video from Pelorus

Some news on the home front

So we found out who next year swim team captains are.... Scott, Alison, and myself!!!! It is pretty exciting! We are going to have an awesome time with our team. Other than that no interesting news. We are going scuba diving this weekend, so we will have a lot up next week for your viewing pleasure :)

Scuba Cert Part 2

Yes we are now scuba certified! We can legally breathe underwater now! It was so much easier this time than last. We met in the morning and got all our equipment together the set off in the ocean. We did two dives while we were out there and coming up to the surface for more than 10 mins constitutes as a new dive. We got to do "underwater tours" where we saw lion fish, a sting ray, and we got to feed the fish some bread (even though fish can't really digest carbohydrates) but the fish seemed to like it. Then we had to do the skills like we did in the pool, but they were a piece of cake. After our dives we got to write them in our dive log, which is a small booklet and kinda lame because it is not in the binder like everyone else we know. We had the rest of the day off and we walked the beach and found awesome shells!! There was a dead washed up giant clam shell still intact! It was awesome and we need to figure out how to get all of our goodies home!! We went to Man Fridays for dinner!! We have been dying to go there forever! It was excellent. Then we sat on the beach and watched the moon rise, which was bright red!! It was a full moon too which was cool. The next day was the same deal, 2 dives in the morning and the rest of the day off. We saw another lion fish and a crocodile fish! We also had a skill of swimming through an underwater hoop! After, we walked again and went to a swing set looking the bay. We went to another great restaurant for dinner and sat on beach and let our stomachs settle.

OH Baby!!!

Trisha and Devin are now proud new parents of Jared Allen!!!! We are so excited for them both!!

He is adorable!!!

Scuba Cert Part 1

This past weekend we headed out to start our scuba certification. We got a nice dinner on the strand and we took the worst ferry ride over to the island. Because of the cyclone up north the weather was a bit rough, which made the water extremely wavy! Our stomachs were doing jumps like it was its job. We took the bus over to base and somehow a huge moth got in. It was flying all over the place and girls were screeching and the boys were trying to bat it away. It flew to the back of the bus so they calmed down, we were pretty calm through all of this btw. Then the moth decided to land on Morgan's book bag! It just chilled there catching its breath and then she tried to move it along and it went out the window next to her!! It was very amusing. We started our class Saturday morning at 8:30 and they gave us a book and told us we had to read and do homework for the first two chapters. We hadn't had that much work since we've been here! We had to watch the two videos and then we finally got to go in the pool. We just did some basic skills with all of our gear on, such as retrieving our regulator and getting water out of our masks. There were trickier ones, such as taking all of your gear off!! Morgan had to have the instructor hold her down because when she had to take her gear off and when she had to take the weight belt off she would start floating to the surface! Very funny. After we cleaned all of the gear we got to break until the next day, but we got even more homework! We pretty much had to finish reading the book and answer all of the questions. On Sunday we had to watch the rest of the videos, but we got to go in the pool again and practice more skills. We got to practice being neutrally buoyant which was a blast! When you inhaled you floated up towards the surface and when you exhaled you sunk back down to the floor! Then was our final exam, which was easy and we got to leave. However we only had 25 mins to catch the ferry when we were a 45 min walk from the marina!! And no there were not any buses at the time! So, we booked it!!!! We literally got there when the ferry was about to leave! However, the crewman hadn't gotten on board yet and saw us running and held it! We jumped over the fence and ran onto the boat!!!! We were so tired though but it was good that we made it! We go back on Saturday to finish it up with four open water dives!!

