Just Uni

Hi. Pretty tired so I'll make my post quick. Woke up and had class 9 to 3. Four hours learning about the rainforest is A LOT. Agro was alright. Conservation Bio was pretty boring, looked at pictures of extinct megafauna. Came back and sat and watched the rain. Just missed getting drenched on the way to and back from uni today. We have had almost no sun the past four days, it keeps pouring on and off. Like torrential rain. But I like it, it keeps things cool and its fun to watch. The thunder was so loud last night, it shook the whole building. Went to the gym and hung around until dinner with my friends. Met another girl from Tasmania! Then just a quiet night in when I probably should have been doing work, but maybe tomorrow ;)

New Camo Pants!

Hello! Today was a really good day. A few of my friends, including my roommates did not have class today either so we went to Smithfield Shopping Center to get some stuff we needed.... and some stuff we definitely didn't need but just wanted. First we went to "Salvos", the Salvation Army. I've never heard it called that have you? I got 2 pairs of extremely stylish gray cargo pants, one in camo even, for my fieldwork, so the bugs will no longer be able to sting me through my pants. Not fun. Friday, when I have all my gear on, I'll be sure to take a picture. I'll be quite the sight. Then we kind of just bummed around the mall, got some earrings, more school supplies, missed lunch at the lodge so I got sushi, yum. Got streamers to decorate our living room yay! I'll show you once we do it, I've been really bad about pictures lately, but theres been nothing worth taking a picture of!

We came back, I went to the gym, went swimming, and then did like 3 hours of reading on tropical rainforests before dinner. I'm ending the night with a Season 3 Glee marathon! woot woot. Class tomorrow.
Love you lots and always.

Progress

G'day all. Today was nothing special but I actually did some school work! Crazy I know. I accidentally slept in till 12, grabbed some breakfast and then headed to the gym. Felt good to work out for the first time in 3 weeks! Well, besides hiking. After that I came back and got to skype with Grandma!! :) Then I spent the rest of the day doing readings for class. After dinner I watched Harry Potter #6! Don't ask me how we got on this HP kick because I really don't know. That is really about it... The week should get progressively more interesting with classes, dingo time, and a trip to the outback this weekend! I'll keep you posted ;)

The Art of Being Unproductive

Alright here we go, I was bad once again and did not update yesterday so I'll cover both days right now! Yesterday morning I woke up and skyped with Dad, Sharen and Megan for a while, always fun :) Miss you guys! Oh and I signed up for the gym across the street! Very much needed. Then I went into the city with my roommates Cat and Sam, and my friends Molly, Kayleigh and Ruth. The first thing we did was head to woolworths, a common grocery store chain, where I picked up new sunscreen since mine broke in my backpack and spilled everywhere... not fun. Next we headed to "Maccas" or MacDonalds, they don't have a dollar menu here but it's not expensive and the food is actually the same. We took it over to the lagoon and ate there. Sorry, I didn't take any pictures but I've showed you it before! We browsed through the markets by the lagoon, went swimming, and tanned in the sun for a while. I fell asleep in the sun and woke up when I sensed a shadow over me, to find Sam's face leaning right over me, not the funnest way to wake up!After, we headed over to the night markets where I bought a sarong that I actually use to hang over my window, its a pretty tie dye color, and then we got gelato!!! Mars bar flavor and chocolate chip YUM. Sorry, I do know I talk about my food in like all of my blogs, but it's just what I always remember!!! After that we hopped onto the bus and came back for dinner. That night I just hung out with friends by the pool, met more people, a nice end to a great day. 

Today I quite honestly did nothing. I woke up late, had breakfast, skyped a lot, bought lava cake, a mars bar, and chicken drumstick flavored Shapes (actually very good), watched a few episodes of Dance Moms, took a nap, went to dinner, and watched Harry Potter #5 with friends. I quite honestly cannot say I did anything else. But I mean it is a Sunday. Tomorrow I'm going to wake up, go to the gym and do some school work!!!!!!!!! You'll see. 

