Until Next Time...

The last blog. I’m shocked I kept up with it this well, whether or not everyone reading it did as well. It’s definitely a good record for myself, I should go back and fill in some things though. That may be something to do on my 35 hour journey back tomorrow.

Today was a SPECTACULAR last day. But before I get to that, they end of the week was good as well. I wasn’t pressured to do much, I still need to do a bit of writing but there’s no immediate hurry. I should get it done soon regardless, but yeah. Friday a bunch of us went to get fish n chips on Raby Bay and apparently it turned into a farewell thing for me, unbeknownst to me. There was also a mini get-together thing at the pub that night as well which was good. People that couldn’t make it to the lunch got to come to that so it was good to chat with them one last time. One last time for now at least, I’m convinced I will be back and will see some them at some point. Again, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Today I went down to Byron Bay with the swim coach and a co-worker. SO AWESOME. A ton of people have kept telling me I had to get down there before I left but it just didn’t pan out before the offer to go today. The weather was absolutely perfect and the day as a whole was a definite win. Awesome views, delicious food and fabulous company. Everyone here has been so great, it’s amazing. I’m going to miss them, and this place, and yeah…everything.

I will add a few pictures from the day below, but we went to the lighthouse and walked around a bit there. I can now say that I have been to the eastern-most point of Australia, booya! Haha. As I said, the scenery was fabulous and it was a perfect day. I could definitely live there, as I could with pretty much every where I’ve been here. OH! We saw wallabies!! Good thing, I hadn’t seen any here yet. So cute, I really want to bring one home. There were a few that had little joeys in their pouches, adorable! Got a couple of good shots of them.

As a short side-note it’s been really cool to be here on my own and I have definitely learned a lot from it but overall I think I prefer travelling with people. Just based on my weekend trips travelling, it was good for independence and time to myself but with that, it’s also nice to have someone to share it with. This trip overall was perfect in that I was here on my own, working at CSIRO during the week and only travelling on the weekends. It ended up being the perfect amount of time to myself before heading back to work the next week. So that wasn’t bad and a couple weekends I found people to go with/hang out with (like the past couple weekends, definitely awesome). But in terms of going to another country just for holiday/travelling I would definitely want someone with me. But it does depend on the circumstances and who you are/how long you are going to be away/what you plan on doing. I have talked to heaps of people that say it is best to travel by yourself, you are more open to meeting new people, other travelers and/or locals, as well as just having that time to yourself and having a better or potentially more meaningful adventure. So yeah, I guess it can go both ways. I definitely want to try traveling with friends and seeing that I’m already antsy to get going somewhere else when I haven’t even made it home yet, it needs to be as soon as possible! Hence the beginning plans for the next adventure. Watch out Europe, here we come.

Fun Fact:
Australia and New Zealand have opposite possum problems. Australia, where they are native, is losing them to other large mammals and New Zealand, where they are introduced, is doing anything/everything to get rid of them. Interesting how that works.


Wallaby and a joey! SO ADORABLE!!!




Eastern-most point of Australia, if you were curious, haha




Lighthouse!

The Final Week

Here I am, final week, one day of work left and only 2 days left total. My final week hasn’t particularly gone as originally planned. As I think I mentioned in the last blog, I spontaneously joined in on a 3 day boat trip with a couple guys from work as they were short one field person. Monday and Tuesday were the most gorgeous days EVER. Well at least they were the best in the past few weeks. Perfect temperature/weather and the ocean was really flat. The project I was helping with was deploying underwater recording devices in a bunch of different areas. Each was out for 45 minutes, so it was a lot of putting them out, switching the cameras, and putting them back out. Pretty simple and the videos are cool. They are looking at species composition and abundance between marine parks and control areas around Moreton Bay. We were on the eastern side of Moreton Island, so not inside the bay.

The 3 days we were out there FLEW by. Oh! On Tuesday we saw so many humpbacks! I think we saw some every 5 minutes at one point during the day, so awesome :) There was one whale that was ~30m away from the boat and did a spiral breach! SO AMAZING. I’ve never seen one breach that close much less a spiral one. Of course I didn’t grab my camera on the way out to the bow, assuming that it would just come to the surface and go back down a few times. But even so, one of the guys on the trip took a video on his ipod, hopefully he will send it to me. Later that day we saw another humpback a bit off the stern do 5 breaches in a row. FIVE! Crazy.

