A Happier, More Random Post

Hey again. Sorry for posting in the middle of panic last time. It comes and goes. I am not as intensely homesick right at this moment but earlier all I wanted to do was quit the program and jump on a plane back to the states immediately. I have a feeling that this will come and go through a lot of the semester. Thank you so so so so so so much to the people who sent me stuff (I’ll try to reply as fast as I can) and if anyone else wants to send me something on email or facebook or whatever I would really really love to hear from you.

Last night I went to my very first club! It was a lot of fun but it made me miss Beloit parties and especially the people I dance with at school. A lot a lot. Still, dancing made me feel better at least for a while.

This afternoon we went to the classroom and talked for a very very long time about everything that we have to do this semester. At first I started to feel like curling up into a ball and/or hopping the next plane out of here, but it got better when we started talking about the independent study project. I should think it’s intimidating. I have to find an advisor somewhere in Australia who is doing research/willing to help me do research that interests me in my field. So far my only real qualification is it has to be behavioral, and I might do something with conservation (observing reintroduced individuals of endangered species, or how human development affects animals living in the area – like that enormous bat colony living in the middle of a park in Sydney) but I have no idea what kind of opportunities are available. Then I have to figure out where to live and how to feed myself and how to get to and from wherever I’m going, and then comes the actual researching for a month and writing the longest paper ever! It’s supposed to be 20-40 pages. I also have to try to coordinate this so that it can double as my senior manuscript which would make next year a whole lot easier. This should all seem daunting and terrifying and I’m sure it will later but right now I’m really excited about the idea of actually getting to do what I want to do, you know?

In other news, Operation Try New Things is in full swing. Mostly so far it has to do with food. I have decided I am no longer picky and will eat just about anything that is vegetarian. So far it is going pretty well. Tonight I tried a Portuguese place! It was really good. They make a good veggie burger. I did not go so far as to get the spicy sauce, though. Baby steps.

The other thing I did that was super awesome was lick an ant. They have these big creepy green ants here with long legs. When you grab them they secrete an acid that is supposed to make them distasteful to whatever the predator is. Unfortunately for them, humans think they taste delicious! Our teacher told us about this but then when I went down to the bar last night (our hostel has a bar, how awesome is that?) everyone was outside licking ants and they caught one for me. It really was good, it tasted like citrus fruit.

Anyway, tomorrow morning we are heading off to Port Douglas and then the Atherton Tablelands and won’t be back until Friday afternoon (Thursday night for most of you) and that whole time I won’t have internet so I will be missing all of you desperately.

In the meantime, I will leave you with Random Things I Forgot to Mention but Meant to:

- MMy second favorite part about Australia Day, besides the guy who loved Americans, was the people roaming the street screaming “Aussie aussie aussie! Oi oi oi!” They made me happy.

- I I saw Prince William’s motorcade in Sydney. Pretty sweet.

- O One of the people in the program today asked a waiter at lunch for a take-out box to save her food. He laughed at her for a long time. Apparently here a “take-out box” is a coffin here.

- A Apparently I lost more weight than I thought since the summer. This is super great except that I did not budget in my time or money to get more shorts, and they are all too big now.

- T The Great Ocean Road! I will post pictures at some point. It was sooo pretty!

- T They have Target here, but it is fake. They just pay the company to use the logo but it’s a different store.

- T The sun is out right now! Super exciting.

I have to go finish getting ready to go. Have a lovely week! I miss you all.