The past few weekends

Almost up-to-date with my travel pictures and things! So you get two weekends in this update, and then I'll fill you in on last weekend (hopefully tomorrow), and everything will be caught up!

How is the photobucket working for you? Is it easy to navigate? Does it crash your computer?
It *is* entirely possible to leave comments on this blog without having a blogspot, just so you know. If you have a problem seeing the pictures or something, you can let me know. That's ok with me.

After Boulia, when I was busy hating a paper, I went down to the post office and picked up my Easter package from Mom! It had a chocolate Bilby, which is a cute little Australian rodent. Apparently a percentage of the chocolate bilby sales go to conservation or something. They're real cute:

(This picture also includes the chocolate frog and eggs from the Easter basket and my Boulia rock collection)
But it's hard to go for Bilby ears:


Anyway, May 1st was a Saturday. My American friend from the Whitsunday trip called me up and invited me to a BBQ on the Strand (which is the touristy beachfront park in Townsville). She and some friends picked me up... and informed me that we were going to a beach out-of-the-way first... not to swim... or even to go all the way down to the water... or even get as far as the sand... they just wanted to look.
I understand that there are box jellies this time of year, but what's the point of going to a beach to sit above the path and look at the view?


Afterwards we hiked up Castle Hill, which is a huge... well, hill in Townsville that all the tourists hike up once and vow never to hike up again. And, of course, I was wearing a dress, so I looked like a particularly pathetic dumb American.
Castle Hill has a "Saint" painted on it... apparently some Uni students did it as a prank, the city got rid of it, and someone else put it up. I'm not really sure why this is such a big deal... I'll have a picture of it next entry, but it's really not that impressive.
The view was beautiful, though.
Castle Hill:

Me and the view:


Then we went down to the Strand and had a swim in the poison-jellyfish-free net, played on a particularly unsafe looking rope toy, and had a BBQ on one of the grills provided for our convenience. It was a good time, all in all.
Strand at night:


Sunday I wrote a paper... or tried to.
Monday I went down to Magnetic Island, which is a 20 min ferry ride off the coast of Townsville.

It's absolutely beautiful. I was there with a local guy that I met at the BBQ, so he showed me this awesome beach that no one goes to. Frankly, I wanted to be alone, but I probably wouldn't have found it on my own, so everything worked out.
The beach:



I'm going back to Magnetic this weekend and staying. It seems silly to pay for a hostel to stay an hour from your home, but the ferry's a bit expensive and it'll be worth it to wake up on the island. I'm going hiking around! Should be fantastic!

Next weekend, I mostly hung out. Two members of the anime club had a joint birthday on Saturday, so I went to that. It was zombie themed... so I was Zombie Laura Croft and a good time was had by all.

One of my better pictures...


The recent uploads to General Australian Pics include more of me posing on Castle Hill, a few of the beach we visited, and some of The Strand.
Magnetic Island has more from the little bay we went to, and will eventually have the pictures I plan to take this weekend!

Not an update

I'm still alive. Doing all right.

Things I need to tell you about and share pictures of:

-The Whitsundays Easter Trip

-A full weekend in Paluma, with traditional Aussie food

-Spring Break in Boulia, home of the famous Red Stump

-Day trip to Magnetic Island (off the coast of Townsville.) (That was this Monday, by the way).

Also had a BBQ on the Strand, which is the touristy beach area (board-walk-esque, but with concrete), with some friends from the Whitsundays trip. It was a lot of fun, but nothing I can really report on aside from letting you know that I did something social.

Midterms and major lab reports currently eating me alive. Updates will have to wait.

Health and Safety

I was going to wait until I had some good pictures of my various bruises (on this, more later) to show you before I updated, but it turns out that my father sends me frantic emails if I don't update at least once a week, so here we are.

Well, after my last update I went to anime club and paid for my membership (it's $5 for a semester, don't worry too much about my finances), and then proceeded to foist myself upon the people there- as you do when you're a socially-maladjusted recluse who is concerned about her networking skills.

