finally, what you've all (well, most of you i'm sure) been waiting for!! tales of my non-bar related adventures. i know my posts have been a bit "dodgy" (aussie for iffy, or questionable) at times, but i can safely say that the last 2 weeks have been filled with nothing but G rated Aussie-ness. Since my last post i completed a paper (my 1st real assignment as a grad student!!) and have observed some beautiful australian sights. today i am sitting outside on a campus bench in the beautiful sunshine and will tell you of all i have seen.
my paper was to be a letter to cardinal pell (archbishop of australia). he spoke at world youth day, commenting about how the western world's population of at risk and people should have more babies to maintain it's growth rate. my class was to respond to this in letter form and focus on how this action might affect the world on a global scale. i did not agree with cardinal pell, and personally felt he was more worried about increasing the number of catholics in the west, rather than the overall population. with the earth rapidly exceeding it's carrying capacity, i told the cardinal it would be a better idea to adopt children into good, catholic homes, and work on improving the morals of those already living on earth. (if you would like to ready my letter...don't feel bad if you say no, i prob wouldn't be too excited about it either...let me know and i will send you a copy, it is supposed to be an excessive in public advocacy, so i'm interested in seeing what a 'lay person' would say). that letter took up most of my week and weekend, but i did take a little break sat night. i met up with christine, hayley and frank to watch the end of the rugby game at frank's place. and we waited to hear from shannon and chris (who were at the rugby game) about a house party a friend of theirs was having. after the game was over and they were back home we went to their place for a few drinks about met up with paddy and dave (remember hayley's irish friends), and steve and dave (2 of frank's irish friends). please note that i am constantly surrounded by irshmen and canadians...i'm such a minority! hahaha. we then walked a few blocks in coogee to eva's house (it was her birthday) and split into 2 groups along the way. christine, frank, shannon and i (aka the slow ones) got a little separated from everyone else en route. a few blocks from where we were supposed to be, we saw that someone else was having a fun party and shannon and i decided to go make friends. we walked up to the house and started chatting away. i met a guy on the stairs and our conversation went like this:
me: hey what's goin on. is this eva's house?
him: no. how are you?
me: i'm good. how are you?
him: fine. are you canadian?
me: (very confused/amused) no hahaha i'm american, everyone keeps asking me that! i don't get it? do i sound canadian?
him: well i can't really tell the difference
me: well why do you think everyone keeps guessing candaian? i heard they get offended when you ask them if they're american so it's just safer to assume candadian.
him: well you smile alot...american's don't smile and candaians do.
me: really? i know lots of americans that smile all the time
that was about the time christine decided it was time to find our real party and shannon and i said goodbye to our new friends. when we arrived at eva's house we spent most of our time on the back patio talking to the people we came with, because everyone else was either really drunk or already knew everyone. there were also a few people in costumes (apparently 1/2 of them thought it was a costume party, and the other 1/2 didn't get the memo). there weren't many highlights worth mentioning from the party, and afterwards christine and frank walked me home (i later found out they got lost on their way home...lesson: don't follow a drunk irishman home). sunday night i finished my paper, and thus concluded my studious weekend.
on tuesday i received some great news. my student loans had cleared!! i finally had some money i didn't have to pay to spend! :-D i also found out that dodo aka my crappy Internet service, had refunded almost all of my money :-D (they only kept about $50). so with all this new money burning a hole in my pocket i headed to the mall. i didn't spend it on new clothes or anything fun like that, instead i bought ink, new proactiv stuff, a yoga mat, and some groceries. on wednesday i started getting ready for my big trip. my austrlasain mammals class was going on a camping trip to the cowan field station thursday night. since i didn't come to aus. with camping gear i had to go buy a sleeping bag. it was supposed to rain thrusday night and i was worried about freezing, but i decided to save a few bucks get a cheap sleeping bag and wear lots of clothes to bed.