Classes and Campus Life

(Our first class to start off the week is Australian and Pacific Exploration. It is two back to back 50 minute sessions with only a ten min break in between and it is as exciting as it sounds... It is a class with a video lecture to the other campus (this past class one girl at the other campus was passed out sleeping in the front row) and our teacher talks so quietly that we in the same room as her can barely hear her (sound familiar). She stands at the podium and spits out info at us with no powerpoint or outline just maps for 2 hours!!! The tutorial of that class is much better we are assigned readings each week and in the tutorial we break up into groups and talk about what we read then discuss as a group. Our next class on Tuesday morning is Conservation of Marine Wildlife. This class is much more interesting and we have different specialists come in and lecture depending on what their field is. This past class the teacher got done in 40min and was like peace. There has not been a practical (lab) yet but it starts next week. On Wednesdays we have Coral Reef Geomorphology lecture and practical. The professor is really interesting and our first practical today got out early so we were excited. Thursdays we only have one class and it is Australian Vertebrate Fauna. This class is interesting too and our teacher is a speed demon too but there are way more slides. It is also a video lecture and about 10mins are wasted at the beginning trying to set up the video feed. Fridays are our busiest days with Conservation, Coral Reef, and Fauna lectures along with Conservation practical. We start at 8am and do not finish until like 4 or 5. And we are in lab so we dont even get lunch!

Campus life is interesting. We still don't understand how the colleges can be so self absorbed. For example, we went to the other dining hall and some random guy came up to a few of us and asked if we lived there in a very unfriendly tone and we said yes just because of the attitude he was giving. These girls that were there told him to get out of the line because he couldn't possibly know every "fresher" aka freshman and he left. But that is the type of thing that goes on and we don't understand why because we are allowed to eat at the other dining halls. Also the thing we have noticed is that they either love their gravy because every dinner pretty much is rice and some sort of meat and veggies in a sauce to put over the rice. We don't get many choices at all, and we have begun to miss UNE's selections! We also miss how UNE's cafe is actually open when you want food. Here breakfast is 7:30-9 lunch is 12-1:15 and diner is 6-7 and don't even think about going into the cafe if it's out of those time frames!

We see a lot of wildlife here on campus too! We have seen a bunch of wallabies near Morgan's dorm and walking to class as well. Also, we have seen flying foxes which look like huge bats. We have seen regular bats too, and we saw one today hanging upside-down in a tree! We also saw a "beaver rat" by Morgan's dorm too! Here is a link that shows the different mammals that we have on campus : http://cms.jcu.edu.au/discovernature/mammalscommon/index.htm !!

the fisher shield

this past weekend we had a swim meet that went really well! it was different than we expected because there were so many people there! each dorm ( they call them colleges) had so much pride, especially scott's college! i was combined with another college and we had some support but we had quite a few swimmers than they normally do. the support for colleges was so intense! it was actually really great to see. people who didn't even know us were cheering for us! every time scott was on the blocks everyone from his college started chanting and yelling for him and when i was swimming i heard my college yelling for me too! it was really something. it reminded us of harry potter because of the intensity for their college! one college had a mascot head of a lion and a bunch of people would run around the deck with the mascot! each college had a pep talk to their swimmers too and everyone would sing their college song! we didn't know our songs but it was still really fun. i had to pep talk our new friend who was a distance swimmer to get psyched for her 50 free! she was so nervous, but she did fine. i swam the 100 fly, 50 breast, and 4 relays. the first realy was a blast!! it was called the participation relay and everyone from each college had to swim in it, even if they didn’t have a swim suit on. there were at least 40 people from scott's college who participated and i had about 15. the rules were that there could only be four swimmers in the water at a time and you had to swim 25 meters and get out as fast as you could so the next person could go. we got our entire team down and back in the 5 mins that they gave us and scott's team only got down! the next relay was the under over where we went sideways across the pool and had to go under and over the lane lines. the last two were the 4x200 medley and free relay. my relay team stayed the same for both the medley and the free. we won our medley! and came 3rd in the free. it was so much fun and it was really close!! our college was cheering so intensely for us!! scott swam the 100 fly, back, breast, and free, the 50 fly, the last two relays, and of course the participation relay too. they got first in the free relay and third in the medley. overall it was a really fun day!!