Vegemite, kangas, and kicking with mates keen down under

So the school work has been a bit intense, but nothing too out of the ordinary and in retrospect, pretty damn easy for my last year of school. I mean I have no cap stone and one of my final classes in my under grad is painting haha. been creating pretty tight relationships with my fellow classmates. One of them is Tara and I've got her in my coastal marine ecosystems class and my natural resource policy. Tara is from Massachusetts and is an absolute hoot. One of the funniest people I've ever met. She is also way rad in her knowledge of badass punk music despite her style. I don't think I've seen so many other people completely enjoy another person's company as Tara's. She has been great to have in class and was my project partner in our costal marine ecosystems presentation. We become masters of knowledge on the Giant Cuttlefish and nailed our presentation. She will definitely be one of the people I miss. Besides taxonomic presentations for that class, we also h...

Southern Cross University has got to be one of the coolest campuses I've been to. And I know one of the main reasons for that is it is in Australia where exotic plants and animals are resident here. The campus has a Koala sanctuary, a mini lake with all sorts of bird life, and a botanical garden around that lake. The campus is small and has a very diverse selection of people there ranging from all ages. Unlike American universities, where most everyone is from 18-21, here it felt more like a community college. Southern Cross had a great library which was central to the campus. Outside of the library was the university plaza. it was an open courtyard area with small restaurants/ convenience stores surrounding it. the plaza had room for various events that were held during the semester. Every Wednesday there was live music and free food. Several times there were these flea market events, and then there were also arts and craft events where you got to do things like plant a plant in a...

Soooooo girlfriend of 2 years broke up with me. From pretty dang outta the blue too. I guess long distance was dragging on her more than me. I mean, I did have a lot of distractions and she was in Portland, the gloomiest town in the world. But still, pretty shitty excuse on her part. I was in the dumps for about a week. I mean, it is only human to get depressed on these matters, but you can't let it defeat you and you have to get it out of your system then move on. that's what I did, and then I shook it off. my time here is finite and i'm not going to let a break up take away from enjoying the present. And like I said, I have a lot of distractions here and plenty of good people to kick it with. I think i'm also getting the hang of painting a bit which is cool. maybe it is the old 90's mtv unplugged I've been listening too. pearl jam is just too good. Well that's it for this week, next i'll fill you all in on the school life!

As the cliques crashed and receded like ocean waves I observed and danced to my own drum beat. Been gathering good friends and great times on this east Australian current. Emmet, Orion, Laura and I frequent the Byron surf and night life. As I have not gotten that great at surfing, but I have been getting better at not drowning as massive waves crash me to shore. The four of us have epic nights of metal shows, good beer, and sleeping on the beaches in Byron. Other wild ones I've been getting a long with are Moa and Samuel, the couple from Sweden, and Vhem, the amazing musician from Norway. On my birthday, the 17th them, their roommate Shannon, and several Japanese students bought me a cake and a nice bottle of rum where we ate the cake and watched Spirited away in the dorm's theatre room. I've also gotten very hooked on dungeons and dragons, and have developed quite the group from it. There are around 12 of us throughout college that gather and play together. My main group h...

For the fall break me and three others took off for Bali! The other three were Kayla, Marc, and Keller. A good mix of kids that's for sure. We got a lift up the 5th and crashed in the airport where I watched Naruto all night killing time. We launched into Bali on a 5 hour plane ride. the air was humid, the weather warm, and we were wide eyed loving it! step one getting in was finding our first air bnb. Having being hackled by a gaggle of taxi drivers we set off on a nice 1.5 hour drive to our first place of stay. not a bad spot in Uluwatu. That day of being there we went to these "monkey temples" that were these ancient cliffside temples with monkeys running around (how descriptive right?). As Kayla pined for her sunsets, Keller and I went to see a fire dance. Which we thought was just like a 20 min ordeal, but no it was a full on play that lasted about 2 hours. It told the Hindu's Romeo and Juliet tale where Keller ended up being brought up on stage dancing with one ...

So school has been going for a couple weeks now and i'm taking a full "Australian" load of coursework, which is 12 credits. One class and lab a day Monday through Thursday. Really not that bad. Although some other kids have classes only on Tuesday and Thursday. Ha I would have no idea what to do with myself with all that free time. My classes are coastal marine ecosystems, global environmental issues, painting, and natural resource policy. Coastal marine was definitely the most intensive, but also my favorite. I love biology and zoology and this class was a great mix both, also had some earth systems science in it too! For that class, each week we went to the coast to learn and do field work. The most recent lab was to a rocky shore where we measured species richness along shore gradients. Really cool stuff seeing little fishes, crabs, snails, barnacles, and much more in their natural habitat. I really enjoy this class because it is so different from what I've been st...

Orientation is over and it is time to get cooking on some Australian academia! But first, surf camp! the beach is about 40 min away from where i'm staying in Lismore, and the town that occupies that beach is none other than Byron Bay! Byron Bay is a small kinda sorta hippy town, like the place you live when you're really rich and want to seem super hip and down to earth but you're actually really full of it, type of hippy town. I guess Thor lives there... I also saw Matt Damon there too. it is actually are really rad place with great live music. Surf camp was a blast. We first went on this 2 mile hike to a light house on the eastern most point on the Australian continent. I thought i'd be cool and do it all bare foot like the aussies, bad idea. my feet bled horrible and I walked down the trail at snail pace till I got to the beach and soaked my feet. so cool haha. Surf camp was 3.5 days and 2 nights out in Byron. first night was playing around town and having our first ...

1st week of orientation and excitement was running wild in the air! ...until we had the lectures that is. 5th year of college and i'm doing first year introduction stuff. WOO! I get it, it's necessary, but i'm just ready to explore. I must not have been as much of an extrovert as others because this girl named Madison (who really was a gem) kept getting on my case for exploring on my own, playfully calling me a loner. Maybe I am getting old, or maybe I was waiting to be social when I wasn't just stuck with all the other Americans. And let me be clear, there was nothing wrong with the other Americans, they were great kids and I really made some good friends out of them. I just saw cliques forming and was not about that, unless we're playing games that is. Which happened haha, a group of us got into this game I bought called werewolf. it was a "guess the killer" card game like mafia and a lot of us were well addicted to it. People got really into it and rile...

First arrival and I am surprised there are so many Americans, was kinda hoping i'd be around other foreigners other than Americans. I thought when we all met up at the airport there would be a melting pot of us. those from France, Africa, Japan, but it was me from Arizona and like 40 other kids from Minnesota and Wisconsin. I was hoping this because why leave the states to only hangout with people from the states? I want to keep away from that temptation to only sticking to/ with what you know, and in this case, other Americans. And this is pretty much what most the Americans did haha. So first getting into Brisbane after an amazing 14 hour plane ride where I tried to sedate myself with whisky (did not work) we are all loaded up onto a bus to drive 2 hours to our place of residence in Lismore New South Wales. On the bus I was really into this book, so had my nose dug deep into it while everyone else made small. surface level talk. "WHERE DO YA HAIL FROM???" ha ahhhh what ...