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| Yeah thats me at the Great Barrier Reef. I know I already through a picture of that in my post yesterday but I just thought it was awesome enough to get one of me with it and include that. My calves and bottom half of my thighs got super burned while snorkeling. Didn't think to put sunscreen there and now I have this very attractive tan line. It rules. |
Friday, December 10, 2010
Picture of the Day 1
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Appendix
As impossible as it is to give you an account of my after semester travels that do them justice, I will try to just provide a general insight into my experiences across Australia and New Zealand. The past three weeks have probably been the most fun I have had in my life so far. Traveling with a group of friends by ourselves on the other side of the world exploring places we had only seen in media sources was amazing. As we traveled further and further our group dwindled down to the people I had become better friends with in Perth with one exception and a couple of people in other groups that I would not have minded traveling with but I cannot complain at all.
Our travels started right after I took my hardest exam (Vertebrate Zoology practical) at UWA. I came back, finished packing, ate dinner, and headed off to the airport with almost everyone since most of us were flying out to Cairns as the start of our separate adventures. Our group opted to skip Urulu (Ayer’s Rock) due to flight conflictions and general increase in costs that it would have presented. As much as I would have liked to see that rock, one of Australia’s three most prominent icons, our travels brought us to the other two, and .666 is Hall of Fame material. Cairns was the site of the Great Barrier Reef and the main reason for heading up there. We went snorkeling on the second day there for basically the whole day, which included two different dive sites and the two-hour boat ride each way. We decided to spend a bit more and instead of going to Green Island, which is the most popular spot for tourists because of proximity to Cairns’ port, go out to the outer reef. The corals were amazing [see right].
It is really impossible to describe landscapes in words for me so I will resort to pictures to help (but otherwise you will have to put up with my lack of describing ability). I figured that spending a little extra for pictures of the reef would make a better souvenir than any article of clothing I could find that said Australia on it. The other days in Cairns were spent exploring the tropical rainforests around the area, which was a novel experience for me since I have never been in such an environment before. It was extremely humid most of the time and made for sweaty hiking, for most of our group since apparently I don’t sweat according to the others. A lot of this trip involved large amounts of hiking and/or walking. We just view all of it preparation for the Kepler Track, the three-day great walk we were doing in New Zealand. Our last day in Cairns involved a road trip up the coast to Barron Gorge National Park and Daintree National Park. We rented a minivan and a car for the ten of us since only two out of our whole group were 21+. It was unbelievable how important having people over 21 is for renting cars and stuff and how in sort supply they were in our group. Oh well, everything worked out tin the end.
The next stop on our trip was Sydney, home of the iconic Opera House. We got in late afternoon and after doing all the practical things such as checking into our hostel, grocery shopping, and eating dinner we headed up to the harbour at night to get some great views of both the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was unbelievably beautiful lit up against the dark harbour and I spent a decent amount of time just sitting around on this sandy rock bed looking at them. The next day we decided to go out and explore the Blue Mountains, a two-hour train ride out of Sydney, which was spent tramping all over cliffs and seeing their famous Three Sisters rock formation. Sydney in general was a really nice city. We spend a day on a free, guided tour getting some history and seeing the sites, while others were spent at world-famous Bondi Beach and going around shopping at various markets throughout the city. We even had a delicious Thanksgiving cookout in Centennial Park with another group of friends that were in Sydney the same time we were.
Yes Sydney was very cool and all, as was Cairns, but the part of the trip I had been looking forward to the most all semester was the 11 days we were going to spend in New Zealand. New Zealand had previously been number one on my countries I most want to visit list and now can be crossed off. Those 11 days were amazing. At this point our group was down to six (me, Kevin, Ally, Kelly, Sush, and Brian). We got a relocation deal with Wicked, a hip company that rents out campervans all over the world, which let us hire two three-person vans for us to sleep drive around in. This company has artists paint the sides of the vans to give them character and make them more recognizable on the road; the two were got were called Scarface and Gangster. We basically then spent the next nine days driving around the South Island taking in the views and enjoying life. We hit up Aoraki (Mt. Cook) on the second day and then drove down to Te Anau, the start of the Kepler Track.
This great walk is a three-day 60km hike around Fjordland National Park. The first day was mostly all the work to get up to the top with a walk along the shores of Lake Te Anau to start, the second day was the breath-taking hike along the top of the mountains and down to a forest basin, and the third day was a walk back through the forest to the start. The hut we stayed at during the second day was up in the clouds and they didn’t fully dissipate even after we started late and climbed to the summit of Mt. Luxmore. This walk was probably the highlight of the trip and just an overall great experience walking through nature at its finest. I love mountains more than any other geographic feature and being back in them for basically the whole New Zealand trip was refreshing. After the third day’s hike we drove up to Milford Sound [see below], one of New Zealand’s most highly publicized sites. We didn’t end up taking a cruise because of our gas situation but ended up camping on the side of the road in the middle of the mountains for the night and enjoyed gazing at the southern stars that shown so brightly there. The rest of the trip was more of the same, hiking, driving through amazing scenery. We hit up some glaciers, took a ferry from South to North Island, climbed up the volcanic mountain in Tongariro National Park that was Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies.
I probably won’t end up putting a lot of pictures up on Facebook, mostly because I don’t really like Facebook, but also because they are my pictures and I want to keep them that way. I am more than willing to show anyone who wants to see them, all you have to do is ask me and I will go through any and all of them with you in more detail but in order to give my faithful readers at least a taste of what my travels were like I will upload a picture of the day for the next week or so on here in addition to the ones already in this post for your enjoyment. I know this post is kinda short for all I did, but again I am more than happy to talk to people more in depth. I just felt like something needed to be put up here and I didn't really want to go to in depth for fear of boring my readers!
Cheers,
Joshua Lee
PS. If you have nothing to do in the next 14 or so hours and see me on FB chat or gmail hit me up because I am just sitting in the LAX airport and would welcome a distraction if I cannot sleep. I will have spent roughly 24 hours in this airport today and tomorrow when this is all over with.
Our travels started right after I took my hardest exam (Vertebrate Zoology practical) at UWA. I came back, finished packing, ate dinner, and headed off to the airport with almost everyone since most of us were flying out to Cairns as the start of our separate adventures. Our group opted to skip Urulu (Ayer’s Rock) due to flight conflictions and general increase in costs that it would have presented. As much as I would have liked to see that rock, one of Australia’s three most prominent icons, our travels brought us to the other two, and .666 is Hall of Fame material. Cairns was the site of the Great Barrier Reef and the main reason for heading up there. We went snorkeling on the second day there for basically the whole day, which included two different dive sites and the two-hour boat ride each way. We decided to spend a bit more and instead of going to Green Island, which is the most popular spot for tourists because of proximity to Cairns’ port, go out to the outer reef. The corals were amazing [see right].
It is really impossible to describe landscapes in words for me so I will resort to pictures to help (but otherwise you will have to put up with my lack of describing ability). I figured that spending a little extra for pictures of the reef would make a better souvenir than any article of clothing I could find that said Australia on it. The other days in Cairns were spent exploring the tropical rainforests around the area, which was a novel experience for me since I have never been in such an environment before. It was extremely humid most of the time and made for sweaty hiking, for most of our group since apparently I don’t sweat according to the others. A lot of this trip involved large amounts of hiking and/or walking. We just view all of it preparation for the Kepler Track, the three-day great walk we were doing in New Zealand. Our last day in Cairns involved a road trip up the coast to Barron Gorge National Park and Daintree National Park. We rented a minivan and a car for the ten of us since only two out of our whole group were 21+. It was unbelievable how important having people over 21 is for renting cars and stuff and how in sort supply they were in our group. Oh well, everything worked out tin the end.The next stop on our trip was Sydney, home of the iconic Opera House. We got in late afternoon and after doing all the practical things such as checking into our hostel, grocery shopping, and eating dinner we headed up to the harbour at night to get some great views of both the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was unbelievably beautiful lit up against the dark harbour and I spent a decent amount of time just sitting around on this sandy rock bed looking at them. The next day we decided to go out and explore the Blue Mountains, a two-hour train ride out of Sydney, which was spent tramping all over cliffs and seeing their famous Three Sisters rock formation. Sydney in general was a really nice city. We spend a day on a free, guided tour getting some history and seeing the sites, while others were spent at world-famous Bondi Beach and going around shopping at various markets throughout the city. We even had a delicious Thanksgiving cookout in Centennial Park with another group of friends that were in Sydney the same time we were.
