white water rafting!

hello all! i know i have not written anything in 2 weeks so this is going to be a lengthy one! i will just go through the past 2 weeks and highlight and the big events. starting off last saturday we went to an animal shelter and volunteered to walk dogs. the shelter is just a 10 minute walk down the road from us so a bunch of us got together and decided that we would take an adventure and see what happens. it was a rainy morning but it was really fun! the people were very thankful that a group of universtiy students were volunteering thier time and wanting to do something to give back. i have not been back yet as i was gone this whole last weekend and had classes during the week but i hope to make it back soon and pay the dogs a visit! there are also cats but i made clear to steer away from them and stick to the puppy section!
during the week there was terrential rainfall for literally 5 days non stop...needless to say waking up tuesday morning there were actually puddles 2-3 feet high and wide. on monday night a group of us actually went body surfing down along the underpass that we usually take to go to school but since it runs along a river and it was so high the whole thing flooded and was about 3 feet high. we all took a study break and went for a swim along the tunnel which was just crazy to think about. luckily we left when we did as in the morning we found out that 3 fences fell down, a couple trees snapped and were floating along the river and there were crazy water animals everywhere! it was so crazy to see. so waking up tuesday morning i made my way to my email to check to see if i had any "weather updates" and to my amazement all my classes were cancelled for the day! i am used to snow days but i was granted with a "potential landslid day" i was not upset at all just laughing all day long thinking about the fact that i was not going to class as for too much rain and all the danger that was associated. it has actually still been raining on and off and some roads and highways are closed down still as the rivers are overflowing and there are landslides happening. as long as i was not hurt or nothing to my abilities was hindered i am totally fine with what is happening! there has been talk about potential cyclones coming so that idea kinda scares me but the raining and flooding just made for good stories!
on thursday the 22nd it was my birthday and a couple of the girls here threw me a "mini party" and decorated thier room with streamers and got me a crown to wear for the night. nothing really crazy happened just went downtown for the night and got my groove on on the dance floor like normal! it is a birthday that i will never forget tho as i got to celebrate it here so that is awesome!
now all the anticipation is leading up to this past weekend...white water rafting! it was AMAZING! i would do it again hands down. we started off the weekend heading up over the mountains via sky rail and went to another city. along the way we got out to take pictures and take random tours around the rainforest. upon reaching the city we went into koala, bird, and butterfly land and got to play with all those animals and more. we got some free time in the city to walk around and do our own thing and then got bused to our housing--which was more like summer camp with bunk beds. it was nothing special but we were there for 8 hours so not really a problem. the whole weekend we had a local tour guide that wanted to take us to random places that were "off limits" and that we were not supposed to go to but he knew we wanted to have good memories and take cool pictures which was spot on! so sunday morning we woke up and went down to this railway that followed all along the mountain and had GORGEOUS views on the moutain and water falls. literally breath taking angles and pictures the whole walk. along the way we heard a train coming so we literally had to run and jump into the trees and hide our group of 12 as we could not have been seen by the train people or would have gotten into lots of trouble (for those of you who have read the hunger games i felt like Katniss!) so that was exciting. after hiking the morning and night we went to this little lake/river freshwater thing and went for a dip before going to our rafting start. for rafting we were put in rafts of 7 people, 6 of us and a guide and got out helmets, lifejackets, and secured footwear and were ready to go! i made sure to get the best guy (judging all upon his looks) and off we were the first raft of them all as i was not wasting time! the guide easily could tell that we were a group of young kids who wanted to have a good time and have as much adventure as possible so he made sure to bring us in the fastest craziest places ensuring for many laughs and great memories. it was something i will never forget and definetly would do again hands down. they said usually the river is a level 1-2 but since it had been raining so much and the water was up it was a level 2-3 when we went so it was a little more. so worth it and an all around awesome experience. now i sit here monday night realizing that i have work to do and classes start back up tomorrow so antacipating that my smile goes to a frown. i will post some pictures here of the weekend for a glimpse of what i went through! hope all is well back home and smile for the warm weather! peace and blessings <3


birthday outfit!

standing on the railway over a river

flying high on a mountain!