Last night a co-worker and I were invited to dinner with the masters swim coach and his wife. They cooked us an awesome South African dish, SO GOOD! It was a good night. I’m really going to miss them. :( I’ll just have to come back soon I guess. I potentially might be going to Byron Bay on Saturday with the coach depending on how a few things pan out in the next day, like packing. Haha

Oh! I think I forgot to mention in the last blog. Last week there were like 3 koalas around work all at the same time. SO CUTE! I took like 100 pictures. I’ll include one below. We sat there and watched one for like 20 minutes attempting to get from one tree to another on a branch. I thought he was going to fall like 5 times (it was really windy), I was a bit nervous. He was ok though, after his failed attempt he just sat there staring at us. Sooooo freakin adorable. I wish they were in the States. Also, I’m going to miss seeing cockatoos in the wild, not with clipped wings in cages. It still catches me off guard when I see them flying around.

This has definitely been an experience and adventure of a lifetime, that’s for sure. I’m torn about leaving, but definitely ready to go home for a bit. It will be interesting to see if I need much adjusting or if it will all snap back quickly. One of the weirdest things will be the driving but a few car rides and drives should fix that pretty quickly. I might freak out a little bit though, so just keep that in mind if I start hyperventilating in the back seat (just kidding). I will be happy to go back to the prices of things, especially groceries, but not so happy that taking $100 bucks out of the ATM will actually be $100, not like $120.

I’m not really looking for the travel back though, apart from potentially hanging out with Liz in Auckland. The rest of it is going to be pretty sucky, hopefully I will somehow be able to sleep on the last leg of the trip though. Overnight flight post an already 30 hour travel ‘day’. Oh dear, I would hope I would sleep. I’m really hoping that customs in the States won’t be too bad, I’ll have to go through it in NZ too so I’ll probably be pretty fed up with it at that point. I guess I’ll see what happens! Let’s hope it all goes smoothly.

Fun Fact:
There are apparently more than 150 million sheep in Australia, only 20 million people. And they poke fun at the Kiwi’s…


Underwater camera contraption--> BRUV (don't remember what it stands for...)




North point on Moreton Island


Sunset Tuesday night


Koala!!! Love them.

Coming to an end...again

Yet again, it’s hard to believe, really. Even everyone at work is shocked that I have already been here for 9 weeks and only have 1 to go. Insaneeeee. Looks like the last week is going to be jam packed as well. Within the last 45 minutes of being at work on Friday my last week went from primarily writing/making plots and potentially some histology to all of that and a 3 day trip helping out a couple people on field work out on a boat. So yeah, it will be interesting fitting it all in but it should be good.

I’m not actually sure what I did all last week at work, haha. I think I was pretty much still working on plots and graphs. Refitting the model and such, a bit of writing. All of which I need to do more of. My knee is doing shockingly VERY well, it’s kind of weird though. Good, but weird that it seems to be healing so well. Like it almost feels ‘normal’ again, after a week…it usually takes 3-4 weeks. Strange? Not complaining though. Hopefully I will be able to ride the bike into work this week and not have to hassle anyone for more rides.

This weekend I went to Moreton Island with a co-worker and we stayed in a villa, it was nice. Right on the beach, woke up to the sound of the waves, good weather. It was fun. We didn’t really do too much, just relaxed and wandered around. A bit of ping pong in which I lost all games for, haha. I have gotten better though! I hope so at least. There were these cool wrecks off the western coast of the island near where the resort/villas were. I think there was something like 5 or 6 ships that ran aground (pictures below). They looked like they were pretty popular for divers and snorkelers.