Yes Sydney was very cool and all, as was Cairns, but the part of the trip I had been looking forward to the most all semester was the 11 days we were going to spend in New Zealand. New Zealand had previously been number one on my countries I most want to visit list and now can be crossed off. Those 11 days were amazing. At this point our group was down to six (me, Kevin, Ally, Kelly, Sush, and Brian). We got a relocation deal with Wicked, a hip company that rents out campervans all over the world, which let us hire two three-person vans for us to sleep drive around in. This company has artists paint the sides of the vans to give them character and make them more recognizable on the road; the two were got were called Scarface and Gangster. We basically then spent the next nine days driving around the South Island taking in the views and enjoying life. We hit up Aoraki (Mt. Cook) on the second day and then drove down to Te Anau, the start of the Kepler Track. This great walk is a three-day 60km hike around Fjordland National Park. The first day was mostly all the work to get up to the top with a walk along the shores of Lake Te Anau to start, the second day was the breath-taking hike along the top of the mountains and down to a forest basin, and the third day was a walk back through the forest to the start. The hut we stayed at during the second day was up in the clouds and they didn’t fully dissipate even after we started late and climbed to the summit of Mt. Luxmore. This walk was probably the highlight of the trip and just an overall great experience walking through nature at its finest. I love mountains more than any other geographic feature and being back in them for basically the whole New Zealand trip was refreshing. After the third day’s hike we drove up to Milford Sound [see below], one of New Zealand’s most highly publicized sites. We didn’t end up taking a cruise because of our gas situation but ended up camping on the side of the road in the middle of the mountains for the night and enjoyed gazing at the southern stars that shown so brightly there. The rest of the trip was more of the same, hiking, driving through amazing scenery. We hit up some glaciers, took a ferry from South to North Island, climbed up the volcanic mountain in Tongariro National Park that was Mt. Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies.
I probably won’t end up putting a lot of pictures up on Facebook, mostly because I don’t really like Facebook, but also because they are my pictures and I want to keep them that way. I am more than willing to show anyone who wants to see them, all you have to do is ask me and I will go through any and all of them with you in more detail but in order to give my faithful readers at least a taste of what my travels were like I will upload a picture of the day for the next week or so on here in addition to the ones already in this post for your enjoyment. I know this post is kinda short for all I did, but again I am more than happy to talk to people more in depth. I just felt like something needed to be put up here and I didn't really want to go to in depth for fear of boring my readers!
Cheers,
Joshua Lee
PS. If you have nothing to do in the next 14 or so hours and see me on FB chat or gmail hit me up because I am just sitting in the LAX airport and would welcome a distraction if I cannot sleep. I will have spent roughly 24 hours in this airport today and tomorrow when this is all over with.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Top Ten Things of the Semester
There comes a time in every blogger/internet journalist in which a top ten countdown is absolutely inevitable and this feels like one of those times. I have currently completed half of my six exams as of today and have a couple days off before my next one so I thought I would update my blog since I hadn't in a while due to studying for these finals. I have my psych, vertebrate zoology theory, and human reproductive bio lab done, and am looking forward to bio theory, zoo lab, and sports psychology next week. I have an exam Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and then leave Thursday night for Cairns. So without further ado since I know you don't really care about me finals I give you the top ten things I have learned/done/have happened to me since I have been here. I figure I will make a blog post about my post-semester travels after I do them so they will not be included in my top ten.
I learned that I hate flies (at least in Australia). I already commented on this in my last post but when you end up swallowing flies and having them crawl up your nose your disdain for them grows. I really hope my hate for them dwindles when I get back to the states.
When you have the same things over again (some kind of meat, potatoes, steamed veggies, cut up fruit) for dinner every night it really makes you appreciate other dinners. I really am not complaining since I don't mind Tommy dinners as much as some others on the trip, but it makes you appreciate South Dining Hall and laugh remembering when you and your friends went through saying "there's nothing for dinner tonight!" On a related food note, I have cooked out or barbecued here on three separate occasions for groups of people and have enjoyed cooking kangaroo steaks, lamb, and sausages for people immensely. Kangaroo is especially good.
DC. I love DC. I thought one 320 GB hard drive was big enough to bring here. Boy was I wrong. I am down to my last 50 gigs and have been very selective about what I download. I love getting new music, movies, and tv shows.
I have learned a whole bunch of Australian words and lingo since I have been here and would just like to share a couple of my favorites as well as some just plain weird ones. Favorites: Heaps - meaning large amounts of anything, "I [hopefully] have heaps of friends back a Notre Dame reading this right now" Arvo - short for afternoon, "Hey can I borrow your homework this arvo?" Cheers - thanks, goodbye, basically the best way to end an email Annoying ones: Starting out any answer to any question regardless if it is answerable with the word 'yeah', Me: Hey how ya going? Australian: Yeah, good thanks. Saying 'hey' an obnoxious amount at the end of any sentence. "They're playing so bad hey" or "This is so good hey"
I have also learned that most Australian accents are not that cool and just really annoying, especially the females. Really not all they are hyped up to be. Trust me on this one.
I miss volleyball a lot. After going a semester without playing it competitively for the first time in eight year it really dawned on me how much I love the sport. I knew it was easily my favorite sport to play but it just hit me how much I do like it and gave me a taste of what will happen in a year and a half. I think I miss the camaraderie and my teammates more than the sport itself however. That is what really makes being on a team fun, not the sport itself.
I have learned that taking time out for oneself is harder than it sounds. I have never really had this much free time during a semester without all of my normal activities, like sports and work, so trying to fill that time has been a bit of a challenge for me. Or at least was at first. I have gotten a hang of it as the semester progresses and when it comes time to have almost everything scheduled into my day again it will be just another thing I have to adapt (or should I say revert) to
Not having a cell phone (kind of). I do have a cell phone that I bought here to contact my parents since our internet sucks back home and therefor cannot Skype, but I hardly ever use it here. I do not carry it around with me at all during the day and is just pretty liberating not being attached to one at all times. It will come in handy for travels however.
Card nights in the JCR. One of my favorite activities of the semester has been getting a group of friends, my computer for music, and heading down to the Junior Common Room to spend an evening playing cards. I would much rather sit around playing cards than watching tv most nights and after teaching a handful of people the greatest card game in the world, Sheepshead, and learning a couple new ones myself we were set for the semester. It was a great way to spend a lot of nights here getting to know people and just hanging out in general.
And number one. Some of you may have guessed it by now since it hasn't come up on this top ten list yet or in my blog in general really. The best thing that has happened to me since I have been here is finding someone special to share all the experiences with. Yeah I am not going to get all mushy on you guys but seriously meeting my girlfriend Kelly Nickodem has made the trip that much better.
I learned that I hate flies (at least in Australia). I already commented on this in my last post but when you end up swallowing flies and having them crawl up your nose your disdain for them grows. I really hope my hate for them dwindles when I get back to the states.
When you have the same things over again (some kind of meat, potatoes, steamed veggies, cut up fruit) for dinner every night it really makes you appreciate other dinners. I really am not complaining since I don't mind Tommy dinners as much as some others on the trip, but it makes you appreciate South Dining Hall and laugh remembering when you and your friends went through saying "there's nothing for dinner tonight!" On a related food note, I have cooked out or barbecued here on three separate occasions for groups of people and have enjoyed cooking kangaroo steaks, lamb, and sausages for people immensely. Kangaroo is especially good.
DC. I love DC. I thought one 320 GB hard drive was big enough to bring here. Boy was I wrong. I am down to my last 50 gigs and have been very selective about what I download. I love getting new music, movies, and tv shows.
I have learned a whole bunch of Australian words and lingo since I have been here and would just like to share a couple of my favorites as well as some just plain weird ones. Favorites: Heaps - meaning large amounts of anything, "I [hopefully] have heaps of friends back a Notre Dame reading this right now" Arvo - short for afternoon, "Hey can I borrow your homework this arvo?" Cheers - thanks, goodbye, basically the best way to end an email Annoying ones: Starting out any answer to any question regardless if it is answerable with the word 'yeah', Me: Hey how ya going? Australian: Yeah, good thanks. Saying 'hey' an obnoxious amount at the end of any sentence. "They're playing so bad hey" or "This is so good hey"
I have also learned that most Australian accents are not that cool and just really annoying, especially the females. Really not all they are hyped up to be. Trust me on this one.
