photo love

I am slightly appalled at my lack of photos this go around in Oz.  Last time I was here I took over 5,000 pictures in 6 months.  I know a lot of that was because everything was new, but still.  Unacceptable.  I will try my best to wakeup the shutterbug within me.  For now, here are just a few pictures of randos in my life. :)

wallaby in my backyard

sunrise view off my veranda

cool clouds in my front yard

tree frog on my bedroom window

early morning at work

more Mt. Stewart scenery

...more Mt. Stewart

...and more Mt. Stewart scenery

another early mornings at work

I'm alive, I swear.

Holy jeez…it has been freaking forever since I posted anything.  I was flat out in the last month and a half of uni and had no time for anything work work and school. :(   Lesson learned: I need to work on managing my time when it comes to uni work!

Okay, so where I left of….

My first day flying solos, as Jason Derulo would say, went really well. There were a few struggles at first (namely learning how to poach an egg) but I have persevered and am now an egg poaching queen…at least I think so. I actually don’t like poached eggs (thanks to the Denver Zoo for ruining runny egg yolk for me) but they sure look pretty! So that’s about all there is to say about the brekky gig. I am still doing it, though thanks to my inability to wake up on two occasions, I may vote myself off the island for this job.  The first time I overslept it was only by an hour, but the second time I overslept I didn't wake up until an hour after my shift would have ended...whoops.  It's just too hard to get up that early during the semester.  It stuffs up my sleeping cycle for the rest of the week, and seeing as uni is my main priority, that's not a good thing.

So you might be asking yourself “what are you going to do for work without the brekkie job, Jamie?!” And I am here to tell you to fret not…for in the same week as my last posting I managed to pick up 2 more jobs. Working at a coffee shop/restaurant (and by that I mean being their dish bitch. You just wait, I will get into this job more in a minute) called Angelinas in the shopping centre by my house as well as doing reception at the Dalrymple, the hotel I do brekkie for. I went from 0 to 3 jobs within a week and a half, and that week and a half happened to coincide with the start of uni hell. Again, poor planning on my part. Live and learn.

Alright, as promised, I will now inform you of my other jobs. I had turned my resume into Angelinas  a week before I got the brekkie job and the owner had expressed interest with my history at starbucks.  Right on.  It took her awhile to get back to me and by the time she did I already had the brekkie one, which was alright because she was willing to pay me cash (so I wouldn't go over my allowed visa hours). Tax free? Yes please. I was actually really excited about this job and was really looking forward to getting out of the house and meeting some new people.  However, that excitement faded quickly after a few days of working. You know that foreign person that gets stuck with the crappy jobs, the one you feel bad for?....umm, well that’s me. (side note: my bank account lists me as a migrant. I don’t really like that. haha.) I literally do dishes all day. All fricken day.  Well, I guess that's a lie, sometime the people up front making coffee and sandwiches bark at me to clear tables...so I step away from the steamy sink for a minute to clean up people's leftover food.  Now I realize I have no right to complain because I get payed 18/hr to zone out and do dishes, that’s not my problem with the job. I have always gotten sick pleasure in doing dishes, and at first I thought this might turn out okay. My problem falls in how they treat me. The other dish bitches are all high schooler, so they clump me in that group and treat me like I know absolutely nothing. I cannot even begin to explain how much that irks me. They talk to me like I am an idiot who can't write my name….and little do they know that not only can I wash a dish, I have managed a food shop before. Bitches. Anyway, on top of thinking I know nothing, they expect SO much of us poor dish bitches. I’ll be elbow deep in dishes and someone up front screams “tables’ which mean I have to drop everything I am doing to go clear a mug off the table. And, when I’m walking by with buckets filled with dirty dishes they literally hold a dish in my face and expect me to take it. The owner of the shop is the worst, she'll be sitting down 2 meters away from the sink and when she's done eating she'll say my name and expect me to stop what I am doing to go pick up her plate.  And no "thank you" is expressed.  Whatever, I am in school getting a degree to do things with my life, while they will all stay there and push around dish bitches for the rest of their lives.  Pathetic if you ask me.  

I still have this job, but I'm hoping for not much longer.  The hardest thing to let go about this job is the cash pay and weekends off.  Once the semester starts back up I want to be able to have weekends free for spontaneous trips and getaways, and working at Angelina allows that.  But I'm not sure it's worth it.  I fear that in a few weeks I may reach my limit and tell them how I really feel....and throw a glass at a few individuals.  She originally had planned to train me on food up front (and claimed that my current position was a way to learn the ropes of the operation), but has since hired 3 new people up front while I stay back with the soapy bubbles.  Cheers....