Learning to Speak Effectively

Hello people of America! Today started out like every other day, I slept through breakfast and went to my first class at 10 am, Effective Speaking, basically public speaking but not because we will also be studying our vocals and taking care of them and what not. There are a few international students, but no other Americans, so I think I will be able to learn a lot from everyone in my class. This is my largest class at about 30 students. We also will do quick physical warmups every class. Today we do some weird rope exercise and that one where you have to grab hands with two people across the circle from you and untangle yourselves.

After that I was starving naturally so I went back to the lodge for lunch and then went to tan by the pool! Seriously hot today. Then I took a two hour nap! Then went to dinner. Very productive day as usual. After dinner I hopped on a free shuttle bus with some friends to a go to a pub sort of place in Palm Cove, only like ten minutes away. We hung out for a bit then went to walk on the beach at night. The stars were absolutely incredible, I wish I could have gotten a picture of them, there is so much less light pollution here. The mountains were silhouetted against the lights from the town off in the distance, the waves crashing, it was honestly just magical. No other way to describe it. After that we came back early and played Scene It! Just a very chill and happy Aussie day :)

Missing you all so much!!!

I Dream of Jeannie Down Under

Very tired, very uneventful day so I'll make my post short so I can go to sleep. I slept through breakfast, of course, went to agroecology at 12, came back to the lodge, did laundry, read a magazine outside in the shade, watched tv, went back to campus to go to conservation biology, it doesn't seem hard, kind of a review of stuff I already know, came back, watched i dream of jeannie until dinner, then after dinner my roommates and I didn't feel satisfied so we went to dominoes and got cheesy garlic bread and lava cake (fyi the cheesy bread is totally different/better in the states), then we just hung in for the night and watched the princess bride. Wow that was a really long sentence. But as you can see, nothing spectacular today, just another day in Australia :)

Getting back on track

Okay so its Thursday morning, heres what happened Wednesday:
It was my first day of actual classes. My first class, Conserving Tropical Rainforests was at 9. Seemed interesting. We each had to pick a seminar topic we will be presenting, I chose something on environmental ethics, deep ecology, and how it relates to the rainforest. Went back, had lunch, then went to Agroecology. It was a video lecture but we had the lecturer with us and we saw the Townsville campus students on TV, so weird. The lecturer is pretty cool but after I had to talk to him about something and he told me a nice bunch of tips: Australians enjoy pulling Americans' legs, they're gonna tear the "mickey" out of me, Americans are not as aware of the rest of the world as the rest of the world is, and that I had to get used to Australian's brusque sense of humor. He was very nice but I did kind of feel like a stupid American. Because of this chat I walked in late to my next class, Conservation Biology, this time a video lecture based in Townsville. Seemed alright, nothing too special.

After class, I got on the bus with some friends and went to Trinity Beach for a BBQ for my friend Chelsea's birthday. (So many birthdays I know.) I got some pretty pictures walking on the beach.

Me!

Yes I really do have friends! 

Hiking and Day One of Uni!

Once again I did not update my blog yesterday so I'll do it today!

Day started pretty rough. I got to sleep in late but I then confirmed the fact that I had a schedule conflict between two of my classes, so I had to get approval for another class which was not on my list before. I headed up to the uni early in the day to go buy some notebooks, pens, folders and get my class situation sorted out at the international office. I managed to make it work so I still don't have class on Mondays and I am now (hopefully) in Agroecology. My other classes I'm taking are Conservation Biology, Conserving Tropical Rainforests, and Effective Speaking. After I figured out my schedule and left the uni I met up with friends at lunch and we decided to go on a hike. It was drizzling a little, but it felt good instead of the sun. We have rain at some point pretty much everyday here. The trail was right behind the uni, in some sort of conservation land, about a mile and half long one way. It was nice, a wide path right in the forest, with some serious uphill parts, so I was definitely sweating by the time we got to the top. At the top was an abandoned house that never got finished because apparently the owner went bankrupt. It was an amazing view over Cairns out to the water, pictures below. We hung out for a while, before going back down a different way, down where their driveway would have been, ended up at the road, then had to hike through tall grass and cane back to the lodge. After that we hopped in the pool and I hung out for the rest of the day until dinner, Brady Bunch was on TV! Along with Happy Days. Very weird. Oh and it was $2 Tim Tam Tuesdays!!! So I got a box of those, and ate 8 of them..... After dinner we got Monopoly from the office and had an intense game. There were 10 of us playing so we divided into teams of two. My teammate and I crushed the competition!!! We won with hotels on the orange and red corner. It was the English version so I don't know the street names they used.  That was pretty much it. I will update you on today tomorrow! love you lots