overlooking the city and all

view of one of the waterfalls

still livin'

here i am again! im trying to stay on a once a week blog schedule so i dont fall behind! the past week was nothing really special just filled with classes and studying :( i guess they werent kidding when they said we ahve to do some school work here! im just going to talk about random things i find interesting/exciting/different here that i am still getting used to! first off the accents...i mean we all have heard australian accents and i know it was my goal to pick up on it while i was here but i think that goal is going to be a fail..i mean literally some of the slang and things they say here are just crazy! for starters they shorten most words for example relatives is "rellies" mosquitoes are "mossies" university is "uni" just crazy terms that i am not ever quite sure of. as well, the professors all seem to have their own dialect in that they say some terms and i just sit there in my chair thinking what in the world are they talking about?! the other day i was in sociology class and the lecturer was talking about some australian comedy and naming all these characters and how thier personalities show x,y, and z qualities and everyone was saying quotes from tv shows and whatnot and us americans in the front row were looking around thinking "it would be nice to know what they are talking about!" some of the terms they use are just outragous like i actually got into a debate today with a group of guys because they call it "maths" class instead of "math" class and we were debating about how it is a singluar class so you should not add the "s" and they disagreed and it was just funny to see how depending upon where you grow up you adapt to the culture and just do what others do! this story is somewhat important cuz i just completed my first real assignment (crazy i know!) and i turned it in and the first thing the teacher said was "you must be an american student" and at first i thought i was introuble or something but come to find out he just knew becuase of the way i spell certain words. for instance they dont use "z" here so they spell origanization like origanisation. well im my essay i of course used american spelling and i guess when he was grading it was just laughing at the changes. (i wasnt penalized or anything just a sidenote ha). it just really shows how each language is set in stone on each country--very hard to get used to but we are all trying hard! i am really trying to use their slang and say tomato sauce instead of ketchup or heaps instead of lots. just random words that have different meanings. enough about that rant tho!
i guess there has been a lot of flooding south of us here in cairns but there has not been anything really major. that said...i was walking to class today in the POURING rain and literally i kid you not there were puddles up to my midcalf. the rain here comes down so fast and hard the ground cannot absorb it fast enough and it just makes puddles! the cars/buses slip on the roads the rivers have intense currents and us walkers are stuck with walking through literally foot-foot and a half height puddles. always makes for a good enterance to class with dripping clothes and make up running down my face...at least im not the only one so it mkaeas me feel better!
my roommates and i invested in a toaster the other day and had quite a time setting it up...to inform you first we were warned upon moving in that if the smoke alarms go off the room has to pay $800 cuz i guess the fire department comes no matter what. well we were simply trying to make toast for a bedtime snack (because bread and peanut butter is all i can afford!) and all of a sudden the toaster started smoking. so we ran it into the bathroom shut the door and started fanning it out the window--now im sure you are asking yourself why didnt we just open the main door and bring it outside well we did not think of that at the minute and i as well had it as an afterthought! so while we are fanning out the smoke from the toaster the bread gets stuck and starts burning making the smell ten times worse and the whole situation that much more skeptical! fear not we managed to get it to stop smoking and the alarm did not go off so all is well...apparently here you are supposed too run the toaster 2-3 times alone with no food in it to like burn the plastic and get the things warmed up..well us americans didnt of course read the instructions to get this information so theres the story to prove it! just another way to make a good conversation starter!
i know i am skipping around randomly here but thats how my brain works...now i know the drinking age is 18 here but it is the funniest thing seeing an open bar and people drinking during mid-day. today my friend sarah and i were at the main lobby place just hanging out for a bit between classes and the place where you can buy food and coffee is as well a bar and low and behold you have people just sitting there with a pitcher of beer enjoying thier leisure book just shooting the breeze with people. it is so weird to see happening! i gave in and got my first coffee today (a small for $5.80!!!) but i had to do it. i was feeling deprived and had to have the taste in my mouth. but back to the point...having the availabilty to drink at any time of the day is one of the biggest changes academic wise--no need to worry i have not purchased any..during the school day at least!
on the topic of purchasing things and spending money if you ever want to go on a diet and fast for a length of time come here! i kid you not i have one meal a day and the rest of the day munch on dry cereal, carrots, and rarely i will have an apple or PB&J. the food is so expensive here! i cant even afford to but milk to add to my cereal so i just eat cocoa bombs straight out of the box...rough living. i guess i am making it sound worse that it actually is but for real i eat a HUGE dinner becuase i know the next time i will get an actual meal again is the next day at 6 pm..us americans favorite time of day is 6pm because that is when dinner is served!
last random thought for this blog...the "gym" on campus. now i kept hearing about the luxuries our gym had to offer and the awesome physical trainers that would help you with your work out and how accessibly it is and what not. well i found out last week where this "fine work out facility is"...the trailer i walk by every day. literally a trailer like in a trailer park, only smaller and smellier. i was walking back from class and heard music coming from the shack so i walked over to investiage and saw someone pumping the iron. now when i think of gym i think of treadmills free weights tons of machines tvs and all this room to do what ya gotta do. no. not here. one treadmill one lat pulldown machine and one rack of free weights. now of course the worker person saw me and was like "hi are you here to work out"...all i did was take one look around shake my head no and return back to my walk back. i have never been so shocked in my life! it is actually really funny looking back on it but talk about a way to false advertise something! it was insane! needless to say i have not been to the gym since i have been here and dont plan on it unless i need to seek shelter from one of my daunting walks back after class or feel the need to do a couple reps on the lat machine...
thats all for now! ill put a couple random pics up from the beach and other places i have been
hope all is well for you back home! i hear its getting nice (60s!) back there so thats exciting!
peace and blessings :)

