Sunday September 19, 2010

Sunday I got up fairly early and just lounged around for a while with Katie. Then at 11:30 I had volleyball training. I can’t remember if I wrote about this before, but one of the people in charge of running the social volleyball team also coaches some competitive teams. A couple weeks ago at volleyball he asked one of my friends and me to join his girls team, who travel around the state of Queensland and play in tournaments. What better way for me to see Australia than travel to beaches around the state playing in tournaments? So anyway, part of what this obviously requires is training with him, which is what I did on Sunday. It started at 11:30 and technically went until 2, but we were having so much fun we ended up playing until 3:30 (we also didn’t want to go home and do work). There were 6 girls there, myself included, four of whom I was pretty good friends with before hand. The boys team was also playing on the court next to us so once we stopped playing we all hung out for a little while before heading home. Once I got back home I showered and then headed over to my friend Erin’s house where her, Carrie, Katie, Dani and I watched Greek and just hung out for the night. All in all, a great day! I am now officially caught up and I will once again attempt to keep up with my blog. I’ll talk to you soon!!

Britt

Saturday September 18, 2010

Saturday I had a field trip to North Stradbroke Island. We left UQ at 7:30 in the morning, drove to the ferry and got to Straddie by about 10 am. The field trip was for my Aboriginal Heritage class, and in that class we are learning a lot about the laws in Australia governing Aboriginals, which I might add, are quite ridiculous. Australia has basically taken everything from these poor people. I honestly feel like I’m back in the 1920’s with the way they treat these people. It’s only within the last 30 years that they were finally qualified as people. This might partially be due to the fact that Australia doesn’t have a bill of rights, and most people think that they don’t need one. Like I said, it’s absolutely ridiculous! Anyway, one of the major issues for Aboriginal people is that the government creates laws that make it sound like they will protect Aboriginal heritage sites that people want to develop on, but in practice it allows the government to go through with those development and therefore destroy places that are incredibly significant to Aboriginal people. Sometimes these areas have resources that help the Aboriginals to survive, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the Australia government. Some of the only people that advocate for the Aboriginal people are anthropologists who evaluate Aboriginal cultural landscapes and then try to convince the government not to develop on that area of land. In essence this is what we as a class had to do on Straddie. We had to go to two areas on North Stradbroke Island and evaluate the significance of those areas. Part of this required us interacting with the Aboriginal people, who were incredibly kind and welcoming. They showed us around the areas and told us stories that explained the major connections they had with the areas. It was absolutely fascinating! The first area that we went to was a creek that led out to the ocean. When we went there it was low tide so we got to walk out onto a mudflat and see all of the resources that the area provides. We also saw these “armies” of crabs travelling together. There were thousands of them walking together all over the mudflat. The second area we went to was called Brown Lake, which was gorgeous. I’ll post pictures of both places on facebook. Overall the whole experience was enlightening. The Aboriginal people that we worked with were so welcoming to us even after the way most other white people treat them. It made it hard to believe that people could actually be mean to them. Anyway, after we visited Brown Lake we headed back to the ferry to head home, and we ended up getting back to UQ around 6. At that point I headed home to make dinner and then went and got ice cream with Katie since all of our roommates were still gone. That night we were both exhausted so we just hung out and watched some movies. That’s all for now and I’ll note that you should all be proud of me because it’s been less than 2 days since my last post!! Love you and miss you!

Britt

Friday September 17, 2010

Friday morning I got up pretty early, got ready and headed to the library to finish editing my paper before handing it in. After that I did a bunch of work and ended up getting back from the library at around 4, at which point I decided to go grocery shopping because I basically only had potatoes left. This weekend my house was really quiet because it was just Katie and I left there: Julia went away for the weekend, Zach went to Darwin, and Dani and Nick went with most of our neighbors to Byron Bay for the weekend. Katie and I would have joined but she had a job interview on Saturday and I had a field trip to North Stradbroke Island. Anyway, since it was just the two of us left we decided to be cute and go get some take out Indian Feast together. We brought it back home and ate it on our deck and got to have some bonding time, which was fun. I then got all of my stuff ready for my field trip to North Stradbroke Island, including making a bag lunch (my first one since I’ve been here). That’s all for now. I’ll write about Straddie soon, but there’s too much detail involved in that for me to write it tonight. Love you and miss you!