I miss volleyball a lot. After going a semester without playing it competitively for the first time in eight year it really dawned on me how much I love the sport. I knew it was easily my favorite sport to play but it just hit me how much I do like it and gave me a taste of what will happen in a year and a half. I think I miss the camaraderie and my teammates more than the sport itself however. That is what really makes being on a team fun, not the sport itself.
I have learned that taking time out for oneself is harder than it sounds. I have never really had this much free time during a semester without all of my normal activities, like sports and work, so trying to fill that time has been a bit of a challenge for me. Or at least was at first. I have gotten a hang of it as the semester progresses and when it comes time to have almost everything scheduled into my day again it will be just another thing I have to adapt (or should I say revert) to
Not having a cell phone (kind of). I do have a cell phone that I bought here to contact my parents since our internet sucks back home and therefor cannot Skype, but I hardly ever use it here. I do not carry it around with me at all during the day and is just pretty liberating not being attached to one at all times. It will come in handy for travels however.
Card nights in the JCR. One of my favorite activities of the semester has been getting a group of friends, my computer for music, and heading down to the Junior Common Room to spend an evening playing cards. I would much rather sit around playing cards than watching tv most nights and after teaching a handful of people the greatest card game in the world, Sheepshead, and learning a couple new ones myself we were set for the semester. It was a great way to spend a lot of nights here getting to know people and just hanging out in general.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
No man is an Island
In between that trip and the next island trip that I took today I finished up classes last week and am now in 'study' week. They seriously give us a week off for studying and then proceed to spread out our exams over two weeks. A huge change from Notre Dame where we get Friday off before one week of exams. Don't get me wrong, I will be studying during this week and even started yesterday, since exams are worth so much here but I thought it was fine just to take a break today and head out to Rottnest Island since a group of ND kids had gone earlier in the year and were raving about it. I was hesitant about going just because I want to save money for traveling after but it wasn't too expensive and got persuaded to go. The was one huge difference between when the other group went and when we went that we didn't account for: flies. There were so many flies on that accursed island that it made the trip pretty unbearable for the most part.
This island was quire larger than Penguin Island and a pretty big tourist spot for Perth. The scenery was actually very nice around the entire island (we rented bikes and were thus able to circle it) but the flies were just terrible. I thought there was not another creature that I hated on this planet as much as mosquitos but flies have made a strong case for second place after their showing today). We eventually ended up wrapping towels, shirts, or in Spencer and Will's case, boxers, around our faces in an attempt to keep them at bay. It must have been pretty comical looking. It was such a disappointment to go to this nice island on a beautiful day and get it ruined by these little bugs, but I do kinda regret going. On the bright-side our trip to Rottnest will be unforgettable; that much is true.
It was Erin's 21st birthday yesterday and while most of the other ND kids are off on trips to Bali or up north, the group of us that were still here (mostly guys) went out to the Deen to celebrate. I was privileged enough to be able to buy her first legal (in America, which is a semi-moot point since we are in a country where the drinking age is 18) drink, and went with the house special mango daiquiri. She had a fun night which was the only thing that mattered. Erin's birthday also signaled the first of November meaning that our trip after is only 17 days away, 16 now. Its getting so close I cannot wait. Got to bear down and focus here for these 16 days and then Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef here I come.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
It's a Cliché for a Reason
So many song lyrics and thrown about quotes remind us to make the most of life since its time is very limited, and seize the day or as the movie Dead Poets Society frequently repeats its Latin translation "Carpe Diem". These phrases are used so often most of us hear them and maybe reflect on them for a second or two and just let them go right through our ears, not really giving them a chance to get what they are trying to convey to us. This is of course understandable since it goes against human nature to have the idea of our own deaths salient in our consciousness constantly. Many times it takes a tragedy to cause people to sit down and really reflect on their own usage of time here and this is very unfortunate. A tragedy such as the one that occurred at my home university today. The death of Declan Sullivan was an unnecessary event that could have easily been prevented if the university used common sense, however, as with everything, it is in the past and cannot be changed, only lamented.
Even though I never knew him, I am dedicating this blog post to Declan, a young man whose soul is now in the hands of the Lord and the thousands of prayers that will be said from Domers across the world. That being said the current mortality rate of the world is calculated to be .883, meaning 1 out of every 113 people died last year (>150,000 per day). Without trying to sound insensitive, death is a part of life and will happen to everyone at some point. Our university is making this a huge deal, mostly due to the fact that Declan died while working for them, but (with no disrespect meant for the life of Declan) people die everyday. Especially people that we don't know. A large amount of facebook statuses we posted saying that they were praying for him and his family, but many of these people have no idea who he was, their only connection to him was being part of the Notre Dame family. I am not saying this is a bad thing only that all his death did was remind those with no other connection to him about the salience of life in general. The tragedy of death lies all within the timing. Since it is an event all of us will undertake at some point, and when we are reminded of it through events such as this we are confronted with thoughts of how much more that person could have experienced in their lives before it was cut short of all its potential. After lamenting that person's loss, our thoughts naturally lead to our own lives (not out of selfishness, just the salience of death) and all of the things we want to accomplish and the unknown things that we will accomplish with the rest of our time. But, with Declan as an example, this time can be untimely cut short, which leads to the overused but often under-appreciated cliché phrases that remind us to make the most out of the time we are given because we never know how much we have. I urge you readers to take this message to heart, at least for the day, and do something special that makes this day different than the rest.
Even though I never knew him, I am dedicating this blog post to Declan, a young man whose soul is now in the hands of the Lord and the thousands of prayers that will be said from Domers across the world. That being said the current mortality rate of the world is calculated to be .883, meaning 1 out of every 113 people died last year (>150,000 per day). Without trying to sound insensitive, death is a part of life and will happen to everyone at some point. Our university is making this a huge deal, mostly due to the fact that Declan died while working for them, but (with no disrespect meant for the life of Declan) people die everyday. Especially people that we don't know. A large amount of facebook statuses we posted saying that they were praying for him and his family, but many of these people have no idea who he was, their only connection to him was being part of the Notre Dame family. I am not saying this is a bad thing only that all his death did was remind those with no other connection to him about the salience of life in general. The tragedy of death lies all within the timing. Since it is an event all of us will undertake at some point, and when we are reminded of it through events such as this we are confronted with thoughts of how much more that person could have experienced in their lives before it was cut short of all its potential. After lamenting that person's loss, our thoughts naturally lead to our own lives (not out of selfishness, just the salience of death) and all of the things we want to accomplish and the unknown things that we will accomplish with the rest of our time. But, with Declan as an example, this time can be untimely cut short, which leads to the overused but often under-appreciated cliché phrases that remind us to make the most out of the time we are given because we never know how much we have. I urge you readers to take this message to heart, at least for the day, and do something special that makes this day different than the rest.
Monday, October 18, 2010
A(nother) Weekend in Southwest Australia
After finishing up classes on Thursday, I was forced to skip my lone friday lecture by the University of Notre Dame in order to go down south to Margaret River for the weekend. It was a travesty indeed. Instead of staying around Perth for the weekend, waking up early to watch us beat a very mediocre Western Michigan team, and doing homework, I instead got to go surfing, wine tasting, and bouldering (the act of climbing on rocks in a non-intense fashion that would otherwise be called rock climbing). But I am getting ahead of myself. Lets go back to last weekend. I have had a fairly busy week and lament the fact that I have almost gone two weeks without a post.
Anyway. The previous weekend our college had its annual ball. It was just an excuse to get dressed up nicely on a Saturday evening, eat some good food, and dance. Oh and experience the first open bar event that we were legally allowed to partake in with all my friends down here. Technically it wasn't an open bar seeing as they only came around with beer, red wine, and white wine (my choice for the night) but it was unlimited refills and some people took advantage of that more than others. Needless to say that our dorm providing free-flowing alcohol was an experience that I would never get at Notre Dame. The food was delicious and a welcome break from the over-cooked meat that we get at Tommy on a very regular basis. The table I was at was filled with Notre Dame people and a super fun group to share the long meal with. After that it was a short-lived night of dancing with my girlfriend Kelly due to poor speaker quality. But overall an extremely fun night.
Nothing earth shattering went on during last week which was part of the reason I didn't update this sooner since I really only had the ball to talk about. Just doing normal school work for four days and then headed down to Margaret River on Friday. I am really getting used to this three day weekend that I have effectively had all semester with only one lecture on fridays in the morning. It is going to be rough going back to ND where almost every minute of my days I will have to be doing something and can't take as much free time for myself like I am able to down here.
