Day 49

Today I booked my flight for Tasmania!! I'll officially be exploring the Tasmanian landscape and feeding tasmanian devils at the end of October! Only problem is I'll have to miss the last day of classes, but I figure I can just listen to them online and it'll be alright. On a different note, but equally exciting to me (which may be sad), but I downloaded a free trial of Microsoft Office and it's SO COOL. There's so many cool templates and things that can be done and I'm so excited to actually use it to take notes! I also found out it can take audio when I take notes as well, so I can use it while I'm waiting for my pen ink to come in! Okay, so many not as exciting as a trip, but I'm still excited!

Day 47/48

Again I forgot to post yesterday, but I think overall my track record is pretty good! I also doubt that any of you are reading this on a truly daily basis, so I can afford a few days like this.

Anyway, yesterday wasn't exactly my best day, but I got through it! The day was relatively normal, and I even got to take a nap in the middle which was VERY needed. Last night it was also my turn to make family dinner, so I decided to be ambitious and make Pad Thai, bread rolls, and broccoli. I've made all of them before, so I thought it'd be fine. Well I didn't really account for the fact that I was making enough for 13 people in a small kitchen with pans big enough to cook for 2 people max. Long story short, pad thai went EVERYWHERE. As soon as I tried to stir in the pad thai noodles, the pans just seemed to explode all over my kitchen and living room. I was still picking up carrots in the back of the room at the end of the night. But despite the explosion of thai food, it actually came out pretty decent! It may not have been restaurant-worthy but people were having seconds! I think I did a job well done in the end, it just took wayyy longer than it should have to clean it all up haha.

Today was a pretty relaxed day. I had my animal physiology practical where we did not even go into the lab, but did everything online with a nervous system simulator. Online simulators are also so obnoxious because they're so picky about little things and won't let you continue on unless you get EXACTLY what they're looking for. As a result, most of our lab was spent moving around our neurons a millimeter at a time until we got the exact spot in the model where the computer would accept it. At least the lab itself was pretty easy. The same went for my later 2 hour class, where we had a horse veterinarian come in and talk about what would have been a crazy interesting lecture, except he went through one powerpoint slide every 15 minutes because of all the not so interesting tangents he went on. Ah well. The day ended as relaxing as it started, with not much work to do and good television on the TV.

Day 46

Today was quite a weird and interesting day, but most of it I can't talk about on here which is quite the shame. But I am glad that I have an extra 200 dollars in my pocket from work! I really do like making 200 dollars in just one weekend, it's a great feeling.

I was actually really productive today as well before work. I had about 50 pages of genetics reading to get through and managed to just sit down and do it. Now I might actually understand what my professor mumbles about in class. Thank fsm I don't have to deal with that until Wednesday! Once I was done with that I realized I still had an hour before work, so I worked more on my strange addiction to Super Mario 64, and I BEAT IT. Yes, my friends, I have finally beat Super Mario 64. It has only been like 3 months of me playing it, restarting it, and finally I have persevered to finally beat Bowzer. It was a wonderful accomplishment.

Now up early tomorrow to watch Doctor Who with my father via skype and I can't wait! (except for the getting up early part...that could change). Eh, I guess my dad is worth it :)

Day 44/45

I totally forgot to post yesterday! Yesterday was good! I actually made another Australian friend who, it turns out, is in my genetics class and my physiology class, so I finally have someone else to ask about genetics besides the jerk! We even ate lunch together and she bought me an australian candy bar called "crunchies," which is this kind of honeycomb bar dipped in chocolate. So delicious! It might even beat out honeycomb tim tams! Oh, speaking of tim tams, I just did a tim tam slam with a chai tea and it was absolutely amazing, until the hot chai melted the tim tam in my hand and then melted all over my hands. Still delicious though!

I then worked at the restaurant for the night. A pretty lame way to spend a Friday night, but it's nice to have a job that I really don't care that much about so I spend 0 time worrying about anything there. I go back in tonight, which means I'll have another uneventful saturday night, but I'm perfectly fine making money instead of spending money at the moment. It'll help pay for my new trip to Tasmania! Today I was able to sleep in (so amazing) and walked to Brunswick to pick up another white shirt for work at savers. It's funny how now a 40 minute walk one day is totally worthwhile for one shirt as long as it's 4 dollars. I'm truly learning the value of a dollar...