Britt

Thursday September 16, 2010

Thursday per usual is my long day of classes, so I went to those and then went to the library to work on my paper. Like I said before, I’m really bad at writing and come up with any/every reason not to do it. On a side note, I forgot to mention that school elections were going on this week. It’s interesting to see how a school in a foreign country runs elections. They actually have political parties on campus and their members all advertise and solicit for their party. The two main parties also had shirts made that they wore all week; one was yellow and one was red. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I had people in these red and yellow shirts come up to me and ask me if I had voted yet. I learned quickly to say I had because otherwise they made you sit through their whole spiel on why you should vote for their party. Like I said, that was just an interesting side note about this week. Anyway, after classes I went to the library to work on my paper and then went to volleyball. I must admit, at first volleyball was pretty slow, but then it got a lot better and I ended up playing doubles until 9 (usually we end at 8). Later some volleyball kids were going out to the Vic so when I got back I made some dinner, got ready and went out with them, which was a lot of fun. All in all it was a good day. I promise to update again soon!

Britt

Wednesday September 15, 2010

Wednesday was just another wonderful day of circuits. I had circuits class from 10-12 and then I had to study for my circuits practical exam in the library until 3 when I had the exam for an hour. Obviously part of the test would be verbal questioning…my favorite and the other part was building/testing a circuit. Hopefully I did all right on that. The paper that was due today that I had been working on was given an extension until Friday so after my prac I worked on that a little bit. Then, later that night I went out with the girls to the typical Wednesday night bar, the Regatta, which was pretty fun, and needed to get my mind off of circuits. That just about sums up Wednesday for me, but I’ll post again soon!

Britt

Tuesday September 14, 2010

Tuesday I got up fairly early to go to Toowong to get some more internet. About 10 minutes after I got back we had an inspector come to make sure we were living in livable conditions. We haven’t heard from him since so I’m assuming we passed. Once he left I headed to the library because I had a paper due on Wednesday. It was only a three page paper, but I despise writing so much (clearly based on how often I post) that it actually takes me all day to do something like that. After the library I hung out for a little while before heading to volleyball, which was fun as always. Then, I just did some work and hung out with some friends. That’s all for now. Love you and miss you!

Britt

Monday September 13, 2010

Today I honestly did a whole lot of nothing. I slept in this morning since I hardly slept last weekend with scuba, and then I went to my class from 1-4. After that I went to the library for a little while to try to get some work done, but I didn’t really end up getting much done…oh well. Later that night Katie, Dani, Carrie and I went to Erin’s house for a girls’ night to watch Greek. Like I said, I didn’t really do anything useful today. I’ll post again soon!