On to Margaret River. We left Tommy at 7:30 am on Friday and drove down to some mine about and hour south of Perth after picking up Jane, one of our leaders, at her house in Cottesloe. Friday was incredibly boring and felt like a waste of an entire morning and afternoon. We basically drove around the Alcoa mine for the entire morning in our bus, since it was an aluminum mine and just harvested it from a couple meters into the earth (not down super far underground like the Super Pit). After having lunch late at around two in the town of Harvey we drove the rest of the afternoon down to the Surfpoint Lodge that we were staying at. We first visited the town planning committee and listen to them talk for a while. After that we got sized up for wet suits at a surf shop down the road and then came back for a delicious meal of sausages, kangaroo steaks, and salad. We barbecued ourselves as a group and I was the one in charge of the kangaroo on the barbie. It was awesome. After a talk with Martin and Jane it was off for a night walk along the beach and then to bed.
The next morning we got up bright and early to eat breakfast and catch the world-famous waves of Margaret River. We met up with our surf instructors at a beach and were divided into two groups. I was in the second group so while the first were out learning how to surf we walked around and out to some rock formation. I just couldn't wait and was so excited all morning just to get out and experience one of the things Australia is most famous for. We got taught how to stand up before heading out. It was an awesome experience. I got up multiple times, as well as eating it multiple times as well, and actually had a pretty good runs that I was proud of for my first time. To be fair we didn't have super-gigantic waves that were on either side of the area we were in but they still got decently sized. After a spot of lunch we headed over to Wardan Aboriginal Cultural Centre for a talk with an elder and a walk through the bush. For dinner that night we headed into the town of Margaret River and ate at the Spaghetti Bowl. The night concluded with listening to a live instrumental band at Settler's Tavern which was a blend of didgeridoo, drums, saxophone, and flute among others I am probably missing.
Sunday morning a group of us went to mass in Margaret River in the morning after catching part of the Wisconsin-OSU game and having a chat with Martin and Jane. Technically these trips constitute a one-credit class so we have to have some scholarly discussion. After mass we drove to Leeuwin Estates, one of the best vinyards in all of Margaret River (an area of Australia that is known worldwide for two things: wine and surfing). We got a tour of the wine making process which finished up with wine tasting. This wine was better than the wine I had had on spring break. I really am not a fan of red wine at all, but these expensive white wines are growing on me. After that we headed up to Canal Rocks, a place I have previously visited on my spring break trip, but it is still a beautiful place to spend a while. Alan, Mary Kate, Kevin Bell, Spencer, Kelly, and I swam over to part of the rocks that were only accessible by water and continued our bouldering there.
A weekend experiencing some of the finest aspects of Australian culture. It doesn't get much better than that. This trip is just making me more excited to get to traveling afterwards. Two more weeks of lectures. I am planning on getting all my papers, lab reports and presentations done with this week and then start studying for exams next week. Finish up this year strong then head out and see more parts of Australia and then the part I am most excited for: The Kepler Track and Milford Sound among other things in New Zealand.
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| Right-left: Andrew, Me, Kelly, Kevin, Bee, Mary Kate, Karina, Alan |
Nothing earth shattering went on during last week which was part of the reason I didn't update this sooner since I really only had the ball to talk about. Just doing normal school work for four days and then headed down to Margaret River on Friday. I am really getting used to this three day weekend that I have effectively had all semester with only one lecture on fridays in the morning. It is going to be rough going back to ND where almost every minute of my days I will have to be doing something and can't take as much free time for myself like I am able to down here.
On to Margaret River. We left Tommy at 7:30 am on Friday and drove down to some mine about and hour south of Perth after picking up Jane, one of our leaders, at her house in Cottesloe. Friday was incredibly boring and felt like a waste of an entire morning and afternoon. We basically drove around the Alcoa mine for the entire morning in our bus, since it was an aluminum mine and just harvested it from a couple meters into the earth (not down super far underground like the Super Pit). After having lunch late at around two in the town of Harvey we drove the rest of the afternoon down to the Surfpoint Lodge that we were staying at. We first visited the town planning committee and listen to them talk for a while. After that we got sized up for wet suits at a surf shop down the road and then came back for a delicious meal of sausages, kangaroo steaks, and salad. We barbecued ourselves as a group and I was the one in charge of the kangaroo on the barbie. It was awesome. After a talk with Martin and Jane it was off for a night walk along the beach and then to bed.
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| The closest pic I have of me actually surfing |
Sunday morning a group of us went to mass in Margaret River in the morning after catching part of the Wisconsin-OSU game and having a chat with Martin and Jane. Technically these trips constitute a one-credit class so we have to have some scholarly discussion. After mass we drove to Leeuwin Estates, one of the best vinyards in all of Margaret River (an area of Australia that is known worldwide for two things: wine and surfing). We got a tour of the wine making process which finished up with wine tasting. This wine was better than the wine I had had on spring break. I really am not a fan of red wine at all, but these expensive white wines are growing on me. After that we headed up to Canal Rocks, a place I have previously visited on my spring break trip, but it is still a beautiful place to spend a while. Alan, Mary Kate, Kevin Bell, Spencer, Kelly, and I swam over to part of the rocks that were only accessible by water and continued our bouldering there.
A weekend experiencing some of the finest aspects of Australian culture. It doesn't get much better than that. This trip is just making me more excited to get to traveling afterwards. Two more weeks of lectures. I am planning on getting all my papers, lab reports and presentations done with this week and then start studying for exams next week. Finish up this year strong then head out and see more parts of Australia and then the part I am most excited for: The Kepler Track and Milford Sound among other things in New Zealand.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Looking Ahead
Our final exam schedules finally came out the Thursday in the week before spring break. The University certainly took its time about this and it hurt us a bit in trying to plan travels after the semester especially since almost everybody I wanted to travel with was gone during spring break. But we talked friday night before break and got a rough idea, I worked on plans throughout the break, and yesterday we finally were able to go down to the Quantas agent in Perth and extend our ticket home. Notre Dame has a deal with Quantas that allows us to add stopovers in cities on the way back to LAX for a reduced price. After a very long morning at the Quantas builing we eventually got all of our flights booked for the way back to the states. My plans are to fly out to Cairns first and stay there a couple of days, then hit up Sydney for a handful more, and the fly into Christchurch, New Zealand and travel all around the south and north island for 10 days. This is the part of my study abroad experience that I have been looking forward to the whole semester. I cannot wait to hike and drive all around New Zealand seeing the one country that I have wanted to visit forever.
Classes are going pretty well at this point. I have most of my assessment work done until finals except for one lab report and one paper. But other than that I just have three and a half more weeks of lecture and then I am done with classes. This weekend our Dorm is having a ball on Saturday, next weekend we have our last Notre Dame sponsored trip down to Margaret River (same area that I had gone for spring break) for the weekend (+ friday), and after that I really don't know what but I only have two free weekends left.
I cannot really tell you where the semester has gone because it seems to be flying by and before I know it, it will be Dec 9 and I will have to come back to the states. The best parts of my experience down here are coming up though and I will try to enjoy every moment up until then of my time down here instead of only looking forward to these after-school travels. Time to head off to psych (this class is terribly boring however and I would rather be managing my three combined 10-2 fantasy football teams or continuing this blog)
Classes are going pretty well at this point. I have most of my assessment work done until finals except for one lab report and one paper. But other than that I just have three and a half more weeks of lecture and then I am done with classes. This weekend our Dorm is having a ball on Saturday, next weekend we have our last Notre Dame sponsored trip down to Margaret River (same area that I had gone for spring break) for the weekend (+ friday), and after that I really don't know what but I only have two free weekends left.
