the crew even got there. I ran halfway home, wearing flip flops and a jean skirt in fear of being late for the bus. I got there very hot and sweaty but with time to spare; I was ready to go before one of the guys was even out of bed actually.

So Sundive picked us up and we went into Byron to the shop. It was one very long day. 9am-6:30pm. I enjoyed it a lot of first, in part because I was good at things and as you know…like to make competition. We wore full wetsuits in the pool so it got pretty hot. We learned how to assemble/dissemble all of our gear, techniques such as finding a lost mask putting it back on and clearing it, taking off all of your gear underwater and putting it back on (my least favorite… it also was the last thing we did), buddy breathing and many more things. However we had to get dive medicals that were scheduled for 3:30 so everything was in a rush. We had one 10 minute bathroom break. But no lunch until after our medicals. We were all pretty much dead after being in the pool that long-breathing out of a tank.

I was very excited about becoming certified, but my ears were already popping in the 6 feet of water and by the end of the day my entire body was feeling it. I’m hoping my thoughts about not liking SCUBA are just because we had very long day- many tedious things and “not getting anything from it.”

Anyway, we have a bit more to learn in the pool and then we will do ocean dive 1 of 4 for our certification probably next Friday.

Oh ps, I got sick after I got home from SCUBA. The ride back to camp I tried to keep my gaze forward out the window. I think it was a combination of being exhausted, motion sickness, and probably a little dehydration. It was not fun. So I took an hour nap.

Tonight Cabin 2 + myself, Craig and Courtney tried to plan out our diving trip to Cairns (The Great Barrier Reef) for some weekend in March (I clearly pay a lot of attention.) It is going to be one pricey trip. We have to ride a bus from here to Ballina, a greyhound from Ballina to Brisbane and then fly to Cairns. Then the boys decided that the best plan was to do a day trip of 3 dives. I'm a little frightened of this...in part because thats a lot of diving for a beginner, and also thats an entire day on a rocky ocean boat. Add in hostel fees and food…we’re looking at 700+ bucks for a weekend. But its something you’ve got to do in the land down under…and I worked over break, I guess. Haha.

Plans to Sydney are also needing to be worked out and perhaps Melbourne as well.

On the way back to the lodge tonight we stopped to lay in the grass and look at the stars. I wish I knew more about them, not that I haven’t learned constellations 10 million times, but I find it difficult to remember.

Getting all of our equipment together..our 2 instructors on the right

A group of 8 of us went for our first confined water dives

SCUBA classroom time

2/8


So I had classroom SCUBA class today from 9-5ish, then we had a meeting about surfing. I might do that this or next weekend. SCUBA was kind of dull; we learned how to use the dive charts and stuff. So tomorrow half of us have our first pool session from 9-6. That’s a long time. It’s in Byron Bay, so maybe we'll get to buy groceries there, since I'll be missing the Ballina free shopping bus again.

We went into town tonight, to listen to some bands play. It was the best live music I've heard here yet. Danced and had a good time with the girls. This is a short entry but there isn’t much to speak of… and I'm tired.

This is Julian Rocks in Byron Bay

Where we will do our open water dives for certification

Ocean Samples to the Uni

2/7

So we had Marine Biology in the morning. That class is quite a bore to be honest, during the lecture anyway. Basically everyone has to really focus on the guy to fall asleep. It’s not that he's a terrible professor; actually he's a very nice guy and knows his stuff and is excited about it. He just doesn’t present the information in a very engaging manner. Anyway, the second half of class we took a field trip to Byron Bay to collect water samples to classify plankton. I started to feel a little seasick, even though I had taken Dramamine. Haha. I'm a wimp.

So we collected the samples, and headed to Southern Cross University (the Uni as they call it here) to use their labs. Tracy was my partner so mostly we found stuff and she would figure out the classification and then I would draw and record it. It was okay.

On the bus ride home I was still feeling a little queasy to I went to sleep and woke up when the bus stopped, expecting to be back at camp. However, Phil (the groundkeeper and local know every plant and animal bushman) took us on a detour to a local waterfall. We hiked to the top and then Phil said he'd been to the bottom before. So we found a path that had been blocked off and made the hike down.

When we got back to camp I sat around for a while and went down to the cabins… you know, the usual. Came back and tried to fall asleep. But that doesn’t happen very easily when people start coming back from town for the night- especially your roommates.

Tracy and I on the sample collecting boat

Another group out on the boat...

Yes, it looks calm here.. dont be fooled. Outside the bay...HUGE JUMPS in the boat.. I fell down.

The Waterfall

Under the Waterfall

Sting Ray Run

2/6

Angie, Tracy and I ran in the morning. We got up at 6 am and the weather was gorgeous-not to hot or cold and the sun was rising and dancing through the clouds. We ran the beach about to the edge of town and back. We did walk a little and stopped for a break at the end (but I ran to go get my camera because we found a sting ray washed up on the shore.)

I came back, made an omelet and went back to bed. I know- lazy. I did some homework, went to the cabins and then had sports administration. Its schedules from 6:30-9:30pm but our professor moved it to 4pm because “he’s usually in his slippers by 9.” The class wasn’t as exciting as the previous week- it was rather slow actually. Between one boy and I we talked for probably 80% of the time (answering questions and what not.) I do think the course material is interesting though- perhaps more so than any other university class I’ve taken. Not the sports part of it specifically but we’ve been looking at marketing. We read this 20 page article about the over-abundance of companies defining their industries in the wrong way (especially in the past). Such as the railroad companies defining themselves as in the “ever-popular railroad industry” rather than a transportation industry. It may sound simple- or I may have just made it sound stupid- but I was surprised how well the fairly repetitive, quite long paper had held my interest. Hmm… maybe a starting point for my future??