Day 43

I actually had a very good day today! I woke up naturally a couple minutes before my alarm so I was actually awake this morning for my classes, and my classes weren't actually that boring! I got out early from both of my classes so I was able to do some extra reading for my classes and now I'm not only caught up but ahead!

I treated myself for this accomplishment by going out to a Thai restaurant for some pad thai by myself, bringing along my genetics notes to read (I thought I might as well keep being productive!) and found a nice empty Thai place right on Lygon St. I had sat down for maybe a minute, being the only one in the restaurant, before some an asian family of about 20 came in, obviously tourists by the amount of pictures they were taking of things as little as the sign outside, 10 of them at least were children under the age of 8. Suddenly my peaceful lunch turned into trying to read while children ran around screaming, banging cutlery together while their parents took pictures of them. One boy even put both his hands on the back of my chair and tried to read over my shoulder. Obnoxious. And the parents of course did nothing. At least the pad thai was delicious, and I was able to get in and out within a half hour.

The rest of the day was extremely laid back. Our night plans fell through as so many people had homework, so I ended up watching the renovators and law and order SVU with my friend while eating tim tams. Not a terrible night!

Day 42

Today was an ordinary, boring day so I won't bore anyone with the details! I'm back to not having anything to do in any of my classes, so my days pretty much are just doing about a half hour of work and then spending the rest of the day relaxing and hanging out with friends! Not a bad life at all :)

Day 41

Today was full of long classes. I woke up bright and early for my animal physiology practical, where I worked with a toad's in vitro heart to measure heart rate. This was a really boring lab as I did the exact same thing last semester with daphnia, but the fact that this toad's heart kept beating after it was cut out of the dead body I thought was pretty cool! In the break between my classes, I hung out with some arcadia friends and found a coffee shop on campus with two dollar coffee! Too bad I don't like coffee, but I like the idea that if one day I decided I wanted to start drinking coffee, I now know where I can it cheap! The best part of it, too, is that when we were sitting there at the cafe, a guy playing the saxophone came out and started playing the sexy sax man song and it pretty much made my life. If you have not heard of sexy sax man, look it up on youtube! It's so funny!

After my second class (which was just far too long), I headed over to work to learn how to use the machine used to take orders. So starting Friday, I'll be able to actually be a legitimate server! Finally! I won't have to ask someone to just put in a second drink order for a table, I'll be able to do it myself!

41 Day

This morning was absolutely crazy. I came to class knowing I had to print out only one more lab report and hand it in and I was set for the next couple of weeks. But as I was walking to class, I realized I had forgotten my wallet at home, and I needed to put money on my card before I could print anything. So I thought, okay, I'll just go back after class, I have a huge break. So I check my email and realize our lab reports are due in two hours, and I have the hour long class right now, leaving me an hour to get back to my apartment, grab my wallet, come back, put money on my card, print out the lab report, and run to the zoology building to hand it in. Everything runs smoothly, I get to the library by 11:25 (paper due at 12) and I put my card in the coin machine – and it gets stuck. I told the people at the desk who luckily were not the evil man that was there last time, and they say they can't do anything but call the people who could get it out, but it should only be like 5 minutes. So I go to get everything ready to print out, and I realize none of my graphs or figure legends had saved. I had to go back onto my computer and put the graphs back on the paper and re-write the figure legends, and by this time it's 11:40. I start freaking out and go to ask if they had called the IT person, and they said they had just left a message on the machine. I began to tell them I had a lab report due in 20 minutes and they offered to let me use their computer to print it out. So nice of them, and totally saved my grade.

I am then sitting writing this blog, and these two turkish women come sit next to me and offer me fresh baklava. It was absolutely delicious, and they noticed my accent and immediately started naming all the American states they know. I love this country.

The rest of the day went as per usual. We celebrated our friend Brian's birthday tonight at Blue Moon with 4 dollar pizzas and had a wonderful night!

Day 40

Today was a horrible day at my job but I know better than to complain about a job on the internet. I'm lucky enough to have wonderful friends who were able to cheer me up before the night was over. Underbelly razor also premiered tonight, a show my friends and I are destined to become addicted to. I really hope tomorrow goes better, it should as I don't have to go to work!