So I have been trying to wean myself off of tim tams lately. Everyone keep their eye out for them in the States, the last I heard that they are only available at a certain time of year (I think around Christmas?). I’ll have to find out that’s for sure, and teach everyone the tim tam slam. SO GOOD. I’m going to get everyone hooked on them. If I have room in my luggage I’m going to bring back a package (or two). :)

Speaking of luggage, I have no idea when I am going to pack. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is going to be the night before which would be interesting. I should have started a week ago, especially since I’m going to be gone for 3 days this week. I guess I’ll see what happens. I have gotten epically better at packing though, I pack in like 5 minutes for the weekend now…amazing. Haha

It’s interesting talking to people about the differences in Australians vs. Americans, personalities and lifestyles. I always have to think about it a bit because right now the differences seem pretty subtle and I think it depends on the region of either place you are in. Obviously I’ve only seen one small part of Australia, but I think I’ve seen a good portion of the States to have a good idea of that part at least, haha. I also think that I might find differences a little more obvious when I head back to the States, I’ve just been down here for so long it all has pretty much become second nature to me. One thing I was talking about with Shane once that was interesting was the way people act towards each other when you tell them you are doing something cool or got something awesome. For example, when I told him that I got invited to swim in a meet (which sparked this conversation in the first place) he was like ‘oh that’s cool!’ He also said that in normal situations between Aussie’s, friends would be more likely to say ‘why in the hell would you do that, you’re not up for that’. He said that they kind of put each other down before the other person gets over-egotistical or thinks they are better. It was interesting that he said that and it reminded me of a story I read in my Anthro class that was about the same exact thing. A guy was studying a tribe by living with them for a year, participating in hunting, cleaning, preparing. He said that the biggest thing he learned while he was there was within the last few days, around Christmas. He noticed throughout his time that every time they came back with food, people of the tribe never seemed satisfied by what the hunters brought back. It was always ‘this will never feed everyone’ or ‘this meat isn’t fresh’ even though there was always enough food and obviously fresh from the days hunt. So every year people of the tribe get a large bull and share it amongst the people at Christmas. This guy decided that, as a gift for their hospitality, he would buy the biggest bull he could find in the area. Once he brought it in and the meat was distributed he thought everyone would be really happy and find him to be doing a great thing. However, everyone in the tribe kept saying things like ‘could you have found a smaller bull, why would we want to eat this, the meat is dry’ even though there was more than enough food for everyone, the meat was perfect and everyone enjoyed it. Later, upon his confusion, he learned from his closest friend in the tribe that this behaviour is part of their custom so that no one person thinks they are better than the other. In doing so, it keeps everyone at the same level, whether someone may be a better hunter or something, it didn’t matter. This story was one of my favorites from the class, hence the reason I actually remember it, and it was really cool to find out that Australians are slightly the same way. Maybe not quite to the same extent, but yeah, kind of interesting to think about in relation to most Americans, who often take advantage of something that may set them apart or make them better than a counterpart. Interesting to think about which one you would prefer…

Fun fact:
-Australia currently has their first woman Prime Minister but she wasn’t actually elected by vote, the last guy just decided to leave. Apparently an election is to come though.


Pelican! I liked him


Sea star :)


Ship wreck




Sunset

Fail.

That’s a way to start off a blog eh? Yeah, well it’s definitely true. So the swim meet was today and what happens? My knee goes out off the start of my second event. Eff. So yeah, it was the 50 free and I was really excited to get a time for it and I was in a good competitive heat. I kept swimming despite the knee since I was already in the race, I just didn’t kick. Afterward, one of the guys from the club was like 'yeah, you were the first one off the blocks but the last one to surface on the water'. Usually that could be a good thing, but not this time. So my time for the race sucked needless to say and I didn’t swim the remaining 3 events. Boo.

I guess I can’t be too angry though. It’s been 8 ½ months since it last went out, a whole 2 ½ more than normal, woot. Ugh. Well I got to swim one race, 50 back, haha.

Finally did a little bit of repro work this week, but I mean a LITTLE. I set samples in wax for sectioning later. It was actually kind of fun, I like playing with wax, haha. I should have a few days the last week I am here for some more histology hopefully. Lots of data analysis and writing for this week though. Meh.

I had a good dinner with the coach of the Masters swimming and his wife on Friday. It was fun. Good food, good conversation, good time. Awesome doggie too. I miss being around dogs! :( Other than that not much else has happened since the last blog. Thought I would have a bit more to update on from the meet but not so much. Owell.