Britt

Saturday September 11, 2010 - Sunday September 12, 2010

Saturday morning I had to be up by 5:30 to get ready and meet up with my friends Claire and Adrian to get a taxi to scuba diving. We had to be there by 7 and we thought it took 45 minutes to get there so we left at 6, but it turns out that it only took 20 minutes so we ended up getting there a little bit early. Once we got there we had to fill out a bunch of paper work and then take a quick review test just to make sure we knew the most important information about diving. We then got all our gear sized up and they drove us to a pool at the Gold Coast. Once at the pool we had to take our swimming test, which consisted of swimming 200 m without stopping (there and back twice in an Olympic sized pool), and treading water for 10 minutes. The hardest part was probably the 200 m swim but even that wasn’t that bad. Once we finished the test (all 5 of us passed) we began our dive training, which on Saturday began with 3 pool dives. On these dives our instructors would show us something such as how to get water out of your mask when you’re underwater and then we would have to repeat it. We also learned a lot about what to do if you run out of air. Since you always dive with a buddy it’s not actually that bad of a situation and there are many simple quick solutions. After our three pool dives we went to Tweed River and did two dives there. The visibility in the water wasn’t too great because of the changing tides, but that worked out better for us because it taught us how to deal with low visibility situations so we’ll be incredibly comfortable when we go to places such as the reef. On the two open water dives we basically did the same skills we practiced in the pool, but it was slightly more difficult in open water due to currents. While on the dives we saw a bunch of schools of fish and I saw a puffer fish. I also got to see a sea turtle. Granted it wasn’t while we were diving, but it was still pretty cool. I must say, diving for the first time was a strange feeling, especially when you thought about the fact that you’re breathing underwater, but it was so much fun and I can’t wait to go again. The only part I don’t like is putting on the wet suits. In order for them to be effective they have to be incredibly tight, which makes them incredibly difficult to put on. Dad you’ll appreciate this story…When we finished diving, we were packing up our gear into the cars and looked across the river at an island where cars can drive along the beach. Well, high tide was coming and some idiot decided to park fairly close to the edge of the water and his suv got stuck in the sand. He was all by himself and couldn’t get his car out so he had to watch it go underwater as the tide came in. Granted we felt bad just watching but there was nothing we could do. After we got home that night Claire and I decided to go out for some cheap sushi and ice cream. We thought we deserved it after diving all day, which turns out to be very exhausting. Needless to say, I did not go out that night, but I still hung out with everyone for a little while before going to bed.

Sunday I got to sleep in an extra half hour since we knew how long it actually took to get there. From the dive shop our instructors drove us to the pool where we had two more pool dives to do. Again we just practiced some general skills, which we would later have to apply in the open water. After the pool dives we headed back to Tweed River to complete our last two open water dives before being officially certified. The visibility today was much better and we got to see a ton of different fish. Our first dive was typical shore dive, but our second dive was a drift dive, which was awesome. It’s exactly what it sounds like; you get into a current and just let it carry you along. We took the current, which made you go really fast, down to a beach, and along the way saw a huge assortment of fish from pipe fish to puffer fish to fish like Gill from Finding Nemo. It was absolutely incredible! After the drift dive we walked back to our site, packed up our gear and then hung out for a little while with a couple that had just finished their advanced diver certification course. I think the best part about diver certifications is that they work all over the world and never expire so this is something that I’ll always have. When we got back to the dive shop we got our dive logbooks, filled them out, got our certificates and obviously took some pictures. That night once we got home I relaxed and then just crashed. I was so exhausted from the weekend, but it was well worth it! That’s all for now, but I’ll post again soon (and I actually mean that this time). Love you and miss you!

Britt

Monday Septemper 6, 2010 - Friday September 10, 2010

Ok so I know it’s been a while since I updated this so I’m going to have to give limited details on last week because I don’t remember the specifics that well. Monday I went to my classes and hung out with my friends. Tuesday I did some work and then went grocery shopping with Carrie, Dani and Camilla for Taco Tuesday. After shopping I went to volleyball and then went to Taco Tuesday at Carrie’s house. We all ended up hanging out at Carrie’s house for a while discussing traveling plans. Then, Nicki, Dani and I went back to my house and we painted our nails, which didn’t go so well for Nicki and I (there are pictures of how awfully we painted our nails on facebook). Wednesday I had class in the morning and then went grocery shopping. I ended up deciding to make some chocolate chip cookies because I missed them so much. They weren’t as good as mom’s, but no ones ever are. I also had to make them the ghetto way. We don’t have measuring spoons so I had to guesstimate with a regular spoon. I also had to borrow my neighbor’s mixing bowl because we don’t have one. Once I finally finished mixing the batter I realized we didn’t have a baking tray so I had to make something up. I decided to attempt to use the bottom of a cheesecake pan because apparently we have one of those but not a mixing bowl, measuring spoons or baking sheets. That could only fit four cookies at a time so I finally decided to use my microwave tray as a baking sheet. Overall it turned out pretty well, but sugar here is not as finely granulated, and you could tell when you ate the cookies. Thursday I had classes all day, did some work and then went to volleyball. After volleyball some people came over to my house before going out to the Victory, which seems to be our new place to go to. During this time, Dani and I decided it would be fun to make cookies again...so we did and they were scrumtrulescent. Friday I spent almost the entire day in the library doing my online course work for my scuba certification because I was going to get my dive cert that weekend. Later that evening we had a girls’ night and watched Greek for a while. After that I had to go back home and finish up my scuba course work/get everything ready for the next day. All right I’m going to stop here and write about the weekend in a separate post. I’ll write again soon! Love ya!!