Day 39

Today I started my official first day of work! It was actually fun, despite being extremely chaotic. They are still not letting me take people's orders for some reason, so the entire night was spent bussing tables, doing side work, and bringing out food to customers. I didn't mind though, although I did feel a bit useless when people would ask me if they could have something as simple as another glass of coke and I had to ask someone else to put it into the system. I also managed to spill an entire beer on my white shirt when the man I was giving it to scared me by raising his arm suddenly. But I was able to just easily get him a new drink and at least it wasn't red wine! I now have to go back every night this weekend, is good since a 4 hour shift will get me 50 dollars! Definitely could be a worse situation!

Day 38

Today was also a pretty successful work day. I was able to work with my friend and get our lab reports taken care of so now that is completely done! I'm holding off submitting it incase we learn something new about what to do today, but after today I'm submitting it! I also got the prompt for my philosophy class and already know what I will write about so I thought I'd spend the night off to hang out with some Arcadia people, which of course was so much fun.

I also opened an Australian bank account! I kept asking really stupid questions like, can I get my money back when I close my account, but the woman was really nice and answered everything wonderfully. I also found out it's cheaper to wire money through them than I thought so that's a big plus! Go commonwealth bank!

Day 37

Today the jerk sat next to me in my genetics class. I tried to look away, not make eye contact, forget I knew him, ANYTHING to not make him start talking to me. He kept opening his mouth as if he were about to say something and then I'd look down at my phone or around the room and he'd stop. I managed to keep this up for a good couple of minutes until I finally realized I couldn't figure out of the questions on the problem sheet that would be the difference between an A and a B if I got it wrong, and my stomach dropped knowing he was the only person I knew in that class. So I looked over and asked him if he had done the problem set yet. He did this stupid leaning back in his chair and put his arm up on the back of both of our seats, tilted his head back in a cocky way and said “Haven't even looked at it yet, why? You looking for all the answers?”

He had officially gone from obnoxious to obnoxious and useless. I murmured that I actually DID the assignment and I just couldn't get one answer, and went back to my phone checking and looking around the room. The class thankfully started before any other awkward conversation started, and I noticed he started doing the assignment in class rather than taking notes. By the end of the class he turned to me and said “I just did that whole thing, that was so easy. What what did you not know?” I looked over and saw that his question 3 had a c with a little question mark next to it, so I laughed and said the one you don't know either, and he's like “oh, the question marks don't mean anything. I put them next to everything.” But then I asked him to explain why he put C, and he said “I don't really know, it just feels right.” Like I said, obnoxious AND useless. I didn't know my genetics class could get any worse than it had already been. Thank you, jerk, for letting me know things could always be worse.

On the upside, I was super productive again today (it helped that it was raining so all I really wanted to do was stay inside anyway), so I finished up my 7 page paper due on Monday and eventually emailed my genetics professor to ask for guidance on that one problem. She actually pointed me in the right direction and I ended up getting an H1 on the assignment! (H1=A) Now I only have to finish up my lab report and write my philosophy paper (which we only get the prompt for tomorrow for the paper that's due on Monday...), so I feel like I'm in pretty good shape for what should be hell week!

Day 36

Today was spent entirely doing work. I got 1500 out of 2000 words done on my first draft of my Human-Animal interactions paper due next Monday. I'm happy with my topic, as I'm doing how animals/having a pet can impact a child's development. There is definitely enough information out there to get 2000 words! I also got a second draft of my lab report for my animal physiology class done so with the fact that I'm almost done with my genetics problem set, I'm feeling pretty good about my progress! With that feeling I celebrated by doing 26 pages of hardcore philosophy reading ...oh wait that wasn't celebrating, that was me wishing I was doing something else for 2 hours, but ah well. It's done! One more week of this and then I will be back to being bored in all of my classes again. 5 weeks til spring break!

Day 35

Today was a pretty average rainy day in Melbourne. Both classes I had today were pretty average, but definitely weren't boring or anything. I was disappointed to find out that I actually have 3 papers due on Monday along with my genetics problem set due on Friday, so I was happy that I'm already done with my problem set and have a full first draft of one of the papers done. Now tomorrow since I don't have my animal physiology practical, I'm going to wake up early and start planning for one of the other papers. I'm trying to get as much done as soon as possible so I won't have to spend my entire weekend cooped up either working on school or working at the restaurant!