Fun Fact:
- Milkshakes, here and in NZ, are pretty much flavoured milk. If you want an actual milkshake, ask for a thickshake. Unfortunately it costs more. Oh, and they make them with flavoured syrup and not the respective kinds of ice cream…boo.

Captain Koob...?

Time is FLYING! It's crazy. I feel like I have so much to figure out too, which I do, but I still keep thinking that I have plenty of time to figure it out in, which I don't. AH! Goin' with the flow though.

I decided to take a break from the weekend travels and chill here in Cleveland. I ended up getting invited sailing though and it was awesome! Despite having absolutely no wind for the first half the day, it picked up a bit after lunch and we got to raise the sails. I steered! And seeing that I am on here and not in a significant amount of debt, I didn't run into anything or sink the boat. Score. It was really fun though. It's a little freaky when it feels like its just going to fall sideways into the water since you are leaning so far over. Anyways, the boat was really nice, rather large too (10m) and could sleep like 8 people if you squeezed 2 on each bed-type surface. The skipper was really awesome too, he had tons of stories of all his travels. The boat club we went to is apparently one of the most exclusive boat clubs in the area, oOOoOo. We went to get drinks afterwards and everyone (except us) was really dressed up and fancy, we were a little out of place. It was funny. Definitely a good day. :)

This week has been pretty good. I'm into week 8, ahhhhh. Only a couple left. I was supposed to start the reproduction work this week (again) but it still hasn't happened, HOPEFULLY tomorrow and Friday then a bit my last week here or something. I don't know, I'm not holding my breath at this point anymore though. I've started a bit of the growth model fitting and it seems to be going well. Shane did it all really quickly on whatever program he has but he is having me go through the long hand way. Not too bad actually and for some reason I find it interesting and exciting. Whats wrong with me? Haha.

I went to go see Toy Story 3 last night with a few co-workers. SO GOOD! So you better go see it, it's not very often that sequels can live up to the previous movie, much less as the 3rd one. We went to an Indian restaurant beforehand that was really good. Haven't had Indian in awhile, except for the lame excuse in a packet that I used for dinner one night. Obviously I haven't improved too much with my cooking or my will to cook for that matter.

The rest of this week should be rather chill. Still swimming a bit to get ready for the competition on Sunday but I’m still really out of shape. Owell, hopefully it will be fun! I was thinking of going to North Stradbroke Island this weekend for a couple days (if I took Friday off) but the weather looks like crap and I figured I could use a couple extra days of swimming. I will need all the ‘training’ I can get. :)

Fun Fact:
-School outfits here = epically stylish. Complete with grandma shoes, pleated skirts/pants, names on shirt pockets, sunbonnets (male and females), knee high socks and matching bags. REALLY glad I didn’t have uniforms in the US.


Really cool clouds all day


Sails up!


The extra pretty sail




The harbour, there were literally thousands of boats. So huge!

Things I miss...

I decided to make a list of things that I do miss or would if I were to live far far away, such as here, since all I have been doing is saying how awesome it is. But there are definitely things I miss. Obviously above all else by far would be all of you guys, family and friends, and pretty much everything on this random list I threw together has to do with people anyways. This list could be 10 times longer, but I held back a lot, haha. Oh and it’s not in any particular order.

1) Dance parties
2) Spontaneous snowman making/ snow in general
3) Pillow fights
4) Duckling lines in Spring
5) Greasy delicious pizza
6) Oreos with peanut butter and sprinkles
7) Laying in the middle of the road in the rain
8) Holly’s laugh
9) Trying to see the liberty bell 5 times and still failing
10) Seasons, especially the fall (leaves and apple picking) in the NE and a white Christmas
11) Sugar highs off of pixie sticks and mountain dew
12) Watching Save the Last Dance, Sister Act II and Stepmom like 500 times
13) Dancing with the dancing santa
14) Watching Billy Bob Thorton Christmas movies
15) Tropical themed apartments
16) Late night talks
17) Chocolate/peanut butter candy
18) Florida spring break
19) Dominating cranium
20) Stores open past 5pm
21) Embarrassing dad moments :P
22) Is, not, is, not! (you know who you are)
23) Team Mary
24) Rent/Disney sing-a-longs
25) And oh so much more :)

In other news, I still haven't started the reproduction work yet which I was a bit annoyed by yesterday, BUT I found out today that the samples have already been processed, so there isn't any pressure on me to try and finish them by the time I leave. I am still going to do some of them just to get a bit of experience with the whole process. I was told the other week that you can't call yourself a biologist until you've done some histology work, so I guess I better get on that eh?