Britt

Sunday September 5, 2010

First and foremost: Happy Birthday Jack!! I love you and miss you and I'm sorry I can't be home for your birthday. I hope you had a great day and I'm glad I got to skype with you!
Anyway, Sunday I spent having a girl’s day with my friend Claire. We went shopping at Queen Street Mall, which is an open/outdoor mall. We then went to the wine store together because we recently discovered that we both appreciate red wine and they have a deal where if you buy 12 bottles you get 30% your entire purchase. So we went and together we got 12 bottles. A decent up front payment but well worth it in the long run. It’s like Dad buying butter in bulk; it saves a lot of money in the long run. We also decided that we’re going to have to go to some wineries and do some tastings. By the time we got back from our shopping excursion it was close to 3 and it was just starting to rain. We definitely got lucky with our timing because not more than half an hour after we got back, it started torrential down pouring for the rest of the day/night. On that note, I spent the rest of the day inside relaxing with the roomies. That’s all for now, but I promise to try to catch up with my blog later today. It’s been a crazy last few weeks with midterms. I love you and miss you!

Britt

Saturday September 4, 2010

Saturday was opening night of Brisbane’s Riverfire Festival. It’s this huge festival that lasts the entire month of September where they have all sorts of musicians and plays and whatnot going on every night. However, opening night is the Riverfire portion where they set up fireworks all along the Brisbane River and then have two F1-11s fly over and do a fuel dump. Yes for all you environmentalists it’s very not environmentally friendly, but when the planes dump their fuel it ignites and so it looks like there are rockets flying through the air, and no none of the fuel itself actually falls on the ground. You environmentalists will also be happy to know that this is the last year that they’re doing it, so I’m quite happy that I got to see it. Anyway, during the day my roommates and I pretty much just hung out. We were going to go to Streets Beach in South Bank, but we realized that we would then have to come back pretty early to get ready for Riverfire (we were leaving around 4 for it) and then head back to South Bank because that’s where people watch it. Needless to say, it would have been pointless to go back and forth from South Bank that day. We didn’t end up getting there until around 5 or 5:30 and the fireworks started at 7, but even by then South Bank was absolutely packed. At that point we found a good spot on Streets Beach and then Katie, Carrie and I went to get food, which took forever. We went to an express seafood place to get some fish and chips and probably waited in line for an hour. Then we had to get back to our spot, which was quite the difficult task because there were so many people there. On the bright side we got back with just enough time to eat our food and then the fireworks started. I can honestly say I’ve never seen a fireworks show as incredible as this. They had fireworks going off in 3 or 4 different areas along the river and they had them coming from buildings. All of the fireworks were synchronized and going along to music. Then there were the planes that flew over. The best way to describe the show is through my pictures, which I’ll post soon. Just to give you an idea though of how incredible it was, there were 600,000 fireworks that they set off. The only down side to this is that now whenever I watch fireworks I’ll compare it to this show, and I don’t think anything will ever compare. Oh and at the beginning they literally lit part of the river on fire. I also have to note that before the show started there was a blackhawk flying up and down the river, which for those of you who don't know, the company I work for builds them. After the show, we went back to my friend Sam’s apartment and hung out there for a little while before going to the Victory. By the time we got to the bar it was probably close to 11:30 or 12 and I think I ended up heading home around 1. The bar was packed and you felt like a sardine and I was soaked because it had been raining so it wasn’t the most comfortable conditions there. All in all though, I must say it was an incredible night! That’s all for now!! I hope all is well back home!!