The only exciting thing about today was that we booked our hotel room for Brisbane, along with worked out all of our transportation and how much we will need to cover everything. It all looks very good! We're not staying at a disgusting hostel, and we have the comfort in knowing our belongings will be safe and not have to use a bathroom with a bunch of people we don't know! Everything about that spells out okay to me. I also learned today that Arcadia is organizing a trip to Tasmania, all meals and transportation and accommodation and activities included for around 400 dollars. Included in this would being able to feed tasmanian devils!!! Before I got my job, it would have been probably impossible but now I can make that much in 2 weeks at the restaurant! I'm definitely thinking about it!

Day 34

Today felt like one of the longest days of my life!! But it was worth every penny that I spent on it! It started with my alarm going off at a lovely 5:30am, leaving by 6:15 for the tram. We made it to the touring office in time to get our free coffee and mini muffins (we were very angry they weren't legitimate muffins), and drove an hour on the bus to get to the Great Ocean Road! We had a wonderful tour guide named Kelly who was the most energetic person in the world, especially for how early it was. We started out in Torquay, a big surfing town so naturally the beaches were gorgeous. We stopped at around 10 beaches throughout the road, each one was spectacular. Even just being on the bus was fantastic, and at one point our tour guide even blasted “Down Under” by Men Down Under. My life was officially made.

Some of the first places we stopped were Bells Beach, the Wye River, Cape Patton Lookout. All of them were just gorgeous views of the rock and ocean. At Bells Beach we actually saw kangaroos again too! It was just like those Australian movies, with the rolling hills and the two kangaroos hopping across the top with the sun lit behind them. So gorgeous. We then went inland for a few kilometers and went through some of the rainforest. We went for a walk at the Mait's Rest Rainforest Walk, a short 20 minute loop that had some of the biggest trees I've ever seen in my life! It was gorgeous, with so many plants and streams running through. It really felt like I was walking into the jungle.

We stopped at a lighthouse for lunch, a true Australian barbie which was delicious, and all were able to climb up to the top of the lighthouse and take pictures. What was even cooler about lunch was that the area around it was all natural koala habitat! We were able to ride around in the bus and see upwards of 30 koalas throughout the trip! They were so fuzzy and adorable and I want to steal one.

We ended the trip with the big, more touristy places, like Loch Ard Gorge, the 12 Apostles, and the Gibson Steps. The 12 Apostles is the big one, yet honestly I felt kind of underwhelmed by them. Compared to Loch Ard Gorge, which was massive and breathtaking, the 12 Apostles just looked like rocks coming out of the water. The Gibson Steps were also not as impressive, but I couldn't help but think what a great workout they would be if you did them multiple times every day (86 giant steps). But honestly, I had a BLAST all day because I had the greatest group of friends! We took tons of pictures, including awkward family photos, and it just made the trip 10x more worthwhile than it already was. We got back around 7:30pm, so we were there an entire 12 hours. I would recommend it to anyone and now I'm absolutely exhausted after that entire day!

Day 33

Today school-wise was nothing special. I had my most boring class twice today, which is just cruel. She went over DNA replication so slowly I couldn't even keep my attention long enough to hear what some of the end of her sentences were. Makes me cry. My other class also just spent the entire time talking about how to write a scientific lab report, which I was excited about until I realized it was the exact same thing as in America. Which I have done more times than I can count. So classes just weren't cutting it for me today and I constantly felt myself looking back and back at the clock just to keep my eyes moving so I wouldn't fall asleep.

The night was fun, as all the people going on the great ocean road tour tomorrow had a tim tam movie night and watched Taken. That movie, even my 5th or 6th time seeing it, still gets me extremely nervous throughout the entire film. Now it is early to bed because it is EXTREMELY early to rise – 5:30am to leave by 6 to catch the tram down to the docklands. It should be a really fun day!