I cannot really tell you where the semester has gone because it seems to be flying by and before I know it, it will be Dec 9 and I will have to come back to the states. The best parts of my experience down here are coming up though and I will try to enjoy every moment up until then of my time down here instead of only looking forward to these after-school travels. Time to head off to psych (this class is terribly boring however and I would rather be managing my three combined 10-2 fantasy football teams or continuing this blog)
Thursday, September 30, 2010
A Couple Days in Dunsborough
So instead of going to Thailand, Bali, or up the West Coast of Australia, due to a variety of reasons but mostly financial savings for my travels at the end of the semester, like most of my fellow Domers did, I went down to Claire's, one of my Australian friends, summer cabin in Dunsborough. Dunsborough is about a two-and-a-half hour drive south of Perth located in the little tip of the Southwest corner of Australia (see the map to the right). This area around Margaret River is a famous wine location in A
A group of nine of us from Tommy went down: Me, Claire, Maddy (one of Claire's good friends who is pretty cool), Derek (the other Domer that came down), Amaury (A Mauritian from Mauritius), Nessa, Terry, Alex, and Sivam. We left Tuesday night after dinner and spent the rest of the night playing poker. I got no good hands at all and only one all hand all night. It was a blow to my card playing abilities. I think I will stick to Sheepshead and Oh Sh*t. Wednesday morning we spent deciding what to do exactly and planning our route. We then headed off to check out these cool caves only to turn around and not check them out for $20. So instead we drove further down Caves Road and came along Caves Rocks which was just a cool "gneiss" (pronounced nice) rock formation. So of course I climbed all over it. After that we got lunch at a brewery and then started our afternoon of tasting. We started our tasting tour at the Cove and Liqueur Factory where for only two dollars we got to sample three different liqueur flavors (I went with raspberry, macadamia nut, and lime) and one pre-mixed combination (lemon cheesecake). They were all delicious. After that we headed to the Margaret River Chocolate Factory where I did not partake in any of the sampling. Why anyone would want to eat heaps of different flavored chocolate chips is beyond me. Next up, cheese! Coming from the cheese state of course I partook and thoroughly enjoyed all of the cheeses. We finished the day at a pretty upscale winery (of who's name escapes me at the moment) for free wine tasting. Since wine is the big drink down here in Australia I have already had some at the formal dinners and such at Tommy earlier and some of the white wines are decent, but I really have no desire to drink red wine ever. So we went down the list of whites and then I ducked out when the reds started.
The best part of the day however was yet to come. After going to the local butcher and selecting the meat we were going to grill out with for the night, a group of us went up to Sugarloaf (another rock formation on the coast, but 100x better than the first one) for the sunset. Climbing rocks is easily one of my favorite activities here and these ones provided the most fun I have had here climbing yet due to a presence of danger most other rocks have lacked. Nothing I couldn't handle of course but enough to make it super fun. Not to mention the sunset was gorgeous. I made it up to the horse head-looking formation and watched it from there. Got back to the cottage and grilled up the meat for everybody, which consisted of a nice piece of marinated lamb and a sausage for me.
Today we spent most of the morning after breakfast at Yallingup Beach which was a lot better than Cottesloe, the beach up here that we always go to. A morning of sun and swimming on the picturesque shores of Australia, it doesn't get much better than that. I am one lucky individual for all of this. I mean I am sure I am missing out on a fun experience in Thailand as well but spending my spring break in Australia isn't to shabby either. I have to keep telling myself that and not to take being here for granted. I could be back in the great state of Indiana personally watching our football team struggle or here spending part my spring break on a white sand beach on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Oceans are super salty by the way. Its gross. Anyway on that obvious statement I will leave you for today my readers. I hope to find something fun to fill the last three days of my break. I will keep you posted. Here are a couple more photos from the trip.
Today we spent most of the morning after breakfast at Yallingup Beach which was a lot better than Cottesloe, the beach up here that we always go to. A morning of sun and swimming on the picturesque shores of Australia, it doesn't get much better than that. I am one lucky individual for all of this. I mean I am sure I am missing out on a fun experience in Thailand as well but spending my spring break in Australia isn't to shabby either. I have to keep telling myself that and not to take being here for granted. I could be back in the great state of Indiana personally watching our football team struggle or here spending part my spring break on a white sand beach on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Oceans are super salty by the way. Its gross. Anyway on that obvious statement I will leave you for today my readers. I hope to find something fun to fill the last three days of my break. I will keep you posted. Here are a couple more photos from the trip.
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| Sugarloaf |
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| Yallingup Beach |
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| A view from my perch |
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Egg-laying and Fire-breathing Mammals
It is Thursday now in a week in which I had very little to do since everything was due last week. Most of the week was spent just tyring to catch up on readings and things along those lines. Kayaking on the Swan River was a blast last Friday. I was under the impression that we were going canoeing but when we showed up, River Gods, the company that we had hired had two full racks of two-people kayaks for us. While helping unloading, I spied a nice kayak with a rudder and two divided seating areas, instead of one large hallowed out area, and claimed that one for me and Will. This was Will's first time kayaking and so I let him sit in the back and do all of the steering while I acted as the workhorse in the front. It took a while for him to get the hang out it down but eventually we were cruising no problem. We spent the morning on the river, and then went to Success Hill, a park, for lunch and to listen to some city planners about conservation. After that we hopped back into our bus and headed up to the dam and hiked around there. The dam and lake created by it reminded me of the one in X2 where Wolverine was tested on. After that we drove to another park for dinner and hiked around it before eating. There was a nice lookout over all the area northeast of Perth as well as a nice waterfall. We capped off the day with a tour of an animal rescue centre where I crossed off another Australian animal that I need to see while I am here; not only did I get to see the echidna, I also got to pet it. All I have left on my list is the ever elusive platypus. That was the excitement of the weekend as I was inevitably let down by Notre Dame's football team again. I don't really care about the refs seeing as we had our chances earlier in the game and just didn't capitalize on them. Anyway this is a depressing subject even in two sentences so I will change topics.
Here Wednesday night is the night (or the most popular weekday night) to go out and I decided since I didn't have much to do today besides class this afternoon and a psych experiment this morning for a little cash, that I might as well. A group of Tommy people were going out to the Leederville Hotel and so we decided to go with as well. Definitely not as fun as advertised on the Facebook event. It was a big letdown of a night in general seeing as the bus we were supposed to take didn't show up, causing us to wait an extra half hour for the next train since we missed the one we were going to take. This caused us to wait in line outside the venue for a while. The Leedy (as it is known by locals) was actually a pretty cool venue. It was huge with a couple different environments. One was a rave type atmosphere complete with strobe lights, cages, and even a fire breather, while the other part was mostly a bar. It wasn't that fun at all so we all left after about 45 minutes there. Not one of the greatest Wednesday nights ever. Oh well. There will be others.
Spring break next week. While most other people are going to Thailand, Bali, or up the coast, I am currently/tentatively going down south with a couple of Australian friends to one of their houses on Tuesday for a couple of days. I am trying to convince Claire not to leave until noonish on Tuesday so I can watch the Monday Night Football game. I really don't want to miss the Bears-Packers game. Should be a good one and hopefully put the Pack in sole possession of first place in the division.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Anyway things at Tommy have been very work-filled for me these last ten days. In the past ten days I have written two different papers, given a 45 minute presentation on Tuesday, literally just finished taking a mid-sem test, and completed my part of a paper for biology this morning that is due Sunday . Alright I am done making excuses as to why I haven't updated this in a while but I have been busy. The only brightside about not having volleyball right now is the freetime it allows me to do all this work. That is the only brightside.
But overall it was a pretty uneventful past week and a half. In my vertebrate zoology lab i dissected a fetal pig for the third time in my life. How many pigs must a person cut up before they graduate school? A group of Notre Dame students went out to Rottnest Island for this past weekend which would have been a bunch of fun, but seeing as I had all this work to do I passed. I do intend to get out there in one of the weekends after spring break, since it is supposed to be super nice, with a group of us that stayed in this weekend. But by not going out there I did get to wake up early again and watch our great football team choke another game away to Michigan. In all honesty I was not at all suprised at the outcome after we completed that 95 yard play to Rudolph. It was typical Notre Dame football. Anyway I wasn't really expecting our team to do much with a first six game prediction of 3-3. I mean don't get me wrong I want our team to win as much as any other kid on Notre Dame's campus (except for maybe Jim Waclawik or Steve Walsh) but I just didn't think we would be that good this year. NFL kicked off this week though to a very favorable start for the Packers (a win and a Vikings loss) but I am a bit concerned over the loss of Ryan Grant for the season. Hopefully the Cornhusker Brandon Jackson can step up his game and provide Rodgers with the run support he needs.
We get to go on another one of Notre Dame's trips tomorrow which will be a nice break/reward for these past weeks. Good thing I only have one class on Friday, and this certain lecture happens to be recorded. Instead of being a whole weekend trip, this one is just a day excursion in Perth. We are going canoeing on the Swan River during the morning, spending the afternoon at Mundaring Weir (a dam and lake) and a night time walk at Karakamia Wildlife Sanctuary. It should be a great time. Just going out on trips like these is one of the best things about being down here in Australia. Going out into the land and escaping any thought of actually being in school is a great feeling. As always I am looking for new music to get off DC++ so if anyone has any suggestions of some good stuff let me know.