Okay, I am going to stop talking about that job because there's no need to hear anymore of my dramatic whining.  On to the last job.  So, within the week of starting at the coffee shop the office lady from the Dalrymple rang me to see if I would be interested in doing reception work two nights a week.  I hopped on board hoping that with this job I would be able to quit Angelinas.  But after a few weeks of all 3 jobs I decided to keep all three so that I would have ample work over break and would hopefully be able to save up some dolla dolla bills.  I reallly enjoyed reception.  It was quiet, required some brain power, and allowed to me to talk to people.  Also, on some of the slow nights I could get some homework done! :)  Unfortunately, just last week, the hotel was re-rostered from the main company in Brissy and my position was cut. :(  Such a bummer...it was the one job I actually liked!  Oh well, such is life.

Uni starts back up again in two weeks and I am seriously contemplating quitting my other 2 so I can have some time to do something fun over my break.  The lady who does brekkie full time has been in the states for the past month and I have been working at 5am EVERYDAY since the last week of exams.  Its actually better to do it this many days as opposed to 2 days/wk because I can reset my sleep schedule....but that also means I have been going to bed at 8pm every night over my winter holiday.  How exciting.

I'm jumping ahead.  So, as you gathered from my last paragraph, I am on break...which means I finished my first semester of my program!!! Woooooooooo!  It was a rough home stretch, but I did it.  I won't bore you with the details of my exact papers and projects, but lets just say I wrote a lot in May and June. (And if you know me well you know that is not my favorite thing...nor is it something I excel at.)  Once the writing was done it was time to study study study for exams, which are generally worth 50% of the semester mark.  Yeeks.  But, now that all is said and done, I am happy to report that it all worked out in the end...for the grades I have gotten back at least.  I managed to get two D's (distinction) and one HD (high distinction), which equals two A's and an A+.  :)  I am thrilled with those results!  I am still waiting on one more class and I know it wont be as good, but I am still so happy with the other 3.  

Alright, so other than work and uni what else happened in the last 2 months?  Sadly not that much.  I know I can be a bit dramatic and exaggerate some things, but I am dead serious when I say there were a few weeks where I literally did nothing but go to uni, then work, then straight home to my computer to work on study.  With the 3 jobs there was one week I worked 42 hours on top of classes....wayyyy too much.  Again, live and learn.  

Here are a few things that I have done since the last post:

Went to another rugby game- this one was against the Melbourne Storm, which was the team that was found cheating the salary system this year resulting in the loss of their premierships.  I'm still learning the basics of rugby, but I really enjoy it!  It's weird to go to a professional game and have it seem more like a high school game.  The stadium is quite small compared to the pro teams in the US.  Still a great time thought! 

Some high school friends that were backpacking through Oz stopped by Townsville, which was great.  Always fun to have some visitors!  The week they came was the week I started at Angelinas and reception, as well as the week my 40% coral reef geomorphology essay was due...so unfortunately I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked to.  We did make it to town for cheap Tuesday so I could show them the Townsville nightlife. :)

Went up to Mt. Stewart during the day, which was beautiful!  It's cool to see it at night, but during the day you can see all the hills inland as well as islands in the distance...way cool! 

Looking inland

Looking towards the coast with Magnetic Island on the right and Palm Island towards the left.

Can I get a woot woot for employment!

Guess who has a job?  You guessed right!  It's only a few hours a week...but it's a job.  My house-mate, Chris, is the executive chef at a hotel here in town and managed to get me a gig helping with the breakfast shift.  It's an early, early shift (5am!) but it pays $23 an hour; a rate I simply cannot pass up!  I have trained two days now and will be flying solo for the first time tomorrow.  Wish me luck!  Basically I take the brekky orders from the guests (there are only 22 rooms, so it's no massive prodiction) and make/deliver it to the rooms.  

Australian breakfast is weird.  It's heavily influenced by the Brits and half the items they have a choice to order I have no idea how to make.  For example, you can get spaghetti and toast  for brekky.  Or baked beans, bacon (which is different to US bacon), and toast.  Odd, hey?  Just like the brits they are also fans of cooked tomato in the morning.  Odd.

Another thing to note, most hotels are focused more on the restaurant aspect.  If you're looking for a place to eat in an unfamiliar town, you look for a hotel straight away.  Quite different than in the US.  There are a few places (like Holiday Inn) that are strictly meant for accommodation here, but not most.  The hotel I am working at, the Dalrymple, mainly houses groups of workers here in Townsville for construction or some other trade job.  The awkward part of my job falls in the delivery.  There are hatches on the side of the room wall that I open up (right into their room) and place their brekky tray on the table.  Some of them are sitting at the desk waiting while other are still lying in bed staring at you.  haha.  The lot that's in the hotel at the moment will be here for the next 3 months, so I suppose I better get used to it!  It was just a bit weird doing it for the first time....