Britt

Friday September 3, 2010

Friday was a fairly uneventful day, but I kind of needed that. I spent most of the day hanging out with my friends on one of our decks. While we were out there we decided that we wanted to go to a rugby match because you can’t get much more Australian than that. As it turns out, Friday night was the Brisbane Broncos last home game of the season so we decided to go to that. The game started at 7:30 and we probably got there around 7 or so. Watching rugby has made me realize a. just how girly football players are and b. just how boring football is. Rugby is so intense. First of all, they have no padding (not even helmets) but get tackled just as hard as football players do. Second, the game just keeps going. It’s a rare occasion that the time stops. However, unlike in football 99% of the time is actually playing rather than standing around and setting up plays. I know that if anyone reading this likes football you’re probably going to hate me for what I just said, but if you watch a real rugby game, you’ll completely understand and probably agree with me. I just wish rugby was bigger in the states because the games are fun to go to and it’s a really cool/interesting sport. Granted the Broncos lost, but it was a close game and they had a good comeback. They were losing 18-4 in the last 10 minutes and managed to comeback and make the score 18-16, so it got really intense at the end. Either way it was a lot of fun and I hope I get to go again at some point. Quick side note, apparently Australian’s love their fireworks. Every time the Broncos scored, they would set off fireworks haha. Also, the refs had to wear neon pink shirts; it was amazing. Anyway, after the rugby game it was around 10 and we headed back home. We all then went over to my friend Erin’s house and had a girl’s night. We’ve actually been doing that a lot lately, but we all love it and she has a really nice house that has a very homey feel to it. Alright that’s all for now, but I’ll update again soon!! I love you and miss you!!

Britt

Wednesday September 1, 2010- Thursday September 2, 2010

Wednesday, as I mentioned earlier, was the day of my circuits exam, so I had that from 10-12. I then had a little break before my circuits lab so I hung out with Katie at one of the cafes on campus. After lab I had to work on my circuits problem journal because it was due the next day, and I spent the rest of the night/early morning doing that. I didn’t finish it until 5:30 in the morning…awesome night. Yea Wednesday pretty much sucked, but once Thursday morning was over it was smooth sailing for the rest of the week as far as work is concerned. However, Thursdays are my busiest days as far as class is concerned and with the amount of sleep that I had gotten it was a little rough to make it through them. Once my classes were over I went grocery shopping and then it was time for volleyball. By the time I got back from volleyball one of my roommates had some kids over so I hung out with them for a little while and then we went out to two bars: Friday’s and the Victory. Friday’s was kind of lame and when we got to the Victory I was so tired from not sleeping the night before that I just didn’t feel like being out anymore so I headed home early. That’s all for now but I’ll update again soon!!

Britt

Tuesday August 31, 2010

Tuesdays, as I’ve already mentioned many times, are my day off. My plan for the day was to go to the travel agent in the morning, study for a while, go to volleyball, and then study some more. Obviously since I had a plan things didn’t go as planned. In the morning we did get to go to the travel agent however I did not anticipate having to be there for 5 hours. On the bright side, Katie, Carrie, Dani and I booked our trip!!! We’re going to go to Darwin for the first few days and do take a tour of some of the national parks up there, which are supposed to be incredible. We’re then going to go to Cairns (Great Barrier Reef) and do a tour that takes us white water rafting one day, on a rainforest tour the next day, and then scuba diving the last day. We’re all so excited for it!! After we finally booked this I went to the library for a little while to study and then went to volleyball. Sadly though I didn’t get to play much volleyball because one of the kids on the team is in my circuits class (the one I had the exam in the next day) and was helping me figure out some of the stuff for our exam. There’s definitely a reason that I’m majoring in mechanical engineering and not electrical engineering. Anyway, once I left vball I spent the rest of the night studying…fun stuff. I promise to update again soon!! Love you and miss you!!