Monday, September 6, 2010
For all those Dad's Out There
It is currently 9:34 pm on Sunday night and I am totally burnt out and unable to do anymore school work so I figured I would blog some. I am in this state because I woke up this morning at 3:15 am in order to watch the opening game of the Notre Dame football season against Purdue. Most of our group gathered in the Senior Common Room at Tommy and hooked up a Slingbox to Derek's computer in order to watch the game. A slingbox is this cool device that Alan had configured to his television back home and allow us to stream whatever the tv was on back in Texas over the internet to the computer hooked up to the TV. Needless to say it was awesome. Not even close to as much fun as game days back in The Bend but still entertaining. There were basically two camps of people: one that stayed up all night as well as went out before so they were sufficiently intoxicated throughout the game and those that went to bed at 10 pm and got five hours of sleep before waking up. Bet you can't guess which one I was in at all. Not that is was good sleep with everyone yelling in the halls of the dorm throughout the night but it was still some sleep. I chose just to eat breakfast and start my day after the game instead of going back to bed like most did. Since I have a bunch to do these next two weeks, I am glad of the decision I made. I took the opportunity to do some bio studying in the morning and working on a sports psychology project in the afternoon, as well as go on a walk, mass, dinner, more work, and here I am....eyes closing.
I was able to fall asleep at 10 last night because of the awesome time I had that day however. A group of 17 of us ventured out to John Forrest National Park at 10 am for the day. We hopped on a bus, a train, and then another bus out to the park. All that public transport cost about $2.50 roughly. Saving money, awesome. For the rest of the day we hiked all around the park starting with hiking to the visitor centre. We had to walk through the official entrance where normally cars just normally enter and got charged as two large vehicles. We then proceed to hike to Hovea Falls, which despite its promising name, was not a raging river waterfall but more a dried up, gradual decent of the resulting stream. This provided great rock bed that would normally be covered with water and our spot for lunch. Throughout the day we lost part of our group until we were down to nine. After climbing up the first of many boulders on the day, our group moved on to the Eagle View Trail. We took this trail for several kms, part of the way with the trail winding between bush on both sides. Then up a valley side to a lookout of the whole park with the city of Perth in the distance. Made out way back to the road eventually (after what seemed like hiking uphill the whole time) and took the bus back to the city where I got my first taste of Mexican food since I've been here which was much welcome. All this was made possible by the careful planning of Kelly, the girl I found myself on a date with the previous evening at a Vietnamese restaurant, which was delicious. 
Anyway in Australia its Father's Day today to I just wanted to give a shout out to Randy Rehberg for being the best dad a kid could want. Doing so much for all of us Rehbergs all the time, I just wanted to say he deserves a ton of credit for me being who I am today. Don't let the flamingo-filled fruit bowl fool you. (By the way it was Father's Day when I started this I just didn't post it last night)
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Missing Our Lady
Ah syllabus week back at Notre Dame came to a close yesterday and I hope most of you are still not awake from celebrating last night. I on the other hand have just gotten done with our 5th week of school and celebrated by spending an afternoon at Cottesloe Beach since it got all the way up to 24 degrees here today and was sunny. Anyway since I have been thinking about all the stuff I am probably going to miss this semester at ND, I decided to make a top ten list of things I am going to miss from ND while I am here.
1. Friends
Obviously you guys are the thing that make Notre Dame home for me, so naturally you will be the thing I miss the most while I am here. Basically you guys make everything else on this list 100x more fun.
2. Football Games
The time honored tradition of a fall Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame is unparalleled. Watching the games at 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning just wont be the same.
3. Volleyball
Of the three activities that take up 90% of my time at ND, the other two being working at the DH and doing homework, volleyball is easily the thing I enjoy doing most at ND. Going to miss giving "buttery sets" as they call them, to the team.
4. Pick up Basketball Games at the Rock
What better way is there to spend Friday and Saturday afternoons than playing a pick up game at the Rock? Who knows, maybe you'll even get to play against kids like Nate Montana.
5. Flex Points
Having a store of fake money that you have already paid for is so much more useful than spending real money just because I am more willing to spend it. Especially for....
6. Reckers' Smoothies
There is no better way to take a break from studying than hearing one of my buddies coming down the hall telling me its time to go to "reck-city". All that Razz and Berry Breeze are my one-two punch.
7. DJing Halo Games
When the jerseys go on and the sticks get fired up I just get an itch in between my shoulders, and the only way I have found to satisfy that itch to throw up some beats for the combatants. It is hard to please everyone playing but I just beat as best I can and hope they don't mind.
8. Tim
Easily the biggest character in South Dining Hall, this grilled and sometimes dread-locked cook is the funniest guy to talk to while I am working, as well as fist pound after receiving my omelet from when I get one.
9. Long Walks to Jordan and the Jacc
These are the best especially when accompanied by my boys Rob Bauer and Swalsh, respectively.
10. ESPN
Not much TV down here but I am definitely going to miss being able to watch NFL and college football games.
Things I won't miss at ND: Quaterdogs (I couldn't care less if they raised prices to $0.33. Theres no reason three terrible hotdogs for a dollar can't cover your hunger needs instead of four), everybody freaking out because they have tests (I mean we still have tests its just that there are less people to freak out here), Sundays (as much as I like doing homework for hours on end)
1. FriendsObviously you guys are the thing that make Notre Dame home for me, so naturally you will be the thing I miss the most while I am here. Basically you guys make everything else on this list 100x more fun.
2. Football Games
The time honored tradition of a fall Saturday afternoon at Notre Dame is unparalleled. Watching the games at 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning just wont be the same.
3. Volleyball
4. Pick up Basketball Games at the Rock
What better way is there to spend Friday and Saturday afternoons than playing a pick up game at the Rock? Who knows, maybe you'll even get to play against kids like Nate Montana.
5. Flex Points
Having a store of fake money that you have already paid for is so much more useful than spending real money just because I am more willing to spend it. Especially for....
6. Reckers' SmoothiesThere is no better way to take a break from studying than hearing one of my buddies coming down the hall telling me its time to go to "reck-city". All that Razz and Berry Breeze are my one-two punch.
7. DJing Halo Games
When the jerseys go on and the sticks get fired up I just get an itch in between my shoulders, and the only way I have found to satisfy that itch to throw up some beats for the combatants. It is hard to please everyone playing but I just beat as best I can and hope they don't mind.
8. Tim
Easily the biggest character in South Dining Hall, this grilled and sometimes dread-locked cook is the funniest guy to talk to while I am working, as well as fist pound after receiving my omelet from when I get one.
9. Long Walks to Jordan and the Jacc
These are the best especially when accompanied by my boys Rob Bauer and Swalsh, respectively. 10. ESPN
Not much TV down here but I am definitely going to miss being able to watch NFL and college football games.
Things I won't miss at ND: Quaterdogs (I couldn't care less if they raised prices to $0.33. Theres no reason three terrible hotdogs for a dollar can't cover your hunger needs instead of four), everybody freaking out because they have tests (I mean we still have tests its just that there are less people to freak out here), Sundays (as much as I like doing homework for hours on end)
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Kalgoorlie Weekend pt 2
So I left you guys after friday night. Saturday we headed out to the Hoover House for the morning after a later than normal start on the day (we left at 9 or so). Of course this was an hour/ hour and a half away so we hopped back onto our bus and drove through the outback some more. When we got there we just walked around his house and mining property for a while looking at all of the old stuff. It was interesting while we were there but nothing too exciting. While most of the group headed down for lunch at the base of the establishment Kevin Bell and Joey Rich decided to hop a fence and go on their own exploration of the property. Jane was none to pleased with this decision, as usual, but they got back in time for our bus to leave on schedule. The ghost town at the base was pretty cool. The town had dried up when the gold rush passed, just like so many out in the West of America. After that we headed to the town of Menzies as a precursor to Lake Ballard and its Inside Australia art exhibit. An artist took body scan outlines of the people of Menzies and turned them into statues at 2/3 height. He then stretched them and dropped them throughout this huge dried-up salt lake and called it art. It was actually pretty cool going out onto what looked like Mars a bit and walking to these statues. We had an hour to walk around so naturally there was a group of people that after climbing a big hill at one end of the lake decided to walk at least 35 minutes out to a diferent hill. They stayed out there for sunset, even after we were explicitly instructed to be back at a certain time so we could head back to Morapoi in time for dinner. Luckily getting back and hour later than expected had no real impact on dinner otherwise the group of us who were on time would have been quite upset.
