I'm in the U.S. now...ooops

Heyyyyy all ye bloggers!!

I totally fail at blogging....because today is November whatever, after Thanksgiving and I've already been home for a week. My bad. The semester got so busy toward the end, and some things I did would be a bit repetitive to write about so I haven't posted in a while. Such is my life; so disjointed, wheeee! :)

So without further ado, here is a jumble of things that I can think of that I did over the last half of the semester in Australia:

My Coral Reef Ecology class went on a field trip to Orpheus Island for 4 days to do some coral survey work and learn about general field techniques. Orpheus was only about a 2.5 hour trip from campus, but we had to wake up at 4 in the morning ( -__- ) to do it. The bus came and picked us up, at which point we rode up to the Hinchinbrook Island ferry terminal to be picked up for  the 40-minute boat trip out to the island. Once we arrived, we chose cabin rooms shared among 4 students each, then went to the cute little dining hall for breakfast. During our stay at Orpheus, we did two snorkel activities per day, each totaling about 1.5 hours in the water. Including travel to and from the reef, each activity lasted about 2+ hours each, twice a day. You can only guess how we felt on the first day after waking up at 4 am....

The activities we did mostly dealt with identifying corals to either family or genus. The Master's students designed most of the activities we did. The last day of the trip, we were allowed a "free" snorkel for 2 hours, where we just took pictures and saw whatever cool critters were out and about.

Following are some pictures of what I saw while snorkeling:

Acropora coral

Six-banded Angelfish

parrotfish

identifying corals

clams (family Tridacnidae)

surgeonfish

Giant clam Tridacna gigas

Montipora digitata

starfish with a broken arm! (don't worry, it will regenerate)

Honeycomb grouper

After Orpheus, I still had half the semester to go. During this time, I wrote 4 reports for Aquaculture of Tropical Species, a big coral reef literature review that consisted of over 60 references and was about 20 pages long including figures, gave 2 presentations, went on another field trip to the Paluma rainforest and completed an assignment for that, and then took finals!

Right now I would rather bake something fun than finish writing this, so I will have to continue at another time. But you got all the important stuff, so...

We'll see you all later, hey?

-K

Midterms haved managed to make me forgetful...

So, since it's been about 4 weeks too long, I suppose I should write something!

Honestly, the past few weeks have flown by, mostly due to schoolwork so not a lot of exciting stuff has happened.

Let's see...week 4, I submitted my first assignment for the semester (I can't believe it was that long ago already!). We had to write a literature review for my Biodiversity of Tropical Australia class, focusing on one research article about one Australian species, plant or animal. My animal was the Mahogany Glider, Petaurus gracilis, for the science enthusiasts out there. They are endangered in Australia because of habitat destruction and the paper focused on their ability to move from habitat to habitat despite it being fragmented due to deforestation. Here's a picture of one of the cuties below (no, I did not take this picture):

After the literature review was done, I went on the Pallarenda Beach trip for international students, put on by the International Student Center at JCU. It was a day full of laying in the sun, playing volleyball and numerous other "getting-to-know each other" games, and eating Lamingtons, which are a white cake dessert covered in chocolate and shredded coconut. I may or may not have already mentioned these in a previous post, but if I have, ignore it because they're so good!

Lamington:

yum, yum!


The following Monday, I had my first exam of the semester in Invertebrate Biology. I thought it went well at the time, and it did! I got an 84%, which translates back to an A at St. Lawrence somehow. It also is a 4.0 according to the registrar, so YAY!

2 days later, my Aquaculture of Tropical Species class and I went on a field trip to the North Queensland Captain Redclaw Farm, which is in Kelso about 20 minutes away from campus. We were there to take notes on redclaw culture techniques at the farm, and it was funny because the farm wasn't in operation any more! Trust me, it made it challenging to write the report I just finished on the field trip! It is now a cable skiing and Barramundi fishing farm, more for recreational purposes. Redclaw are a freshwater crayfish native to Queensland, by the way. Here's a redclaw:

This one is a picture of the farm that I took:

that thing sticking up in the middle is the cable ski- kind of like water skiing but on a cable/ zip line thing...I think...


The next thing on my schedule was another midterm, this time in Biodiversity. I felt that it was a very easy test, nothing special. I had my midterm in coral reef ecology too, about a week later. Whew!