Fingers crossed that it all goes smoothly tomorrow! 

autumn is in the air!

The temperature has finally started to decrease (slowly) and the rain has been less and less.  That means the wet season is over and winter is just around the corner.  Sunshine and cooler temps for the next 5 months?...yes please!

Looking out your window and seeing this makes studying seem a bit less horrid. :)

mid-semester break

And the weeks keep flying by!  Although, as they fly by the work piles up.  The past couple of week have been a realisation of how I may or may not have been a bit slack with my work thus far.  After my NRM field trip it was a week filled with work work work!  Within that week I had 20% of my entire semester marks due.  Almost like doing an entire class in 4 days!  Thankfully mid-semester break was the following week.  I was definitely in need of one...

I had no plans for mid-semester break, which turned out to be a good thing since I knew I needed to catch up with my studies!  And also because my roommate had a weeks of festivities planned for her 21st birthday.  Eight days of Emily!

We started the celebration a day earlier than break with day 1 being uni club!  It was a JimBeam sponsor night so the club was filled with white cans of pre-mixed beam and cokes as well as free goodies like headphones and and bags.  I personally don't like Jim Beam so I didn't participate in that.  I did, however, wear my friends headphones all night....just to add to the look.  And we're talking large, airplane traffic headphones.  It was like dancing with a neck brace on.  hahahaha.  Some people are just born awesome. :)  The ride home was the highlight of my night though, Jordan leapt into the taxi (face first like super man) only to  realize the taxi driver had reclined his seat for a little nap.  Within a second his "flight" was abruptly stopped and down to the floor of the cab he went.  I about peed my pant.  It was the funniest thing I have seen in a long time...and I was the only one that saw it.  SO freaking funny!

Day 2 was bludger at uni, except it was a weirddd week.  Normally it's filled with live bands and a chill crowd...but this week was like a rave.  Crazy techno (the bad kind) music, twirling glow stick balls, people in medal headdresses, and a guy dancing like a melting elephant/gorilla.  I'm telling you...weird! At first we were all mesmerized by the crazy dancing and fire balls, but eventually we were just creeped out.  Luckily by the time we had reached our limit more people had showed up and we could escape the colorful flashing lights to socialize.  It turned out to be a really fun night after all (with a little help from our friend Jaegermeister).  We came back to Wulguru (past midnight, so it was officially Emily's birthday) and decided to jump in the pool...in our clothes.  It seemed like a good idea at first, something "crazy and spontaneous", but once my jeans were waterlogged with some not-so-warm water and weighing me down to the bottom of our deep deep pool I was regretting it.  I quickly hopped out, took a nice warm shower, hit the hay, and looked forward to sleeping on on my first day of break!!

Day 3 was Em's actual birthday so that evening her sister and friend came over with some pizzas and a massive homemade colourful fish cake.  It was delicious!  After that we were off to the rodeo!  They had been advertising it all over town so I expected it to be a massive event, but it was actually pretty small scale.  Though, I'm being unfair and comparing it to the national rodeos that travel throughout the US.  Regardless of the size it was still a blast!  Nothing like bucking broncos and bulls.  It was also an interesting new crowd of Australians that I had never seen before hahaha.  They really came out of the woodwork for this event.

Rodeo crew!

Day 4 was a trip to Magnetic Island, the island off the coast of Townsville.  It wasn't the greatest day and I'm trying to conserve my spending, so I opted to skip out.  I stayed home and attempted to get some work done...but ended up being lazy on the couch watching the finale for Biggest Loser-Australia.  Cut me some slack though, I was on break. :)

Day 5 was meant to be golfing, but the weather continued to be uncooperative...so another lazy day at home getting (or at least trying to) some work done.

Day 6 (we're on Tuesday now) was filled with school work during the day and cheap tuesday at night.  Tuesday was not only part of Emily's week, it was also my friend Jacob's actual birthday.  So we all met up in town and celebrated the night away.   Em/ Jacob both had a pretty epic nights...but I guess you only turn 21/24 once!

The next day was a break from Em's 8 day celebration (thankfully for her hahaha) so I met my friend Vitto down on the strand for a nice day at the beach.  The weather still wasn't perfect but it was nice to get to the water.  My house is nestled in the "mountains" and I tend to forget that I'm actually located on the coast!  