Several times in the past they've told me that they all go to Macker's after the club meetings... Being an American, I assumed this was a bar, because if you're legal to drink and you're at college why the hell wouldn't you go to a bar on a Wednesday night after watching Black Lagoon? Being American, I was also wrong- Macker's is McDonalds. Apparently everyone calls it Macker's, which kinda weirds me out because of all the various shortenings of McD's that I hear on an everyday basis, this is a new one.

So I have been to an Australian McDonalds and will probably be going back again every Wednesday night, so if I find any weird menu items I'll let you know. They did have a little McCafe or whatever they're calling them these days separate from the rest of the cashiers' stations, which had a variety of pastries that I'm pretty sure they don't have in American McDonalds, but keep in mind that it's been years since I've been in a McDonalds that wasn't either in Marietta or alongside the highway, so maybe that's what all the high-class Mickey D's are doing these days.

The major differences I noted where that they have fewer menu items (no Chicken Selects )-:) and no dollar menu, because *nothing* costs an Australian dollar... even though an Australian dollar is not all that different from a US one...
I also apparently should check out the KFC's here, because they have weird sandwiches that home KFCs do not offer and which sound pretty tastey. Yeah, yeah, I'm lame.

Right, so I hung out with the anime club, and they're pretty cool and seemed not-too-annoyed at me, so that's well and good. A group of them went paintballing this Saturday, so I finagled a ride out of someone and tagged along (my housemate was so jealous).

Actually, he offered me his leftover Chinese takeout for dinner on Friday, the reasoning being that he was going out of town for the weekend and it'd go bad before he got back. Turns out it went bad earlier than we expected, so I spent Friday night with food poisoning. So that was the start of my weekend. Promising.

Paintballing first thing the next morning was fun, though. We ran around in full-body overalls and heavy-duty facemasks in the hot Australian sun and shot each other with balls of paint. The rule is that you're only hit if it breaks on you, which didn't happen to me all that often, although I got hit a lot. The thing is, if they don't break, they hurt a lot more. I've got some fantastic bruises. The best one is on my elbow. I'll take some pictures before it heals and I stop looking like an abuse victim.

Sunday morning was my weekly Skype chat with MoHo. Always a good time, even if it leaves me a little homesick for the remainder of the day.

Grocery shopping today after I update. I bought a bag of vegetables from the Uni "Student vegetable co-op", which claims to provide students with enough vegetables for a week for $13. I had high hopes for this program, but... eh. They gave me a bunch of bananas (which I'm allergic to), a honeydew melon that was starting to rot on one end and still wasn't ripe on the other, one onion, and a bunch of potatos and carrots. I've been making really good soup with the potatos, carrots, onion, and some chicken bullion, but I'd rather pay just a little extra and pick my own vegetables. I'm also not sure it would cost me more, when you factor out the stuff that I didn't eat.

So all in all, a pretty good weekend. A little painful, but pretty good.

Classes and Accents

Busy week. I've had all my classes now, and they look pretty good. The timetables here are crazy... I blame JCU.
I'm not very impressed with JCU's organizational prowess, as you've probably noticed. There was no reason whatsoever that they couldn't have given us international students our logon information before we arrived (as they did for the domestic students), so that I would have known what classes I was registered for, when they met, what books they required, etc, but they didn't. As a result, I didn't receive an email from one of my classes about registering for discussion classes, and also I didn't bring The Secret Garden or The Golden Compass with me, so now I may have to buy them all over again.

Anyway, JCU's timetables are very difficult to follow- classes typically meet two hours a week, and these two hours can be at different times and in different rooms. One of my classes meets at 1:00 on Wednesday and 3:00 on Thursday, in different rooms in different buildings.

There are three types of class sessions here- lectures, tutorials (which are like discussion groups, I think), and practicals (which are science labs).