Somewhere in there my friends and I went to a Cowboys game (they're the local rugby team):

Left to right (back row first): Kine, Andrea, Liz, Stefan, me, Steffen, and Ali :)


The weekend of September 1 was another cool event for George Roberts (my hall)! We had Bucks and Hens night, which is where there is a fake "bride" and "groom," and we attend their "bachelor" and "bachelorette" parties. The girls go to a club, and so do the guys, there's a bar tab, and there were supposed to be male strippers. I know what you're thinking: Kelcie in a strip club?! C'mon, you gotta live it up once in a while, and all my friends went! It was a cheap event for such a good time. :) I don't have any pictures of strippers, but I do have this picture of my friends and I:

Aren't we the cutest? :) Left to right: Jenna, me, Summer, Ajshe, Liz

One week later, we had the bird survey field trip for Biodiversity, where groups of 3-4 went around the campus and local area looking for as many bird species as we could. My group found about 24 species which was pretty good! Here are some of the birds we saw (again, not my pictures, they aren't as good):

Rainbow lorikeet

Australian white ibis

 

Sulfur-crested cockatoo

There were so many more, but I'll run out of room. I might do a collage of just pictures eventually, like I've done before :)

The past 3 weeks haven't been very eventful. I have 4 reports due on the same day next week, and a test that day as well. Needless to say, I've been a bit antisocial.

Tomorrow begins the first day of my most exciting field trip however: Orpheus Island!! We'll be there for Coral Reef Ecology for 4 days, helping the Master's students do their research on the coral reef! I'm so excited for this because I've wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef forever. I'm hoping to see some amazing things, like stingrays, sharks, eels, and sea turtles. There will be many many pictures of those later this week!


G'day for now. Cheers ;)

Week 3!

G'Day, mates!

Last week went by in a bit of a blur, as I've been busy with classes (and not too busy with partying, I promise!). As I have a horrible memory, many of the events I will write about will probably be out of order, but at least you'll get the idea.

Last weekend was fairly chill. A few friends and I decided we'd go on a mini-roadtrip to Crystal Springs, which is a swimming and hiking area at a waterfall about an hour north of Townsville. We hopped into 2 cars Saturday afternoon and headed first to Stockland, or "Stockie's," as they call one of the malls here, to grab a picnic lunch. We bought lots of bread, some French onion dip, cookies, soda, lunch meats and cream cheese, and then got ready to head to the Springs. We were running a bit late because we didn't get our act together until after lunch, so we'd only be able to stay at Crystal Springs for a couple of hours as it was, but we were game.

Northbound from Stockies, we encountered a traffic jam on the highway. We sat there for about 20 minutes, wondering if we'd get through and make it to the Springs that afternoon. By this time, it was already about 2 pm so we were somewhat worried. I managed to devour almost an entire pack of Tim Tams in the car waiting for the block to break up. I haven't told anyone about Tim Tams yet, but they are light, fluffy, chocolatey heaven in a bite!

(See, I told you so :) My U.S. and Canadian friends ought to try to find some if they can!)

After another ten minutes or so, my friend Liz wants to get information from someone about the traffic jam, so we use someone's iPHONE to look up traffic info. Nothing. There's a rather largish man, smoking like a chimney, belly hanging out of his wife-beater singlet (tank top!) in front of us, leaning against the door of his soft-top Jeep. Andrea asks if we should ask him for info about the jam. Liz says he is creepy and that she doesn't want to get out of the car by herself to ask (Liz, if you are reading this or ever will, I'm sorry and I don't mean to single you out! I love you!). Andrea and Liz approach the "scary" man together, then come back to the car. All they have is that "the traffic jam has been going on since this morning at 11 am, and it's due to a crash involving a semi." We assume that it isn't going to get any better, so we turn around (pulling U-ies are legal here, unlike VT), and head back to the Strand for a picnic lunch on the beach. There are pictures somewhere in existence of us at the beach that day, but where they are I don't have a clue, and there are tons of pics of me at the beach anyway. I'll try not to make any American friends too jealous of my relaxing lifestyle :P

Sunday was a relatively quiet day. I spent it sleeping in and doing homework. Monday was ok but I was also just doing nothing. Tuesday night after going for a few drinks at UniClub (on campus), my immune system decided to get nasty, so I got sick. I was out for 2 days without going to classes because the head cold was giving me a headache and a severe sore throat, as well as coughing that still hasn't gone away yet.

Classes went really well last week, even this really tedious, awful lab (prac). We had to count coral spac, or baby corals, on the bottom of plates that used to be affixed to the reef, that were used in a study in the '90's by a big name marine biologist. It was interesting for about the first half hour. Then there were 2.5 more hours. You get my drift.