Battling the sclerophyll forest

Today was a good day. Slept in till 10. Lounged around and skyped until lunch. Attempted to clean my room, didn't work out too well. At 1 pm Liz picked me up and we headed off to Pyramid Mountain to start a new fieldwork site! This had sclerophyll forest instead of rainforest. It was about a 45 minute drive. Mondays are the first day at a new site, so instead of baiting or opening traps we had to measure out the grids and trails where the traps would be set up the next day. We used a meter tape to measure 100 m into the forest because you can't start any closer to the edge than that. Then we had to hack our way off that line to make three separate parallel lines for the traps. It was pretty dense forest. It took us about three hours total. She has used a machete in the past but it was dull from use so we used giant clippers. Hard work let me tell you! But it was amazing in there. I ended covered in sap, dirt, and probably an assortment of bugs but exhilarated! 

A cute dog named Pepper, owned by the people who live right near the mountain.

Their horse.

Wild pig bones, eaten by dingoes.

The view as we are scat collecting.

More views.

Inside the forest.

View from the road.

The pyramid! We were at the base of it. 

Last days before uni!

Okay. So. Tomorrow is Monday, and if I had classes on Mondays I would be starting uni tomorrow, but I'm not so instead I'm going to do some of my fieldwork stuff.

First off, yesterday we went in the city to go shopping and celebrate Shaylin's 20th birthday. We went to the mall, did some shopping, got a pedicure, walked along the Esplanade (a pretty street right by the water), had lunch at the Rattle n' Hum where I had barramundi (a local fish), got gelato, got a braid with beads in my hair that will last two months, went back and did more shopping, got 2 new dresses and a baseball cap to keep the spiders out of my hair while in the field, then went back home and took a nap before dinner and going back into the city that night with more friends.

Today was about as uneventful as possible. I slept in, went to brunch, did some skyping, ate 2 Mars bars, and have so far watched Harry Potter 1 & 2 and will soon be moving on to 3!

I'm sure tomorrow will be more interesting!

Cruising Cairns

G'day! How ya goin'? I did not update my blog last night so I'm doing it this morning. Yesterday we went on a 'cruising cairns' tour where we got on this huge double decker bus and drove around to different cool places in Cairns. I had been to a couple of them already but it was still really fun. I got much tanner from sitting on the top half of the bus! You just had to duck for low lying branches.

We went to Trinity Beach, drove past the Skyrail, went to Palm Cove beach, where a life guard talked about jellyfish stings while my friend Colin dove into the water and got stung! Not by any of the really bad ones, just a hair jellyfish, so he only had a big red welt on his arm. It was a nice demonstration to contribute to the presentation.

Next we went back to the lodge oddly enough and had tea. I mean I didn't have tea, just cookies and a 'sausage and bread'. Then we go back onto the bus and drove into Cairns city. We got off the bus near the mud flats and had to get into groups to do a picture scavenger hunt where everyone in our group had to pose in front of certain things. That was fun, we definitely didn't win though. We were rather slow. We didn't have the motivation to run in the heat like some groups did. But I did get some great pictures out of it! We passed by the lagoon so we jumped in there. Then we stopped for lunch nearby in the shade and they had an Australian football or rugby ball or something like that, and I learned to throw it properly! Not well obviously because I'm athletically inept, but it was not as bad as it could have been!

However, the best part of the tour was where we went next, the Crystal Cascades. It was so beautiful. It was this river coming off the mountains with all these little waterfalls that you could swim in. It was cold and refreshing, unlike the bath water that the ocean feels like, and when you looked up all you could see was rainforest covered mountains towering around you. I never wanted to leave! There were just like little mini drops in the river with rocks so you could climb from one pool to the next. I managed to get a few pictures but I obviously couldn't take my camera in with me so it is hard to describe all of it.

