Update: Week 5

As far as blog updates go, I know I have been horrible. Well the day after going to Sydney Wildlife Park I was sick and had the cold the entire week, plus last weekend it was pretty much non stop rain here, so it was a perfect inside weekend anyway and I was able to catch up on reading some stuff for class and do assignments. There were parts of Australia that flooded but South of Sydney. Sydney needed the rain as the only rain I saw here until that day would be sprinkles of rain for 5 minutes or so and then the sun would return. It was crazy to watch the non stop pouring down rain from my room.

By Tuesday the rain seemed to have disappeared and the sun was finally back out, definitely making my day better. A day with the sun out is just always better in my opinion. Tuesday I worked on planning out my trip to Cairns to go to the Great Barrier Reef. The package isn’t too expensive to spend 2 nights there and go snorkeling, however the plane flights make it so much more and keep going up each day. I still am not sure which days I will be going up there, just know I will be going sometime in the first week of break, as we have 2.5 weeks off. Aside from that trip, I will be staying in friend’s apartments over the break as it is cheaper than paying extra to stay at my college. This means that I have to fully move out of my room and move back in after 2 weeks (I paid for the last few nights of the break). At my college, they rent out the rooms to people over the break and throughout the year to people who come for conferences and since I am in the New Wing with a bathroom that I only share with one other person, these are the preferred rooms, rather than having a community bathroom of course. It is strange though that everyone has to move out over the break, even the Aussies, but our break is long. I am glad I packed light so all my stuff will easily fit into my 2 suitcases.

Wednesday I didn’t do much. The weather was beautiful though and so after dinner I went for a walk to my favorite spot on campus, which is a big open field and after all the rain we had, there was a fountain and a nice little waterfall. I went there about an hour before the sun set and the way the sun hit the field was beautiful. I’m participating in a research project here called Outdoor Learning Places. My job is to pick a place on campus and take a few photos and write a short narrative to answer the question “How do you use the outdoor places on campus in ways that contribute to your learning?” I got so excited about this when I heard about it, because I love sitting outside in the sun and working on stuff or even just writing in my journal. This field is what I am going to pick for that project of course. I plan to write the narrative over break one day. Then they will exhibit the photos and narratives next semester, so unfortunately I will not be able to see the exhibit, but it’s cool to be able to participate in.

Thursday I had my million classes as usual, but it was definitely a great day. I’d have to say the highlight was my science education class, the second hour of lecture, as we had a guest speaker come in and talk about weather. I love learning about the weather. For those of you who don’t know, I did think about becoming a meteorologist for some time especially during my freshmen year in college and I’m now considering it again for grad school possibly, especially after listening to this lecture. The name of our guest lecturer was Magdalena Roze from The Weather Channel, which is definitely my favorite channel after Disney Channel lol. She started as a journalist before getting a degree in meteorology and definitely inspired me. Then at the end of class I even got a free Weather channel umbrella and a pen/thermometer. Everyone loves free stuff!!

Later that day I had my tutorial for that class and we had to make a pamphlet for a natural disaster. I wanted to do volcanoes, just because they are so cool, especially after seeing them in Hawaii and then Costa Rica. Somehow I ended up sitting at the table with all the guys in my class (which is only 4) and as usual we got distracted talking to our tutor (aka teacher). We had macbook pro computers to use and I am apparently clueless when it comes to macs as I could not seem to do anything right even with the settings on windows. I struggled with scrolling and copying photos and using the mousepad, but eventually I got the hang of it enough to throw together a quick pamphlet on volcanoes and yes I’m the only one who put this pamphlet together and yet all the guys put their name on it too…At least they did all thank me for putting something together for them. What was also funny was that one guy always asks me what happened in class today, as he never goes to lectures because they aren’t mandatory or anything. I pulled up a picture of our guest speaker and told him about the free stuff we got too…yep he missed out.

Then comes Friday and the amount of work that I have to do in the next 2 weeks finally hit me. Overall though, it’s a short list, it will just take some time to get through. Plus I am also trying to figure out my plans for the first week of my break as days for things keep changing. Eventually it will all come together, hopefully by mid week this coming week when I finally do book my flights.

After dinner on Friday, I went to Zumba with a couple people, which was good. I hadn’t been to the gym lately because I was getting over a cold, but it was so nice to go back as I have missed it. Hopefully this week I’ll have some time to go swimming again too.