Apart from yesterday (got completely soaked riding into work and just a bad day all around), this week has been a pretty good one and has actually flown by. Last night a bunch of people from work went out to a bar and later a restaurant to celebrate a birthday. It was a lot of fun and definitely needed after the day yesterday. We went to an Italian restaurant and basically packed the little place with the 16 of us, we were a little loud too. All in good fun though.

I am having a seafood pasta dinner tonight which should be fun as well. I also got invited sailing this weekend!! SO EXCITED! I love sailing and I am really excited to learn more about it. There will be 7 of us and the boat looks like its pretty big. The guy we are going with has been sailing his entire life and apparently owns several boats, yes...several. I guess building contractors make a lot of money. There's also apparently potential to go to a club with some woman I met last night from work...? Who knows, I'll see what happens. Look at me with a social life...whoa! Who knew.

Fun Fact:
It’s generally acknowledged that work ends at 3pm on Fridays.

Gold Coast

I have learned to NEVER listen to forecasters; if I did I probably wouldn’t have gone down to the Gold Coast this weekend and enjoyed the GORGEOUS weather on the beach. So much for the rain, which I’m glad it didn’t but if I decided not to go because of the forecast of rain all week I’d be ticked, haha.

This weekend was completely random actually. I was thinking of going down there (weather dependent) and then I found out on Tuesday that there is a family friend that lives there. What?! So yeah, I stayed with her for the weekend and it all worked out awesomely. Saved a bit of money and got to socialize a bit/meet someone new which was great. She lives outside of Southport so I took the train to Nerang and biked to her house from there, ~45 minutes. Little did I know that there were going to be San Francisco-like hills on my way. Okay, maybe not that bad but still, I thought I was going to die. Definitely got my workout this weekend.

Saturday I biked to Surfers Paradise, which ended up being 20-30 minute ride with traffic and everything. As I said, the weather ended up being gorgeous so I lucked out again. Once I got there I decided to do one of those amphibious vehicle tours around the area (Aquaducks). That was pretty cool and a good way to see the area in a short period of time since I only had the day. I chilled out on the beach for awhile after that getting some much needed vitamin D.

I went up into the Q1 tower a bit before I left Surfer’s and caught some awesome views of the entire area. The building itself is one of the top 20 tallest buildings in the world and it has one of the fastest lifts in the world. We went up 78 floors in like less than 30 seconds. Talk about ear popping. It was really cool, fastest elevator I’ve ever been on. The views were awesome, 360 degree glass encased floor with a bar/café type thing in the middle. Apparently it turns into a cocktail lounge after 8 on Fridays and Saturdays, too bad I wasn’t going to be there, it’d be cool. I took like 100 pictures but just put a couple below. It was hard not getting glare from the glass in the pictures though, bummer.

That’s about all I did that day (or all weekend, haha). I went back to the beach with a chicken kebab for a late lunch and watched some surfers and such. Awesomely chill day. I biked back and Pam made me a lamb roast dinner that night. SO YUMMY! We watched a movie called Happy-Go-Lucky, which I had never heard of before, and it was really good. I want to try and find it but I might have to order it since it’s a British film. It was really funny and I liked the lead actress a lot, it’s kind of different from other movies. Watch it if you ever get the chance.

I left around lunch time to get back home and do some laundry/grocery shopping. Turned out that part of the railway wasn’t working for whatever reason and I ended up having to take a bus in addition to the trains. Wasn’t that bad though, they had everything set up well, it was just a little annoying and took a bit longer. Could have been much worse though.

I am starting reproduction work on the trevally this week! Hopefully all goes well and it’s not too hard, it will be a good break from those otoliths let me tell you.

Countdown: 4 weeks…AH!

Fun Fact:
You need exact change for vending machines, it is rather annoying actually.


Surfer's Paradise


Aquaducks tour


BEACH!


View from Q1 tower, awesome!