It's not a big deal if you don't stay for the whole practical, either. I have two practicals scheduled at the same time (granted, one of them only meets three times the whole semester), and neither professor seemed to think it was a big deal. They also tell you that if you have a lecture in the middle of a practical to just leave, go to the lecture, and come back. Compare this to MoHo, where skipping a lab without a doctor's excuse is an automatic fail for the course.

Also, we're required to wear labcoats in the labs at all times, so I now own a labcoat, and it's sexy in the way that only science can be.

So, my classes are as follows:
Plant Survival and Climate Change: (Meets Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:00, plus a very optional prac on Tues from 10-1.) It's mostly about plant adaptation and less about global warming than my advisor at MHC and I hoped.... but it's still interesting and something that's probably pretty useful, and I'm excited about it. Instead of labs we have a week-long field trip during spring break, where we go out to the desert and look at acacia trees.
The professor who's given our lectures thus-far (and there are I think three all together) is a middle-aged guy with a long braid. He came to lecture on Wednesday wearing a bright green shirt that said "You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning," cargo shorts, bright red and black striped socks, and leather clogs. I just thought you should know.

Rainforest Ecosystems: (Meets Wednesday at 1:00 and Thursday at 3:00, plus a practical that meets twice all semester) I'm really excited about this one. It's more plant ecology stuff. We take two field trips to the rainforest, one of them all weekend, and it looks amazing.

Marine Plants and Algae: (Meets Wednesday at 11:00 and Friday at 10:00, plus a practical on Friday afternoon that meets every week). This is the only 200-level (intermediate) class that I'm taking, which would worry me at MHC but here things seem a little easier. Anyway, this is mostly about algae and identifying them... so kinda like Invertebrate Zoology all over again, but without Stan. How did I make this mistake twice?
Actually, it looks like it'll be fairly doable (I did survive Inverts, despite my constant whining), and algae is cool.

Children's Literature: (Meets Thurs from 12:00-2:00, plus an hour of tutorials) Well, you see, it's impossible for non-majors to get into Children's Lit at MHC and I'm an English minor who wants to read kids' books all the time. But the course looks interesting and fun. They're reading a lot of Australian children's books that I haven't heard of before. Next week we're doing The Coral Island as part of the historical children's lit unit. It's about three young men who get stranded on a coral island and have swashbuckling adventures, as all healthy British boys of the 1800's dreamed of.

I talk a lot more about my English and history classes than my science ones, I've noticed. I guess I just figure humanities are more entertaining to the general population.

(I told my Children's Lit prof that I was an international student, to explain why I hadn't gotten her email, and she got very nervous and now smiles really widely at me when she sees me. My other subjects tend to draw international students, but I don't think this one does very often. Also I think she thinks that English is my second language.)

Also went to the anime club on Wednesday. It was fun, and the people seemed nice, so I'll probably keep going. Met an American student who's in my Marine Algae class, and we hung out, despite my conviction that I wouldn't get along with any of the other American students.

One of the guys at the club got really excited when he heard me speak and asked where I was from. It's weird having someone say "ooh, an accent!"when you talk to them, especially when they say it in what you consider a thick Australian accent. I still haven't quite gotten to the point where everyone else sounds normal and I sound weird.

Although, sometimes when I start to talk I realize that I'm going to pronounce things differently than the person I'm talking to would. It trips me up. I also still haven't gotten used to referring to MHC as a university rather than a college (a college here is a dorm. A school is a high school.)

Oh, and one of the other guys at anime night told me my accent sounded very Vancouver. So I can pass for Canadian if I ever have to.

More Orientation. Also Clotted Cream.

Last night was an orientation show (w/ free sausages, which is what got me there). I ended up sitting next to an older woman named "Bev" who's going back for a degree in something (the music was kinda loud, I couldn't really hear what she said). Anyway, she has a car and offered to give me lifts if I ever need them, so here's one friend that it would be to my advantage to keep in touch with. (INTJs do not do 'friendship' without a valid reason. Or maybe that's just me?)