That night was the real entertainment for the day however. After dinner we got taken out to the place were the owners skinned their kangaroos and actually got to see a live skinning. I will upload a video or two when I get back to my room but I am currently in the library wait for a class so bear with me all you dedicated followers who are reading my blog at 3am back in the States. It was so cool to watch and so much better than any dissection I have done in bio ever. Alan had to hold the tail to provide stabilization while the guy skinned and gutted it. After that was done a group of us went out for a walk on our own under the light of the moon into the brush. We didn't really see anything out of the ordinary but just walking through the outback at night without any light except the moon was an awesome experience. Sunday morning we headed back into Kalgoorlie to visit the mining hall of fame where we got to go underground into the first of 13 levels of the mine that was there, as well as see a gold pouring.
Over all the weekend was a very enjoyable experience and something that I probably would not have chosen to do just because it wasn't one of the first things that came to mind when thinking of things to do in Australia for a weekend. Plus it was all free (and by free I me Notre Dame paid for it, who I previously paid to study abroad) which made it even better. The flight back was another enjoyable hour-long flight despite the great in-flight service (getting served a dinner/appetizer dead last on the plane only because I finally got a hold of a flight attendant). Got back to Tommy More and watched Good Willing Hunting for the first time. Good way to end a good weekend.
That night was the real entertainment for the day however. After dinner we got taken out to the place were the owners skinned their kangaroos and actually got to see a live skinning. I will upload a video or two when I get back to my room but I am currently in the library wait for a class so bear with me all you dedicated followers who are reading my blog at 3am back in the States. It was so cool to watch and so much better than any dissection I have done in bio ever. Alan had to hold the tail to provide stabilization while the guy skinned and gutted it. After that was done a group of us went out for a walk on our own under the light of the moon into the brush. We didn't really see anything out of the ordinary but just walking through the outback at night without any light except the moon was an awesome experience. Sunday morning we headed back into Kalgoorlie to visit the mining hall of fame where we got to go underground into the first of 13 levels of the mine that was there, as well as see a gold pouring.
Over all the weekend was a very enjoyable experience and something that I probably would not have chosen to do just because it wasn't one of the first things that came to mind when thinking of things to do in Australia for a weekend. Plus it was all free (and by free I me Notre Dame paid for it, who I previously paid to study abroad) which made it even better. The flight back was another enjoyable hour-long flight despite the great in-flight service (getting served a dinner/appetizer dead last on the plane only because I finally got a hold of a flight attendant). Got back to Tommy More and watched Good Willing Hunting for the first time. Good way to end a good weekend.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Out, Out, and Away
It has been eleven days since my last blog post and for this I apologize. I was without internet for the whole weekend so. There was not much going on last week besides trying to get all my work done before we left for our weekend trip out in the middle of Western Australia. Bright and early friday morning, I use the term morning loosely here since most people would consider 4 o'clock in the morning the middle of the night, all of us awake and get on a bus to the Perth Airport. We are taking a Notre Dame mandated trip out to the mining town/area of Kalgoorlie, which is about an hours plane flight due east into the outback. There are two more of these stipulated trips payed for by Notre Dame later in the semester, and the goal of them is to take us to places we otherwise might not go in Australia in order to gain some insight into the local culture of a non-city part of Australia. After we all get on the plane it is a short hop. skip, and a jump over to Kalgoorlie but somehow they managed to find time to serve us a breakfast on the plane, which I was ever grateful for. The reason being that the breakfast provided by Martin and Jane, the two adults charged with instructing us and who organized the whole excursion, at 8 seemed more like lunch to me. It was termed a "barbecue" breakfast. We stopped at a park after exiting the airport (most nice parks in Australia have free electric grills at them) and cooked up some sausage and bacon (ham) for sandwiches. At this park there was a playground as well and while we were waiting for our food, the logical thing for college-age kids to do is play on it--a theme that continued throughout the weekend. It also had a great tree for climbing which I took full advantage of. After the park it was a drive into the mining town that is Kalgoorlie for a wander around the town and then three successive talks with various organizations regarding different aspects of life in this area. The town itself reminded me a bit of an old out-west town. One was an conservationist involved in trying to keep the land healthy, one an Aborigine who explained as much of their culture as possible, and one was an anthropologist working to get land claims for the Aborigines. The combination of a lack of sleep and viewing powerpoints had a certain effect on a majority of our group at one point or another during these talks that culminated in a lot of head bobbing with their eyes closed, chin on their chest, or in some extreme cases head on the shoulder of the person next to them. Watching this provided the entertainment when the conservationist's talk became pretty dry....
After that it was on to the SuperPit. We had a two hour drive out to this mining site with a giant hole in the ground. For the whole weekend we had a older coach bus drive us around since all the sites we went to were spread out so it was roughly an hour and a half drive to all the different locations. The pit itself was pretty impressive in a physical sense. The productivity of it since the goldrush days however has decreased significantly. They now consider 1.5 oz of gold per ton a rich supply. I still don't understand why the world arbitrarily put so much value on gold and made it worth tearing up that much of the earth for it. We eventually headed up to Moropoi, our lodgings for Friday and Saturday night. This was the true outback experience of the trip. Moropoi is a little traveler's station literally out in the middle of nowhere in the outback. Sidenote: the dirt is soooo red/orange in the outback. I had heard it was but actually seeing it was awesome. The drive to this place and the country we passed looked exactly as the stereotypical image of rural Australia. The sunset on the drive there was immaculate. When we pull into the dirt road entrance to Moropoi the sun had set and it was already dark out. This place was run by an aboriginal family which added to the authenticity of it. We got served a delicious meal of some green soup (supposedly pumpkin soup according to Martin), kangaroo meat with vegetables ad rice, and then a apple pie type dessert with ice cream . This meal was served to us and the nicety of the meal contrasted so much with the run down houses/trailers that made up the station. We then spent the night around a campfire, which was throughly enjoyable since I have been itching for a fire for the longest time. Per usual I got designated as the fire-tender; I guess it doesn't matter what group of friends I am in, I will always be in charge of making/maintaining fires. It doesn't bother me since it is a job which I love.
This is where I will leave you for today since I do not want to condense information into the rest of this post or make it to long. The rest of the trip tomorrow, followed by a top ten list of things I am going to miss at Notre Dame this semester. Adios.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The First Chapter Comes to an End
It is Thursday evening and I am basically done with school for the third week, excepting my 9 am Vertebrate Zoology lecture, which means that I will have been here a month by Saturday. It is crazy how fast time goes while you are in school compounded with being in another country trying to enjoy it. The purpose of this blog is to just give a general highlighting of what has transpired over the past month, skipping over everything I have already talked about.
Classes: After having three weeks of classes here, I can officially say that this semester should be easier than any I have had at Notre Dame so far, but far more interesting. Vertebrate Zoology emerged from the depths of first-perceived boredom as a darkhorse for my second favorite class due to interesting class material behind Psychosocial Aspects of Exercise Science. That class is possibly the single class that has captured the most of my attention thus far in my college career. I mean the lecture material is interesting and I have to take a ballroom dance tutorial in conjunction with it where I am forced to dance with multitudes of beautiful Australian girls. Rough, I know. I have now also worked with cadavers for the first two times in my life in the last two weeks of my human reproductive lab (first week male, second female). Popular Music and Culture is actually a fast hour fourty-five minutes every Thursday. The material is pretty interesting and for 40% of our grade we have to go to a pub or club and write an ethnography paper about our observations (I mean it is a bit more academic than that but I had to make it sound kinda cool). Which brings us to one of the greatest things about the University of Western Australia: Lectopia. Lectopia is an online website that stems from their main student page. A decent amount of classes use this system, including the "Behavioral Psychology" class (aka. Intro Psych II). What is Lectopia exactly you ask? Lectopia streams a recording of every lecture online that you can listen to and view the slides simultaneously in the comfort of your room or library. All the benefits of going to class without actually going. I have never been one to skip classes but my two Psych lectures are at the inconvenient time of 10 am, and this allows me to get other stuff done and catch the lectures later. Awesome.
Friends: I just thought I should give you guys a little reference on some the people that I am living with and becoming friends with in case I mention them is subsequent posts. That way if you ever get introduced to them when we get back to Notre Dame, you can base your all your opinions of them on the couple of sentences I give them before you even meet them. Not even close to everyone is mentioned since I figured you'd make it halfway down the list and get bored so do not take offense if you haven't made the list at the moment (I don't even think anyone on this trip reads my blog anyway, but disclaimers are always good).