Day 32

Today was a very busy day of running from one side of Melbourne to literally the other all in the course of about 3 hours. But everything worked out wonderfully, I was able to make it up to Kmart in Brunswick and make it down to the docklands to pick up my tickets for the Great Ocean Road on Saturday! I even finished all my errands an hour before I had class again, so I was able to go to the library and get ahead on some homework and reading. I had a wonderful night of hanging out with my old arcadia friends and we actually met some Australians! Who would've thought, they're actually here! One of them even grew up in Melbourne and offered to take me on a tour of the city, which would be amazing to discover even more things I don't know already about this wonderful city. Seriously, I'm developing some series Melbourne pride here, especially for Carlton (my suburb) since we are kicking enormous butt at footy (Australian Rules Football). I don't quite understand the game yet entirely, but it's very easy to figure out your team is awesome when you're up 140 to 50. Just sayin'.

Day 31

For some reason lately I'm just feeling really weak. I can't tell if I'm getting sick or just need a day to rest or have been doing too much resting, but I don't really seem to have the energy to do much lately. This was bothering me all day as I walked from class to class, and really didn't help in my genetics class where I was very close to falling asleep to my lecturer's slow voice. Never has a class gone by so slowly. My second class, my philosophy tute, flew by as it usually does since it's so nerve wracking that I could be called on at any moment to explain what a passage means. Despite the constant edge of my seat worry about being called on, I am really liking that class. The guy who spent the last tute talking about how much he knows about philosophy (I hate those people) didn't talk as much today so overall, wonderful class!
I also learned today that my classes only go until the week of October 24th. That means the entire month of November is devoted to finals, and I only have four. We have a week of no classes or finals to study for them, and then 3 weeks of actual finals. I can't tell whether it will be wonderful or terrible, and I hope we find out what our individual final schedules are soon so if, perhaps, my finals were all the first week, I could find something to do for the last two weeks I'm here so I'm just not cooped up in my apartment with nothing to do. But if my finals are in the last week that I'm here I might kill myself having 3 weeks with nothing to do but knowing I should be studying.
Tonight was also the Welcome Dinner for Arcadia at the Muttis Restaurant on Elgin St. It was really nice to see Lyndon again and have us all together – it felt like orientation again! I had the most delicious chicken and vegetables too...the vegetables looked and tasted just like pasta so they were absolutely amazing, and it felt so nice to have a real meal. To finish off the night, my friend and I exchanged music so now I have over 400 new songs! I'm definitely excited.

Day 30

Today was full of classes, but fascinating classes! I started bright and early with my Comparative Animal Physiology lab, where we measured water intake in toads – poisonous toads! I got to wear my official UniMelb lab coat and inject toads with different chemicals to see how it affected their water intake. It was far too long, seeing as we just measured their weight every 20 minutes for 120 minutes, so in between those readings we didn't have too much to do, but I still had fun actually working with animals besides beetles and daphnia.

I then had my Human-Animal interactions class, arriving late on purpose to avoid encounters with that of the jerk kind, but he never actually came to class (thank goodness). Our speaker today was AWESOME. She was an animal wrangler for movies, working with dogs and horses specifically, although sometimes camels. She brought in her german shepherd named Luther, who was absolutely precious and I spent most of the class staring at him. But she also was involved in training and wrangling the animals in movies such as Red Dog (a movie coming out in Australia soon!) and, wait for it, LORD OF THE RINGS. She was one of the many wranglers who helped the actors work with the horses in all those epic battle scenes that I have yet to see most of but I heard they are quite epic. As hard as being an animal wrangler would be, having to work long hours with terrible directors and actors, I think it would be So. Much. Fun. Even though at the end of every movie may never see the animal that you worked up such a relationship with ever again because the animal goes back to its owner. That part would be hard. Apparently a lot of the actors in Lord of the Rings grew to have such a relationship with their horse that they bought them at the end of the movie (15-20,000 dollars per horse!). Crazy.

Day 29

Today marked my one month here in Australia, and I celebrated it well seeing as this morning I slept through my first class since I couldn't fall asleep until about 4 in the morning for some reason. It's days like these that I'm so lucky uni records all of the classes and posts the audio and powerpoint slides on time. I was able to just listen to the lecture later on before my 4:15 class. Today was actually on material I didn't know too! This may not be the most boring semester of uni ever after all!
I ended the night by going to blue moon bar where there were 4 dollar pizzas and 2.50 garlic bread! I split the garlic bread with a friend and it was absolutely delicious and only 1.25 for a dinner is right on my budget! Good choices! It's hard to believe I've already been here for a whole month, but at the same time it feels like I've known these people my whole life. I can't quite get a grasp on time, and I don't think I ever will here. I'm sure these next months will fly by and before I know it I'll be back on the ridiculously long plane to America. Better enjoy it while it lasts!