Once they had finally managed to drag us out of there, we got back on the bus and headed back to Campus. I spent the night just hanging with my friends. Tonight it is my friend Shaylin's birthday so we are going into the city to go shopping and get lunch! Should be a fun day. Enjoy the pictures. Miss you all. Don't forget to wear your "windcheater"!

I hope  you can understand how large this spider is.

View of the mountains.

Our lovely bus

In front of the ocean at Palm Cove with Annie. 

High risk for stingers today!

My group on a giant fish at Muddy's playground

Yupp, even the trees want to hurt you here.

Walk down to the water at Crystal Cascades. 

Me! 

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I've been up since 3 am!

But it was totally worth it! I woke up today at 3 am. Liz, the honors student doing this research project, picked me up at 3:30 and we headed off to the cane fields first. Imagine walking through dense cane fields feet taller than you in the pitch black with nothing but a headlamp! See pictures from the daytime below. It was actually a great time. We went through all the traps we had set up the night before and checked to see if there were any little critters inside! We actually caught about 11 animals. melomys, which are kind of like a mouse, and some rats. They were both very cute. We took their tail length, pes length (foot pad), weight, sex, etc. etc. Lot's of data recording. Oh and I got to ear tag the animals we caught! We did that until almost 6 when the sun was coming up.

Then we headed over to the rainforest and did the same thing. Except we unfortunately caught nothing but cane toads, an annoying invasive, which don't count. It was an absolutely beautiful morning. It is so cool to be able to hike through there. But omg! There was a horrible moment when this spider, called a shield spider, I guess got on my head because all of the sudden I see it dropping in front of on one of it's threads! EW. I nearly died. Look it up though, it's pretty cool looking. We ended pretty quickly because there were no animals to record.

I got back a little before 8 am. I got some breakfast then took a morning swim! I was pretty gross. I looked like I was rolling around in dirt and prickers. I'll have to show you a picture of how ridiculous I look in my long pants and k-mart boots! I fell asleep by the pool for a bit, then I went back to my room, where I slept some more, then I went to lunch, went back to the pool, swam in the rain for a little bit, which quickly turned to sun, burned my chest, then came back did laundry, tried to put my clothes in the dryer, paid 3 dollars to have the drier eat my money and not work, so hung my clothes up to dry. So frustrating. Then went back out in the field at 3:30 to rebait the traps and collect scat samples. Of course when I left it downpoured but my roommates were nice enough to take in my clothes for me.  :) Once it got dark we did spot lighting! I saw 9 wallabies and a snake!!!! So cute. Thats when we got caught in the downpour and had to leave.

Sorry this was so long and choppy, super tired!!! But so much happened today and I want to remember it all.
Love and miss you all whoever happens to be reading this!

The view from where we enter the rainforest 

Elliot trap with cane tree toad

Larger wire trap

View upwards from the forest floor (tilt head right) 

Cane fields

This is how dense it is

Well, no need to join a gym for a while

Today I slept in for the first time till like 10 and it was great! I lounged around, did some skyping and then went to the Smithfield Shopping Centre to pick up some hiking boots and sunglasses for my fieldwork today! I successfully scored a size 5 pair of men's workboots at Kmart.

Then at 3:30 pm, Liz, the student working on her Honors project, picked me up and we headed off to the rainforest! We drove up a bit and then we got out and did some serious hiking up through the mountain to where she had different traps set up in grids for the small mammals she is trying to catch. I apologize for not taking any pictures but the inside of the rainforest is amazing! It is so dense and green and lush. And theres always something scurrying around your feet. The bait we used was some sort of mixture of peanut butter and granola I beleieve. We opened and rebaited all the traps so that hopefully tomorrow at 3:30 am when we go back to check them, there will be lots of little critters! Apparently there is a high trap success rate. We went through grid lines of traps which took somewhere over an hour before heading back to the car to our next location. There were so many "mozzys" but Bushman bug spray works amazing!! I highly recommend it.

The next spot was at a cane field. The cane was high over my head and the traps were set along narrow trampled paths in the fields. There were three more gridlines here that we went through, opening and rebaiting them where necessary. Liz saw a dingo while we were there but I missed it! Apparently there are a mom and cubs nearby. After that we got a few scat samples for testing, recording the GPS location each time for when she compiles the data.