Alan: Most of my readers already know him, but if you don't think engineer is one big goofy guy whose super fun to hang out with and has a love for The Cat Empire and 'Pumping' boxed wine in a water bottle.
Derek: Lives the floor above me in Tommy which is very conducive to late night cribbage games, which are awesome. One of the nicest guys I have ever met. Major flaw: Vikings fan.....yeah.
Erin: Again, most already know the legend that is Erin. One of the single nicest human beings alive on the planet. Her only flaw is a glaring one however.....Bear's fan.
Kelly: Formerly from Wisconsin, this geology major now calls NC home. She loves to play frisbee and is terrible at making many decisions. Major friend plus: Bleeds green and gold
Kevin: A geology major. Pretty similar (so therefore good) sense of humor to mine, loves playing can-jam, and is quickly picking up the greatest card game ever invented.
Mary Kate: A California girl that loves life, is almost always in a good mood, and always looking to go camping. One of the kids I am traveling up the west coast for spring break with.
Spencer: The most unconventional kid around. My old roommate's freshman year roommate. Recently went to an Anything But Clothes party in a suit of armor made from boxed wine cartons.
Will: Crazy kid. Likes to skip his geo classes a lot (which happen to be all the classes he's taking) and hang out with Aussies a lot. Knows everything about Australia. The other kid I am going on spring break with.
Zack: A Texan through and through; loves his Rangers and Cowboys. He picks up Sheepshead very quickly and loves DC++. So far I'm pretty sure he holds the record for most download files.
Friends: I just thought I should give you guys a little reference on some the people that I am living with and becoming friends with in case I mention them is subsequent posts. That way if you ever get introduced to them when we get back to Notre Dame, you can base your all your opinions of them on the couple of sentences I give them before you even meet them. Not even close to everyone is mentioned since I figured you'd make it halfway down the list and get bored so do not take offense if you haven't made the list at the moment (I don't even think anyone on this trip reads my blog anyway, but disclaimers are always good).
Alan: Most of my readers already know him, but if you don't think engineer is one big goofy guy whose super fun to hang out with and has a love for The Cat Empire and 'Pumping' boxed wine in a water bottle.
Derek: Lives the floor above me in Tommy which is very conducive to late night cribbage games, which are awesome. One of the nicest guys I have ever met. Major flaw: Vikings fan.....yeah.
Kelly: Formerly from Wisconsin, this geology major now calls NC home. She loves to play frisbee and is terrible at making many decisions. Major friend plus: Bleeds green and gold
Kevin: A geology major. Pretty similar (so therefore good) sense of humor to mine, loves playing can-jam, and is quickly picking up the greatest card game ever invented.
Mary Kate: A California girl that loves life, is almost always in a good mood, and always looking to go camping. One of the kids I am traveling up the west coast for spring break with.
Spencer: The most unconventional kid around. My old roommate's freshman year roommate. Recently went to an Anything But Clothes party in a suit of armor made from boxed wine cartons.
Will: Crazy kid. Likes to skip his geo classes a lot (which happen to be all the classes he's taking) and hang out with Aussies a lot. Knows everything about Australia. The other kid I am going on spring break with.
Zack: A Texan through and through; loves his Rangers and Cowboys. He picks up Sheepshead very quickly and loves DC++. So far I'm pretty sure he holds the record for most download files.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
The Joys of Fantasy Football
This week was overall a typical school week. I attended all my lectures and labs, actually had to start doing homework, and reading for classes. So in that respect it was a pretty normal week. Yesterday in the absence of any classes in the afternoon, Kevin, Erin, Will, Kelly, Zack, Mary Kate, Alan, Jacob, and I went to the beach to hang out for a couple hours. Everyone else had been going earlier in the week when all of us had classes so we felt compelled to go. Playing frisbee, swimming for some, and attempting to hit and kick around an Aussie rules football was a quite enjoyable way to spend an afternoon. But the most exciting news of the last couple weeks were the two draft lottery results of my fantasy football leagues. I will admit that despite my reinvigorated enthusiasm that arose because of the two emails, I have not had the time to start really looking at any of the fantasy material yet. Luckily I have couple weeks until the draft days. I know there are plenty of reasons for not liking fantasy football (changing the collective attachment to a team to single players and vice versa, hoping certain players perform poorly week in and week out just because a rival in the league has them) but I am going to offer three of my reasons for falling in love with this game over the past three years.
1) I never grew up on video games.
-For every 30 kids who were raised playing the new versions of Madden every year on N64, Playstation, and Xbox there was always the one that wasn't. That kid was me and I really don't regret it at all. Fantasy has given me another outlet, besides just watching and following the sport, to to interact with football, my single favorite sport to watch. It has made my lack of video game skills irrelevant since fantasy converts the movement of thumbs and pointer-fingers into knowledge of the league (and once in a while a bit of luck). Competing with my mind suits me much better than with my finger dexterity.
2) It is a great source of friendly competition between friends
-When it comes right down to it, friendly competition in between friends is one of the most entertaining and essential parts of friendships (especially males'). As 98% of fantasy football players are male, I am not trying to exclude females but it naturally just applies to men more. We are by nature a more competitive creature and fantasy football provides an outlet to showcase our knowledge to each other. There is nothing better than listening to banter between owners throughout the season, from draft day blunders to playoff appearances.
3) It is a great way to keep in contact with people
-Even now that I am halfway across the world, fantasy has already provided a mutual experience, that my friends from back home and I can still share. It has been a great way so far in my college career to keep in touch with my best friends from high school that I do not get to see on a regular basis during the school year. By providing a ground for common experience despite physical distance between people, fantasy football is great social tool as well.
That being said, I am hoping that our volleyball team gets a league going, and I cannot wait for August 30th and the BSFL draft.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Talk Derby To Me
Due to lack of football on the second weekend of the academic year, the group of us had previously decided to purchase tickets to an Australian Rules Football game as fore-mentioned in this blog. Zach had planned for the group of 25 or so of us to take the bus down to Subiaco Oval, where the game took place so we would arrive about a half hour early. We had walked a kilometer or so down to catch this bus and as it pulled up, it let one person off, promptly closed it's doors and sped away, leaving the group of us very confused as to why it did not pick us up. We then did what animals have done for years: adapted. Since out tickets granted us free public transportation, we headed back down to the bus stop we normally take into the city and caught the bus to the train station. The train down to the Oval was waiting for us as we walked up to the station, the first of many impeccable timings that occurred for my group throughout the day.
As we approached the stadium we had about five minutes before bounce down (the equivalent of a tip off in basketball except that the ref throws the ball as hard as he can at the ground, it bounces up, and the players tip it). Right as we sat down into our seats in the first and second rows of the western corner of the oval the game began. Within the first five minutes a fight broke out right to the left of our section, and it was at this point I knew I would like this game already. The Fremantle Dockers, sporting their mainly purple uniforms (short shorts and a tanktop that had a white anchor with one green and one red shoulder) dominated from the very beginning. The West Coast Eagles, Perth's team, wearing an almost all white uniform with a giant eagle's head in the middle, were completely outmatched. The final score ended up at 160-85 Dockers. We then proceed to walk right up to the train and subsequent bus with out waiting and got back to Tommy More in time for dinner.
I will now try to describe the basics of this very entertaining game that seems to be a mixture of soccer, American football, and rugby.
Scoring: Kicking the ball through the middle gap of the four posts gets you 6 points. In the two outside gaps is one.
Movement: You can advance the ball by three methods.
1) Running with it. Every five or so meters you have to dribble it once.2) Hand-balling it. This is the equivalent of a pass but you have to hit it out of one hand with your other, usually a fist.
3) Kicking it. You have to drop the ball and kick it, cannot kick it off the ground. If a player catches the ball you kick, regardless of what team, they have two options. They can either get a free kick or continue running. A good way of scoring is kicking it close to your opponents goal and getting one of your players to catch it resulting in a free kick at the goals, such as this one.
Some fans had those very large pom-poms that were pretty interesting. You are allowed to tackle the player with the ball, though not by the shoulders (to prevent injury) and no slide tackles. Thats about it for a good outline of the rules and structure of the game. It is a very high scoring, high actin sport with a lot of bodies colliding, a couple of fights breaking out, and constant motion of the players. Players' salaries range from 40k to 120k. Oh yeah and the tickets we got were only $20. Bear in mind this is a professional sporting event and it provided transportation to and back from the game for us. If an Australian came over to the US and wanted to go to an American football game, they would be paying out a lot more than we did. Overall a very enjoyable spent at the Derby (what they call their rivalry games down here).
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