Day 28

Nothing too eventful happened today, so I'm not going to rant for a whole blog about basically doing nothing. I have started to plan out my trip for September and realized that I won't be able to make it to the Great Barrier Reef, which I'm very disappointed about, but I'll get to do more fun things instead! At the moment I plan on visiting Sydney and Brisbane, where I'll be able to hold a koala! I might also apparently get on a freighter and go to Tasmania, since apparently one of my friends has experience doing that (and it's free)...so we'll see how illegal this gets!

Day 27

Today was actually a pretty good day! I slept in and went to do my weekly grocery shopping at Woolworths. I bargain shopped and ended up buying a huge amount of food for only 40 dollars, so I'm extremely happy with myself. Then I decided to start looking over the reading I had to do and realized it was only 4 pages worth of genetics I already knew, so it took me about 5 minutes to write everything down. I love it when that happens.
With my extra time I decided to venture my way to Savers, a discount clothing store, since I barely have any pants and all of them are too big for me and all of my shoes now have holes from all the walking I've had to do. The whole thing, according to MapQuest, would be about a 40 minute walk away – totally doable. So I went off by myself up to North Melbourne/Brunswick area, somewhere I'd never been before, and found it was absolutely charming. There were so many little shops and restaurants and bakeries that really reminded me of small town living again. I never thought I'd miss it in a big city, but I got all nostalgic. Well, most of the town was really nice, until I got to the turn that was supposed to go to Savers, where the entire neighborhood reminded me of the projects again. So there I was, walking around in the projects, when I finally get to the place where mapquest told me to go, and of course, there's nothing there. No Savers, no anything closely related to Savers.

I knew better than to wander around a sketchy neighborhood looking for it, so I decided to get back to the main road and just walk back. I accidently took a right instead of a left, and ended up walking down the road towards another town, where I saw the biggest Coles I'd ever seen. For some reason grocery stores really make me happy, maybe cause they remind me of home or something, but I decided to go inside and have a look. It was HUGE, and had as big of a selection of foods as grocery stores in America do! I walked out after exploring for a bit, and found it was attached to this giant mall with more bakeries and fish shops and EB Games and – best of all – Kmart! Better yet, they were having a giant sale, so I was able to get a new pair of boots, 3 shirts, a broom, and a face towel for 30 dollars. I practically cried. I'm definitely going back again because I could have easily spent another hour in there looking at things except I knew I needed to get back before it got dark (last thing I wanted was to walk through the sketchy neighborhood at night). So successful day, aside from getting pants, which I realize will never be successful for me here as they don't sell pants short enough for me...my life is pathetic.

The night finished off with walking over to RMIT and watching Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (!) Stone and hilarious youtube videos until 2 in the morning. Quite the good night :)

Day 26

Today's theme was “make myself not sick!” And to some extent, it worked! I slept in since my first class was at 11, and then just had a few classes and was home by 2. So I spent the entire afternoon doing laundry, making food, and sitting on the couch watching Australian TV while drinking tea. Plans for watching a movie with the roommie got canceled when she came home with a crazy fever, I feel so bad! She's on so much medication now that I feel like I could run a marathon with my health. I guess it will definitely be a quieter weekend for us, which I do not mind in the slightest.

Also, I was told over and over again by someone that I look like Veronica Mars. Thoughts on this? Different hair color...but I think I could see it..? If I had blonde hair..? It's very important issues like this that makes this world such a complicated place...

Day 25

Today was not the greatest day. I didn't get enough sleep last night so the entire day just kind of felt off, and it doesn't help that I'm feeling terrible from being sick. My classes went by far too slowly and I feel like I didn't get anything productive done at all. I guess we can't all be at our best 24/7. Hoping tomorrow's a better day...

