I Forgot I Came Here To Go To School...

    So classes started this week and it was quite the reality check to realize that I am not here to be on vacation. Most classes were just introductory stuff and it all seemed pretty easy to handle. I am taking Conservation Biology, Evolution and Ecology of Reef Corals, Conserving Marine Wildlife, and Anatomy and Function of Marine Organisms. I'm really excited for all of these classes, its strange to actually want to buy the textbook to read and not have hold my eyes open as I stare at the pages. So maybe I can still think of this as a vacation :)
    Friday was the first of the Fisher Field Events, which is a huge competition between each of the colleges on campus (colleges are the dorms). The whole school painted their bodies, or wore obnoxious clothes in the colors of each college and made their way down to the pool. (only after a breakfast of pancakes and beer, totally normal) There were normal swimming races and then some funky noodle walks and doggy paddles, it was really funny to watch. I guess our college (Uni) came in second!

    This weekend we found an amazing place that is only a fifteen minute walk from campus. Its called "The River", I'm not even sure if it is actually a river. There are rope swings and huge trees to jump off of into the water. It was pretty scary at first but so much fun after you got over having to climb a giant tree. We didn't even see any crocodiles! The locals are crazy though, they would be doing double backflips off of the rope swing or right from the tree..we were too wimpy to try anything like that. There are some pictures that I added to show you guys!
   Also! I'm on an ultimate frisbee team, how freakin strange is that!? I know what youre thinking...I can not throw a frisbee to save my life. Well somehow I learned, I can even do that tricky flick turn upsidedown thing that Tim and Dave always  make fun of me for not being able to do..and i love frisbee now! Really weird, I know.

Aquarium and Magnetic Island

 One of the Orientation events was a trip to the Reef HQ museum, which is the largest coral reef aquarium in the world! It was awesome we saw some endangered and exotic animals including Nemo himself! We went behind the scenes and got to see the Sea Turtle hospital, which i absolutely loved, such cute little dudes. It was sad to see all of the diseases and boat strike scars they had. There was also a huge tank with predator fish and sharks-black tipped reef sharks, nurse sharks, and baramundi. I wish I could work at the aquarium, it was so neat.
  So this weekend we went to Magnetic Island, or "Maggie Island" as the Aussies call it. It was the most amazing and beautiful place I have ever seen in my life, the pictures don't even do it justice. We took the ferry over on Friday morning, and checked into our hostel, which surprisingly wasn't rickety and creepy. It was actually the opposite, more like a tiki hut sitting right on the beach. Everyone wanted to go scuba diving so that afternoon we went for a walk on the beach until we found a dive shop-which was closed. Of course. So we thought we'd just go swimming and snorkeling on the beach in front of the shop. It happened to be low tide, which was amazing because like 55 feet of the beach was exposed. Half of us went snorkeling and the rest scoured the beach for treasures. So much was exposed, there were neat corals, shells, worms, and crabs. It's stinger season, so we couldn't go in the 90 degree water without a wetsuit on without the jellies attacking. Snorkeling was amazing I saw corals feeding with all of their polyps out, and sting rays, and some pink jelly fish- which I quickly swam away from. A lot of the corals were broken or bleached, because of the cyclone which was really sad.
  After that we had some food at a random hostel and took a bus back to ours. When we arrived to our surprise it was a huge party, apparently it was a full moon that night, and that calls for a party on Maggie. We had randomly picked the night that the party was happening and stayed at the hostel where it was being held. Whoops!
 The next morning, after a sticky gross night and raging thunderstorms, we checked out and left for our next adventure. We were planning on searching for a secluded pristine beach. We knew it was a 4k hike so we were prepared for a long hike into the beach. Well 3 hours later we still hadn't found it and realized we had gone the wrong way. Oh well, we ended up finding an old WW 2 fort and gun posts. We hiked to the top of a huge hill and found the most amazing views I have ever seen. It was just gorgeous.

Australia, Week 1

The flight down wasn't too bad, I think I must have slept through most of it and there weren't too many wailing babies, or farting stinky people. Once I got to Australia both the Brisbane and Townsville airports were crazy and there were a million things going on. The man that was there to pick us up in Townsville didn't even have a vehicle big enough so he borrowed the bus that belonged to the zoo. Totally normal.

Once I arrived on campus I was shown around a bit and given my room key, my room is so stellar. I have my own balcony with sweet views of the fallen trees and mud puddles left over from cyclone Yasi, but it will be an amazing view once thats all cleaned up. Campus is right in the middle of the mountains and its just gorgeous.

The first couple nights we have had orientation events that have been pretty fun and nothing that they would allow in the states, so thats neat. Except being treated like a freshman again kind of sucks.

We've been to the beach twice and it is so beautiful! There is a saltwater pool right next to the beach that is huge. The water is so warm though and the jellies are out because its stinger season so we have to swim in netted off areas, but thats alright. Thats about it for right now, most of the people in the pictures are other Americans that live on the floor below me, they are all really nice and good people.

I'll write more soon, I just wanted to get things started. I miss you all so much!