Britt

Monday August 30, 2010

Hey Everyone!! I hope this post finds you all well! Monday can basically be summed up into 3 words: paper, class, library. I spent the morning finishing my paper before I had to turn it in. In Australia they have a strange way of turning stuff in. You have to print out a cover sheet that has a bar code on it, attach it to your assignment, and then go to a building to drop it off. When you drop it off you put it in this slot that reads the bar code and notifies your professor as to when you handed it in. Why you can’t just hand it in in class I have no idea. Anyway, after I turned in my paper I had my 3 hour anthropology class, which is fairly interesting, it’s just really long. Then, as soon as class was over I went to the library to study for my exam on Wednesday. The day after the exam I had to turn in my “problem journal” for that class, which is just a notebook where you do all your mandatory problems for the class, so when I say I was studying, I was working on the problem journal (in engineering doing problems is studying). I got back from the library around 6 or 7 made some dinner and studied a little bit more. I then hung out with some of my friends for a little while and we finalized our plans for spring break and made a plan to go to the travel agent on Tuesday. I’ll update you again soon!!

Britt

Saturday August 28, 2010 - Sunday August 29, 2010

Hey everyone! When I started writing this post it was less than a week since posting, but then I lost motivation for writing, sorry. On Saturday a bunch of my friends and I went back to the Gold Coast for a day trip. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was a gorgeous, warm day with hardly a cloud in the sky and almost no breeze. We left for the Gold Coast at around 8 in the morning and after taking some public transportation, we were settled on the beach by around 10. We were all pretty tired when we got there so I think that pretty much all of us ended up taking a nap. We layed out/slept for most of the morning and then it was lunchtime and some of us went to get some $10 fish and chips (fries are called chips in Australia). Considering it was an entire meal for $10, which mind you is even less in U.S. money, it was pretty good. I then spent most of the rest of the afternoon laying out. Towards the later afternoon my friend Zach and I were getting a little bored so we decided to bury our friend Adam. We started out doing it while he was sleeping, but then he woke up, but still agreed to be buried anyway. As we were burying him some little girls around 4 or 5 years old who were nearby came over to “help” us. I think they ended up pulling more sand off of him than they put on him but it was cute. Once we finished turning Adam into a mermaid the girls decided it would be fun to jump on him, which was pretty cute/funny to watch. As I’m writing this I’m realizing how creepy this sounds, but I swear it wasn’t, their parents were sitting a little ways in front of us. After the whole burying escapade, we spent a little bit more time on the beach, but the sun was starting to go down a little bit and the way the Gold Coast is set up, there are sky scrapers right along the beach so their shadows were starting to hit us. We ended up leaving the beach around 5 and walked around the downtown area a little bit. It’s a really nice area with a lot of great, classic surf shops such as Billabong and Hurley. We also went to a milkshake bar where you pick any kind of candy you want (there were about 50 different kinds) and they make a milkshake out of it. Needless to say it was incredible. After that we headed home and ended up getting back around 10. We were pretty wiped so we just hung out that night.

On Sunday I had to do work all day because I had a paper due on Monday for a professor that hates American students (yes she actually told us that word for word on the first day of class). Still haven’t gotten that paper back so we’ll see how that goes haha. I also had an exam on Wednesday so I needed to study for that. Sadly, unlike most study abroad students my grades transfer hence why I actually have to do work here. So like I said I spent Sunday doing work ugh, but at least I was able to do it outside at one of our campus’ outdoor cafes, which was nice. That’s all for this post but I’ll start working on catching up. Love you and miss you!!

Britt