Day 24

Today I became the happiest I've been in what seems forever. I decided to procrastinate reading my genetics homework (all things I know anyway, I could pass any exam with flying colors), and plan out my last year and a half at Wooster. I looked up the requirements for Tufts, Cornell, Ohio State, and Texas A&M veterinary schools, along with a few others, and found that the only requirements I have left to take for prerequisites are a year of physics, a semester of microbiology, and a semester of biochemistry. That's it. I looked up Wooster's schedule of classes to see when each one is offered, and I can easily fit them all into my schedule. I also looked up courses for my minor in chemistry, where I found I only need to take two more courses in order to fulfill the minor and those fit in easily as well, along with my junior and senior IS's. In doing all these requirements, I also fulfill all the requirements to become a biology major. This still leaves me with 3 course spots in which I can take anything I want so I don't go crazy with all of the molecular biology. I realized this is all actually completely possible.

I am also contacting everyone in the faculty of science here to see if I could do a work experience at a local veterinarian's office. The veterinarian's office already said I could, it would just have to be through work experience for insurance reasons. I've contacted my professor of my Human-Animal Interactions class who has put me in contact with who I need to talk to in order to make this a reality. If all goes as planned, I could be getting experience at a veterinary office while in Melbourne, which would not only be the coolest thing IN THE ENTIRE WORLD, but also give me a starting platform to possibly get more experience back in the U.S. If I continue to volunteer at the human society, these two things will get me exactly what I need for my veterinary application – animal experience and veterinary experience. I would also have to keep up my GPA, but as I am still higher than the average GPA of accepted students, I'd say that's not impossible. Naturally, I am ECSTATIC. Of course I will obviously apply to graduate programs as backups in case all falls out the window, but this is actually more of a possibility than I ever thought it would be!!

Day 23 (2/2)

My one class today was one of the worst classes I've ever had – in my entire life. It started off good, an Australian guy started talking to me before class and sat next to me. But the more he talked, the more I realized how awful of a person he was. This was my Human-Animal Interactions class, my favorite class so far and the one I was looking forward to the most, and when I told this kid that, he ranted for about 5 minutes of how much he hated the class and was forced to take it. He then asked me what my favorite music was and once I told him a couple of artists, told me they sucked, so I asked him what he liked, and he said he's just “not a big music person.” This kind of conversation continued until I realized we had absolutely nothing in common and he was a total jerk.

The lecture started, and I was so psyched because it was a guest lecturer who was a professor in the faculty of veterinary science. Turns out, he works with animals that are about to be slaughtered, and the entire lecture was a very graphic telling of how exactly animals get slaughtered and different techniques there are to do it, pictures and all. I was about to faint just by the sheer amount of times the man said “...and then you slash the animals throat open and let the blood drain out,” especially when he brought up sawing motions. After the class the kid turns to me and asks what I think, so I say I thought it was disgusting and I plan to spend the rest of my life making animals better, not slashing their throats open, at which point he goes “I thought it was so cool! I mean animals are just for our consumption anyway.” I was now convinced he is the most grotesque person I have ever met, because of which I was shocked and appalled by his next statement of “So...could I get your number so we could grab a coffee sometime?” I can't imagine my face concealed any of my surprise and disgust as I said no and ran away.

The night was less eventful, as the roomie and I just stayed in and watched our tv shows and did some homework before bed. Still a pleasant tuesday night :)

Day 23 (1/2)

Today after skyping with my parents, I realized how many people are actually reading this blog (way more than I thought! Word spreads like wildfire in my town/family...) so I'll try to keep it more interesting than "I found a sale on socks!" I also made the font larger and a different color to try and make it easier for people to read, is it better? Any feedback is welcome!

But so far today, I didn't have my normal Comparative Animal Physiology practical so I was able to watch the bachelorette with my mum! I'm so happy JP won (I knew he would!). It was so obvious that the connection with Ben wasn't as strong as her and JP, but I digress. I thoroughly enjoyed being able to watch the Bachelorette finale while in Australia! A little piece of home is always a nice thing when you're fully submerged in another world.

Today it is beautiful out, and I feel so official sitting in the grass with a delicious chai tea writing in my blog. It is also Tuesday, so there are live bands outside union house so the hwole atmosphere is very spring-like. This would never be able to happen in the dead of winter in Ohio. We'd more be sitting inside next to the heater freezing instead of sitting on the grass in the sunshine. I wouldn't give up my snow for anything though!