All in all very exciting, but very tiring! I will be going to bed early tonight so I can wake up at 3 am tomorrow!

O week all day

Today was not super eventful. No great pictures to share. I went to a tour of campus for science majors starting at 9 am and lasting till 12. Wayyyyyyy too long. Met some faculty, got a feel for the campus, got more free subway. I just really felt like I was going through freshman orientation again, because that is who it was really for. After that went to another orientation thing to help me with the internet. Then I went to the Smithfield shopping center with my friends where I got a couple of really cute dresses and a cake for an American friend here who turned 21 today! Unfortunately it was not as exciting here as it would have been in the US, but we still celebrated with her. That was all for today. Tomorrow I go out on dingo research! Chat with you soon xoxo

A dingo ate my baby!!

Just kidding. But exciting news about dingoes that I will get to in a second. I didn't post yesterday, but my day was very uneventful, I just lounged around, went to the pool, met new people, and hung with friends. Oh I did go to this orientation thing though and had a "sausage and bread" it was like a hotdog but they use just regular slices of bread instead of buns, apparently this is common.

Today I went to an orientation thing where I got a free Subway sandwich! Fun fact: here the foot longs are $7 not $5. But then again, everything is more expensive here. I also got my student ID card, see photo attached, could've been worse. After that we hopped on the bus, of course, and went to Trinity Beach! Absolutely beautiful, I'll show you some pictures. Some people played volleyball, naturally I took a nap. The water had those jellyfish nets up so you could only swim in a certain area.

But the most exciting news of the day is that I will be taking part in a research project on dingoes! I will be getting hands on fieldwork experience. It is about dingo diet and prey availability. Its over a two month period in which I will be volunteering on a postgraduate research project where we go to different locations and set traps, take DNA samples, record data, take scat samples, learn mark-recapture techniques, etc etc. I don't know all the details yet but I am super pumped and will be going out for the first time on Wednesday!! I'll be sure to let you know how it goes.

Also, I am probably going to volunteer at the Cairns Tropical Zoo! :)

See ya later alligators.

Trinity Beach: 

My New Student ID! 

Rustys!

Another fun relaxing day!!! Today we went into downtown Cairns, taking the bus of course. We need to take the bust to go everywhere, and since we dont have our student ID's yet it costs like 7 dollars for round trip. So annoying! Soon it will be much cheaper, once with have the student rate. I have included a picture of the bus stop since we practically live there. After our 25 minute bus ride we got off and went to Rusty's market. It is an open air market that is only open on the weekends and has all this amazing fresh fruit, souvenirs and snacks for super cheap. I got the most delicious peaches! And I got a sushi roll. So much goodness. Then we went and sat outside for a while, and just enjoyed the warm air and beautiful breeze that does not seem to happen too often. The air is so dead here. Then we headed over to the lagoon, I think I put up a picture of it earlier but I will again. It is like this giant pool that is really more like a beach. It is needed because of how often the beaches are unavailable due to the deadly jellyfish. The lagoon overlooks right onto the ocean, its amazing. Then we took the bus back and went to dinner, which just so happened to be Mexican night! Hanging with friends tonight. Enjoy the pics, love and miss you all. 

The lagoon

The bus stop

View from the bus stop

Rusty's

Unpacked!

I finally unpacked today. It was starting to become necessary considering my room looked like a bomb had gone off. Should've taken a picture of that. Right now its 5:12 pm. Dinner is at 6 and I am totally starving. Today we had a little introductory meeting at the school before 'O' week, orientation week, which starts on Sunday. Just tons of paperwork and things for classes I have to do. Very very overwhelming. I met someone from Holland and Germany! There were international students from all over the world. Then we had lunch, but I didn't eat a lot, hence why I'm starving. Tried TimTams this chocolate thing they have here, AMAZING. Then we went to our pool we have at the Lodge. Its very nice, partially in the shade, I need to remember to get a picture. My tan is definitely progressing! So exciting.  Here are some pics of where I am staying, and me with the koala, please excuse my grossness! :) peace out cub scouts. 

 

right after i moved in, looks pretty sad haha

 my shoe shrine above my desk :)

me and sampson! 

our living room

the view out my door, im on the ground level there are 3 floors