My Spring Break
was....surprisingly uneventful. I was really excited about my Linking Indigeousness class field trip, but it turned out to be bitter-sweet. The bitter part? It rained the whole damn time we were there due to cyclone Monica (cyclone number three since I've been here), so much so that we had to be evacuated so that we wouldn't be flooded in for who-knows-how-long, and I didn't get to do my outdoorsy stuff. The sweet parts: the people on my trip were absolutely amazing; 18 people all from 6 different countries with amazing personalities...loved them all to death. Also, thought it was a really cool experience to learn directly from an aboriginal elder (especially considering that there are a whopping two left in this part of Australia), good food, and learning how to spear a wallaby in the traditional aboriginal way. It was one of the most entertaining experiences I've had since I've been here lol, especially when the wooden wallaby "attacked" one of the guys on the trip; you should have seen the wound, it was genuinely bad...but genuinely funny :-). And oh yeah, being evactuated from the site was pretty adventurous too; the roads were flooded so they had to get a big Ute (big truck) to ferry us across the roads in small groups. That was pretty badass lol. And I must say, because we had to be evacuated immediately all they could send us was a fancy tour bus, poor us, so we all got our own rows to relax in and watched "The Fugitive" on the way home. It turns out they made a good call too, by the next morning the whole area was flooded in, so I'm glad I got out when I did.
Interestingly, some sloppy developments have arisen because of the trip. 1) The issue of money back. Most of us are asking for at least a partial refund and I mean come on, half our trip was cancelled, so it's going to be ugly if they say no 2) Accusations against our teacher for being unprofessional/irresponsible (she ditched us after we boarded the emergency bus) 3) Issues with assessment (they're basing our assessment off of things we didn't get the chance to learn). All in all, some pretty ugly stuff going on right now, but that's just JCU gossip.
Other than that, break has been uneventful. It's actually been nice to slow down for a few days I guess. And besides, it's been raining a lot lately and since Australia takes every day it can as a public holiday there hasn't been much to do anyway. You know, Townsville is supposed to be sunny 300+ days of the year; I think I've been here for all of the 65 wet days =/. While I wish I could have done more travelling on this break, I have been hauling ass and getting a lot of school stuff done which is good. Especially with bday weekend coming up and all, I'm going to want to have lots of free time in the future. The halls are starting to get louder, and now I know why, it's because all of the drunken immature students went home...why did I miss them again? I did meet some good friends over break who are quite amusing and have senses of humor like me, Aussies too, so not all my friends are American lol.
Anyway, I guess I'm just rambling at this point. Just a few minor announcements before I go: 1) In case anyone wanted to send bday wishes (hope this doesn't sound presumptuous) I will be out of town from the 27th to the 1st of May--US time...so the only way to do it is belatedly or through a Myspace message, email, whatever. Also, I did make my Myspace profile private because the tracker showed me that there are some creepy people and past stalkers looking at my page...yuck...so if you don't have Myspace then no worries. Hope everyone is doing well, until next week :-).
Interestingly, some sloppy developments have arisen because of the trip. 1) The issue of money back. Most of us are asking for at least a partial refund and I mean come on, half our trip was cancelled, so it's going to be ugly if they say no 2) Accusations against our teacher for being unprofessional/irresponsible (she ditched us after we boarded the emergency bus) 3) Issues with assessment (they're basing our assessment off of things we didn't get the chance to learn). All in all, some pretty ugly stuff going on right now, but that's just JCU gossip.
Other than that, break has been uneventful. It's actually been nice to slow down for a few days I guess. And besides, it's been raining a lot lately and since Australia takes every day it can as a public holiday there hasn't been much to do anyway. You know, Townsville is supposed to be sunny 300+ days of the year; I think I've been here for all of the 65 wet days =/. While I wish I could have done more travelling on this break, I have been hauling ass and getting a lot of school stuff done which is good. Especially with bday weekend coming up and all, I'm going to want to have lots of free time in the future. The halls are starting to get louder, and now I know why, it's because all of the drunken immature students went home...why did I miss them again? I did meet some good friends over break who are quite amusing and have senses of humor like me, Aussies too, so not all my friends are American lol.
Anyway, I guess I'm just rambling at this point. Just a few minor announcements before I go: 1) In case anyone wanted to send bday wishes (hope this doesn't sound presumptuous) I will be out of town from the 27th to the 1st of May--US time...so the only way to do it is belatedly or through a Myspace message, email, whatever. Also, I did make my Myspace profile private because the tracker showed me that there are some creepy people and past stalkers looking at my page...yuck...so if you don't have Myspace then no worries. Hope everyone is doing well, until next week :-).