Loving life :)

Here we are again! I'm trying to think back to what i did this past week and all that comes to mind is class, beach, pool, and sushi! Last saturday our program leader took us out to lunch and the place was a sushi train...now i have never had it before and i cant say that i do now. i wanted to keep my mind open so i tried everything from the raw fish, crab, lobster, and even something that had tenticles but i couldnt say the name. i decided to stick to the fried and teriaki chicken after almost gagging on the previous options. it was good to say i have tried it before but it definetly is an aquired taste and i dont have it yet! i also booked my spring break trip with 3 other girls. we are going to the gold coast which is like mid/lower east side of the country (between Brisbane and Sydney if you look at a map) they are world known for the beaches, surfing, and men so we figured that all sounded too good to pass up! break is from april 14-22 so i still have a month before but we had to book tickets now we are just planning our activities and what we all want to get done!
i had my first gecko in my room the other night. i was in the living room and went into my room to get something and saw it scatter across my desk onto the wall, i screamed and my roommate came in and started laughing (as shes from here). i can take the beetles and flies no problem but the thought of having a gecko in my room that could come on my bed and what not was just not happening for me. i havent seen the critter in awhile so i hope hes gone but that was a first!
school is going well so far. it is very different from home as i only have classroom interatction about 2 hours a week per class so everything is on your own. i thought at home i was begging for attention from professers but here you really only ask questions via email and sometimes in smaller discussion settings. while it is hard to adapt to i knew coming that it was going to be different so i just have to accept it and learn from it! i have been making "aquantences" quite fast as i introduce myself as being an international student and then everyone has questions about where i come from and how different it is and what not. overall the people are very nice and VERYYYY laid back. it is a total go with the flow society and no rush to anything...very different from back in the states.
the weather this past week has not been the greatest as their summer is just coming to an end it has been raining everyday. its like when i wake up the sun is out i go to class and it begins to pour and then there is a sunset..very weird. we are surrounded by mountains where i am so there is always a beautiful mist/fog coming off the hills and it makes the rainbows even that much better! the rain has no stopped us from getting out in the sun tho! we take every advantage to get to the beach or lagoon and soak up rays. my body is finally healed of its peeling so im back to my base coat and ready to get some color! i am super jealous of the snow back home tho dont get me wrong! i would love to be snowmobiling and wrapped in a sweatshirt at the same time! i guess we cant have the best of both worlds.. :)
i dont have any pictures to share as i lost my camera..i put it down one night at the bar and it was not there when i looked down :( im looking into getting an underwater one now as im sure that will come in handy both here and back home so no pictures to add sorry! ive made a budget for myself as the credit card statement is not looking that well..so i have to wait till next week to make a big purchase! good thing my life savings is going to be goneee after this trip! oh well it is TOTALLY worth it. i cant wait to tell all my experiences and infrom people waht i have been through. if anyone is thinking about going abroad somewhere GO! the things i have just heard and been encultured to is just mindblowing.
thats all for now i think! feel free to always email me or facebook me, i dont get any internet in my room (a problem im trying to work on) but i bring my computer to class so i check it frequently! hope all is well back home xoxo
peace and blessings!