Oh and next week we are going to watch dog racing (which is apparently a fairly popular and classy sport to bet on here.) I’m not sure what to think about that.

After class I went down to the cabins to wait for my Subway (they picked it up for me since Tuesday is 2 for 1 foot long special.) I was there for a whole waiting since my class got over early- so I did some reading.

We went swimming in the pool after dinner, so I got to try out my new goggles! Which reminds me! My birthday present came from mom and dad: A Joseph Addai Superbowl XLI jersey!!! How freaking awesome is that? Several people have asked me how I managed to come up with it. Although I have to admit I was a bit confused opening it- when I first caught a glimpse of it I though I had for some reason received a Bronco’s jersey. Haha. But- I LOVE IT! Thanks mom and dad!!!!!

Anyway.. in the pool we (basically meaning myself) did some relays and just played around. Then everyone but Tracy, Angie and I got out ad we stayed in to look at the stars. I must say, when we turned the lights out- they were pretty spectacular. The Milky Way was clear and winding across the sky, and you could see Orion, the Southern Cross and just billions of sparkly white stars.

Following our stargazing I showered and went to watch a movie- The Notebook- with the gang. I fell asleep in the end.

So this is already long, so I will mention a few more things. Yesterday I got my math book and started trying to do the first lesson today. I was reminded how I hate math. Its been a long time since I’ve done a lot of work with that part of my brain. I write papers now, not think about the Japanese mailman concept. What the heck made me think I could teach myself an entire semester of math? I don’t know. Its not like its super hard or anything but you still have to figure out how to think about it- if that makes any sense.

Haha. A couple people have already offered to help- but you know me- I want to be able to do it on my own. And I feel like an idiot getting help with Ball State’s easiest math class.

And lastly, on a more excited note…Jeremy (the assistant vocal director of “Footloose!” at Footlite this summer wrote me an email saying he had been named the Vocal director for the show this summer “Will Rodger’s Follies” and thought I should take a look at the lead female role! So that’s pretty cool.

PS- Any comments are welcome and appreciated on any and all blog posts! I’d love to hear what you think about what I’m up to!

This is the stingray...

Me and Angie During our Run

THE COLTS WIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHH COLTS WIN!!!!

INDIANAPOLIS COLTS

SUPERBOWL XLI CHAMPIONS!!!!!!

We got to watch the game in our classroom. Made a little party out of it. Most of the group was there and watched but there weren't very many super Fans. I certainly was yelling and smiling and screaming and jumping enough for several people though. I just can't believe it!!!!

I wasnt able to talk to anyone at home during the game... even though I was on SKYPE all day. Ahem to those of you I was supposed to talk to. I definitly wish that I was in Indy... I got sad for the first time when I opened up the picture Dad sent of all the Colts stuff in our basement this morning...but how many of you celebrated by running to the beach and jumping into the ocean?!

My fellow usually enthusiastic fan group

(JD, Angie G, Luke(our directors son), and Mary)

My girls Tracy and Angie after THE WIN!! They were laughing at me because I was SOOO excited!!

Me and Luke cheering it UP!!!!

GO COLTS!!!

Get Ready to Do the BLUE

2/4/07

I woke up this morning and got online. I got to talk to my family…and KR for the first time! It was lovely to talk to both of them. Abby was in a good mood because she did really well in sectionals. 10th place!! Awesome.

I can’t stop thinking about the Superbowl! Tomorrow morning our Indianapolis Colts are playing in the biggest game of the year. Ahhh! I can’t wait! We’re having a party in the classroom. Which hopefully means people will behave and watch the game.

I went and read on the beach today, took a shower and then talked on AIM for a bit...It’s good to be away from the drama back home like this.

We then had a make-up class so that we can watch the game tomorrow instead. It was AUS Life & Culture and pretty boring again. Its just too long. But we did watch a pretty pwerful movie clip.

After class it was dinner, and then lots of reading for class. I need to go to sleep so I can be ready for the game tomorrow!!!

Indianapolis COLTS!!!

Hike to the Light House

2/3/07

We got up in the morning and went into town and got breakfast. I got a bacon and egg sandwich...that’s pretty popular here. Then we went shopping. I bought myself a belt...a gold high-waist one. And I also bought a ring...it is leather and has a turquoise and red flower. Its pretty awesome. It is also probably the first ring I've owned since like 4th grade. haha.

Then we went on the hike to the lighthouse. It was a bit over an hour, but we did it at noon- in the baking sun and it was pretty intense. There were lots and lots of stairs. I told Abby if it had been mom wanting to do it, the three of us girls would have whined so much about it....but because it was friends who wanted to...several of us just asked why we were… covertly. haha. But it was definitely worth it- so thanks to JD for making us all go.

The scenery was amazing and we saw lots of wildlife: dolphins, sea turtles, wild turkey things, a monitor (big lizard), I even held a crab. We went out to Australia's most eastern point and took a bunch more pictures.

After it was over I took a little nap and then went grocery shopping before boarding the bus. Getting home was a fiasco all its own... eventually we were home. Definitely got my walking in for the day.

I cooked myself some spaghetti for dinner, uploaded pictures to Facebook and then went to bed. Good weekend!

This is Tracy modeling the lighthouse

Me holding a crab we found on the beach

Australia's most Eastern point

The girls and our awesome pose on the Byron beach after our hike

Girls at the top by the lighthouse

Tracy, Angie, me, Ashley

Tracy and I on the Little Mermaid rock!