thrusday was a great day. we arrived at cowan around 9:30am via train, after getting up at 6am! (i def don't miss being up that early, but i DO miss cheering, esp after seeing the olympics and watching football movies on tv) it was a cool morning but once we were moving around it got warmer. our 1st task was to catch tammar wallabies with nets. we were instructed on the best method, but it was REALLY hard. i ended up being last to attempt a capture, but i was unsuccessful. we didn't want to keep trying because the wallabies were getting stressed out. it's very dangerous to get wallabies and kangaroos stressed because once they reach a certain point they can die with in an hour. the wallabies start to lick their arms and bellies to try to cool off, so when we saw them getting "wet" we let the pros handle it. we placed each trapped wallaby in a burlap sack and tied it shut. our next task was to examine each wallaby. we had to hold them (in the sack) between our thighs, reach into the bag and cover their eyes. if they see day light they will try to escape. once their eyes were covered (which most of them hated, but they don't usually bite, so that was good) we lifted their heads out of the bag and examined their ears and jaw. we then flipped them over on their backs, and examined their feet, tail, and pouch while their heads were hidden in the bag. i did have a female wallaby to examine, but she did not have any pouch young. other groups did have joeys (look @ my new pics!) and it was really exciting to see. we had a lunch, watched 2 female red kangaroos be released after examinations (again, see pics), watched the grey kangaroos get fed (pics), set up our tents, and went for a walk around the station. we had a bbq dinner and made a camp fire. now many of you know i have years of camping experience. however though out my many years of camping i had very few opportunities to use my fire building skills, so i decided now was my chance to prove to myself i could do it/show off a little. after all, not every girl knows how to build a fire. after only two lighting attempts my fire was up and blazing. :-D i was very proud and everyone seemed equally impressed. after dinner and a few drinks (after all, what's a UNSW bio event with out drinking?!) we went spotlighting. i was in james' group and he walked us around with a huge high powered flashlight scanning the trees. the idea is that if there is a nocturnal animal around it's eyes will shine back in the light. we were able to see a few possums, which was pretty neat, but after seeing 5 it's novelty wore off. we later attempted to play a few callbacks (sounds played over a megaphone to try to get animals in the area to call back), but it was unsuccessful. turns out everyone's "few" drinks were not quite so few, and it was rather difficult for everyone to stay quite. we re tuned back to the camp fire and played a few rounds of charades, told a few jokes, and tried to think of games we could all play. i thought the group how to play maffia, and all my patahontas memories came flooding back. it's amazing that it's easier to get a group of 20 13year olds to focus compared to the group of 21 drunk 20 something grad students. i attempted to teach a few other games too, but it was pretty useless. later in the evening, when i went to crawl into my tent, i saw that there was no room letf for me :'( i thought i would have to resort to sleeping just outside the tent on our "porch" (see the pics), but it all worked out because amanda and christine had and extra space in their tent. which was quite lucky because around 4am it started to rain and the temp dropped about 10 degrees. in the morning we were supposed to go catch wallabies again, but since it was raining it didn't really work out. a park ranger came to talk to us, and we watched james and snoop show us a black footed rock wallaby and a potaroo, and had lunch. the rain was on and off all day, so we didn't really do much. when i got back home i planned to shower, eat dinner and go to bed asap...however i had no hot water :'( i made myself a HUGE batch of alphabet soup sans alphabets :( watched a little tv and went to bed early. i knew i had to get up early again on saturday.
earlier in the week i purchased a ticket to go on a tour of the royal national park. we had to meet on campus @ 7:45am which meant i would have to get up @ 6am...again. our tour was amazing. our guide angie took us to the park where we canoed for 2 hrs, walked along the gusty cliffs, saw amazing views of the beach, and hiked along a waterfall. we also "learned" how to through a boomerang. i was NOT very successful, however i did manage to knock down the other tour guide with my amazingly terrible aim (boomerangs used to be used for hunting kangaroos...i was just practicing hehehe). i took TONS of pics during the whole trip so make sure the check them out...it was truly beautiful, however i was having trouble getting my camera to do what i wanted, so if the color is off, just use your imagination. when i got home i finally took that warm shower, ate dinner and again went to bed early. i was exhausted! and there was a good possibility i was going to have to get up early AGAIN!
i had signed myself up for a 2nd tour from spit bridge to the manly beaches. which are said to be some of sydney's most beautiful. it also included a 2-3hrs hike through the bush, and a ferry ride back to circular quay. we were too meet in town @ 9:20am...but when my alarm went off @ 7am...i knew it wasn't going to happen. i'll just have to take my own trip through manly some other time. when i'm not still recovering from other adventures :)
and that ladies and gentleman pretty much catches us up with my life. i hope you're proud :) a full 2 weeks filled with studying, education, and sightseeing. i know i'm hear for more than the sydney night life :-P (well the bar life...cause i will be doing my project on possums...which technically are night life ;) as soon as i start w/that i'll be keeping you posted as well).
**once again i have added new photos. sorry for all the confusion from before, but now that we've got all the kinks worked out i hope everyone will enjoy them. since there are so many i will try to upload them in groups, but sometimes it takes a while. 1st up will be my pics of cowan.
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