Wednesday through Friday were similar, only I was recovering. Friday night was an amazing night on the town. Friends and I went to a place called the Mad Cow, where we now have a tradition of going every Friday and calling it "Mad Cow Friday." For anyone reading this, the place sounds awful but there's great music and a great crowd! For any relatives, or even potential parents reading, no I did not get really drunk or get into trouble. It was me and the girls and it was amazing :P

Saturday, we went out for dinner at an Asian restaurant called Benny's Hot Wok. I ordered a giant sushi platter and some coconut rice, which also are in a picture somewhere, on someone else's camera....yeah. Those might be up some day.

Sunday night was "Mathletes and Athletes" night at Tom's Tavern downtown. We had to dress up as either nerds or athletes, so you can probably guess what I did ;) See the pic below. There were prizes for best-dressed and my friend Ajshe won a voucher to Tom's!

So far, this week has been rather boring, with nothing but classes and homework, but at least I finished my first writing assignment 3 days early! Go me!

I hope everyone back home is having a great summer and that those of you in school enjoy the start to semester! More details about my weekend, and about the field trip I am signing up for coming soon :)

Peace

                                             Liz and me at Mathletes and Athletes night!

Week I and II pics

Baby saltwater croc ("saltie") at O'Week

Water Python!

Reef HQ Aquarium

Nurse shark

Anemone fish

Wine and cheese social

First day at the Strand! (the beach)

Pretty ladies!

Cliche jumping picture

TOGA TOGA TOGA

Op-shop night

view of the Strand

standing by the rock pool

First time in the library!

The first couple of weeks....

So, I am clearly not good at blogging, because I haven't been on in a couple of weeks. That I am sorry for.

To start off, the first week here was tiring but so much fun. Here at JCU, the Australians refer to the first week as O'Week, which stands for Orientation Week. Work with me here, as I may not recall everything in great detail because it's been a while. The first day of orientation was Friday, July 13. All of the new and international students met at the auditorium to go over some rules and guidelines of James Cook, as well as tips and tricks about choosing classes ("subjects" here), how to get onto the wifi network, and what there is to do around Townsville. We ate a great pizza lunch, chatted on the lawn with people, and then got to hold a baby crocodile and a snake if we so chose! Of course I did it. Pictures will come soon :)


The actual orientation week was fun, but it went by slowly for me at least, because there wasn't a lot to do for busy-work. We went to the Reef HQ aquarium in town, went on a bus tour of Townsville, and then went to the Billabong Sanctuary where we held wombats, patted kangaroos and koalas, and saw a crocodile getting fed! I had a great time doing all of those things, especially the aquarium because as you all probably know, I'm obsessed with fishies! I stood next to the "predator tunnel" where the sharks were held for close to half an hour :)

The rest of orientation week consisted of going into town at night, and learning about Goon, which is just really cheap boxed wine (the only thing most college students drink here, yuck!). Over all it was a pretty great experience.

The first week of classes went by very fast, as it consisted of a lot of finding my way around and understanding my lecture timetable (schedule). I am taking Aquaculture of Tropical Species, Coral Reef Ecology, Biodiversity of Tropical Australia, and Invertebrate Biology. So far, I think Invert. Bio is my favorite because I find functional and evolutionary biology very interesting and all the critters we have been learning about are aquatic species :)

The social events of the week included Toga night on Tuesday, and Op-shop night, which were two themed events at the UniClub on campus. Toga was by far the best night for me here. We all dressed in bed sheets and went to UniClub early and stayed late. I met some new people there and made friends with a couple people I already knew. Op-shop refers to a theme party where everyone buys cheap clothes at a thrift shop and tries to get the cheapest, ugliest outfit possible and wears it out. I did not bother buying clothes for one event, but I did manage to scrounge a pair of very goofy hiking pants, a t-shirt, a genuine "Aussie hat," and hiking boots, so I looked pretty silly. Op-shop was the night when I didn't go anywhere, but I still wore a crazy outfit and had fun with friends taking lots of silly pics :)

This weekend was also fun. A group of us went downtown for Trivia night at a bar called the Mad Cow. The upper floor was reserved for students from my dorm and alcohol was free with the purchase of a bracelet, so it was a private party and was a blast! Last night a few friends and I went down to the "Tav" or the Riverside Tavern and watched the olympics for a couple hours.

Today was homework day and just generally organizing my life for the upcoming week. We also watched some olympic swimming, gymnastics, basketball, rowing, and cycling in my room.

So, that about concludes the last couple of weeks. That was a short run-down of what happened, but for more details, just take a look at the pictures that I am about to post. Pictures say it all :)

G'day mates!