There was a speech and performance by an Aboriginal elder (I got one picture, which will eventually be up). Australia's very respectful of Aborigines... kind of a "So, we screwed you over and took your land, and now that we've sobered up, we're really, really sorry about that. No, really, we are. We're going to make sure that everyone knows you were here first and have you at opening ceremonies for schools and all that. It doesn't make up for it, but..." As compared to America, which says "So, we screwed you over and took your land... if we let you open casinos, will you shut up about it?"

Then there was a comedian-type guy pretending to be an American professor... his accent was pretty atrocious. I've never heard anyone from Australia attempt an American accent before. It's really... bizarre. I don't know how to put it. He also made a couple of Arnold jokes, so I knew then and there that he wasn't from Sacramento, in any case. (Alisa assures me that nobody in Sacramento makes Arnold jokes because it's too depressing to them.) Anyway, it turned into a long show about drinking in college and making good choices and seek help if you need it and all that. It was actually pretty entertaining, but it was SWELTERING out (the guy had to keep toweling himself off), I was getting eaten alive by mosquitos, it was about 2 hours long, and it was nothing I hadn't heard before because I've done this whole orientation thing before and I know my way around college. It's getting a little frustrating, to be honest. Sure, the computer sites are set up a little different and have different names, but it's still the same thing as Mount Holyoke.
Did learn ONE new thing: Apparently peeing on people's lawns is a serious problem here, because the guy saw fit to mention that it's a bad idea.

Bev gave me a ride home, which was nice 'cause it was dark out and I wasn't super-sure how to get back home. My landlord/roommate was going to bed when I got there, but he says he might be able to set up a bunkbed for me this weekend, so Saturday is furniture-assembly time! He's very helpful. I'm hoping that I'll have a chance to talk to him a bit more this week, 'cause right now I feel a little like a very sketchy houseguest.

Today I stopped at the student coffee shop and got tea and a scone with clotted cream and jam. This was exciting for me, even if it isn't particularly for you. I've been seeing a lot of stuff around that I'd previously only seen in the British baking cookbook that Micah got me for Christmas (which, among other things, insists that Americans call blueberrys "huckleberries"). There seems to be a lot ofwhipped cream flying around. I kinda just want to live here forever. Or until my heart explodes.

The Anime Club had a table out today, and they seem very enthusiastic (I've decided that the VP is basically their Hannah, but don't tell him that). They said they're watching Black Lagoon this semester, so that should appease you guys. Let's face it, the fastest, most comfortable way for me to make friends with people is to hunt down some reasonably well-adjusted anime nerds, and I don't have a lot of time here to spend making friends any other way.

Also, they gave me a bottle-holder-thing from their sponsor, GameTraders Stockland... which is probably a branch of GameTraders Robina, which, as devotees may recall, is where Yahtzee
gets his blackmarket games. So I've already accumulated some gaming cred for when I get back to the States.

That's all for now, sorry, no pictures. I've got some, but it's a pain in the neck to add them to an entry and I just don't feel like it at the moment.

Almost to Orientation

Turns out there's a subway in the hospital shops, which is good, because I've been living off complimentary continental breakfast for a few days now.
Fun facts about Australian subways: turkey is more expensive here ('cause turkey is an American thing), bell peppers are called something I can't pronounce, so I didn't order any, and Italian dressing isn't on the menu.

I've figured out how to walk to my motel- it's not too bad, about 40 minutes. Anyway, tonight is my last night there.

Orientation today, at 3:00, which hopefully will get me sorted out a bit.

Got to school this morning to find that the anime club has posted tiny flyers all over campus. I mean ALL over. I think they must have a Hannah in their club. Not sure if I'm going to join or not- on one hand, I speak nerd better than I speak Australian. On the other hand, I didn't come here to watch cartoons all the time.

So, some pictures of my room:


Me in my man outfit.

Windows

Room came w/ some kitchenette supplies... and RICE BUBBLES. I think that's such a better name than Rice Krispies. (Also, Cocoapops are Cocoa pebbles.)

Breakfast. It's tasty.

View from my room (with rain.)

And the hotel from across the river on a nice day. Inn't pretty?