Thursday was another break from 8 days of emily, so I used that time to really crack down on homework.  I had a massive essay due the first day back from break....and it was rapidly approaching.  I did however take a break from writing to go grab some Indian food with Emily.  We had been talking about our love for Indian food for weeks and finally decided to crack down and get it.  It tasted so delicious!  Oh how I've missed it.  The place up the road from me in Arvada was downright amazing, and I must say the dish I had here in Townsville was not half bad.  I tried mattar paneer, which was similar to my favorite saag paneer dish but in a roganjosh sauce....my other favorite dish.  mmm mmm mmmmm!  After that we drove up Mount Stwart behind my house and had a look out over Townsville at night.  Great view!  It was really neat to see the city at night from that high up.  I'll definitely have to go back during the day to see the ocean and Maggie in the distance.  I was hoping to see a snake on the way up, but no dice.  Just heaps of cane toad, an owl, and a wallaby-like animal.  Maybe next time!

Friday was back to Emily's celebration and it was time for some footy!  We went to the North Queensland Toyota Cowboys game.  I really like rugby but not knowing the rules makes things very confusing.  It is so much more fast paces than football.  When they tackle the guy down (with no pads!) they just get right back up and continue going.  I don't get why it's not big in the states, it's aggressive and fast paced....perfect for Americans! haha.  I drove to the footy game and realized on the motorway that it was the first time I had driven my car up to 100kph (62mph) lol.  After driving 80kph (50mph) around town I felt like I was on a rocket ship!  It's not that much of an increase but it sure felt like it when driving.

The next day was the final day of Emily's b-day week, numero ocho.   The week of celebration ended with a barbie at our house.  People came over in the late afternoon where we cooked some sausages and cracked open some beers!  A nice chill afternoon. :)  Then the boys went and collected a small forest of firewood for the bonfire we had planned later.  They literally rocked up with the ute full of huge branches and trunks haha.  We creatively unloaded the forest with  (working up quite a sweat) and decided to follow it with a dip in the pool!  After we had cooled off it was time for some more beer and some bonfire.  It was a really great night.  The perfect end to an already fun week!

Sunday was ANZAC day.  There was a big Aussie rules football game on tv but unfortunately I was stuck in my room writing my essay.  :(  I snuck out to catch a few minute of the game but it was wayyy more confusing then rugby...so I just walked away before it made my brain hurt any more.

Since ANZAC day fell on the weekend we got Monday off as well.  An extension of the break...woo!  The best part is that we get another holiday next moday, which means two 4 days weeks in a row.  Heck yes!  But, just like the actual ANZAC day I was cooped up writing my essay all day.  If you're ever curious about  sugarcane farmers being unfairly blamed for coral decline on inshore GBR reefs I'm your gal!

Another field trip!

Tis the season to be busy!  We're coming up on mid-semester so everything seems to be catching up and stockpiling.  This weekend was yet another weekend field trip.  Third weekend away from Townsville....geez.

This field trip was not quite as exciting as a weekend on Orpheus Island.  For starters, it didn't involve a boat ride.  :(  Secondly, I didn't have my professor chef telling it up every meal....I had to go out and by my own lunch.  Lame.  haha

Naw, it wasn't that bad.  It was for my foundations of natural resource management subject, so we went around and had a look at all the different management practices occurring in the Mission Beach area.  This subject is a video lecture, occurring on both the Townsville and Cairns campuses, so both campuses met up for one big NRM party.  We met up at the Mamu Canopy walk and had a walk around there, admiring the region.  Ironically this walk was literally within miles of where I had been camping the weekend before.  We took the same beautiful highway up, but this time with sunshine!  (Crazy, huh??!)  I also found out that all the hills in this region were all formed from volcanic eruptions.  Pretty sweet.  Anyway, we walked around and had a look at the rain forest heritage area, from the canopy's perspective.  It was cool, don't get me wrong, but it was nothing compared to the hike from last weekend! Not to mention there were heaps of insanely large spiders!

After that we headed to a banana farm to talk about fertilizer control and erosion prevention.  That was followed by a trip to a sugar cane farm, where the farmers told us all about the benefits from putting GPS systems on tractors.  All new information to me!  We stopped by two more sites on the way  home, successful and unsuccessful rain forest re-vegetation sites, and then it was off to Mission Beach for our accommodation.

We stayed just outside of the main area, so it was quite a small area.  We had a pricey buffet dinner (because nothing else was open) and hit the bottle-o for an after dinner cocktail to wind down with.  I tried a can of premixed pineapple soda and vodka and it was muyyyy delicious!  For this field trip we had to keep a field notebook and write down all of our notes and thoughts from the different stops.  It was due upon our return to uni so we took our cocktail back the the room, had a drink, re-wrote our notes and hit the hay.  After 2 weekends of being in the rain a day in the blazing sun really took a tole on me!

We were off to a cassowary habitat first thing the next morning!  In Mission Beach they're currently facing big issues with cassowary mortality, mainly due to cars.  We talked about land management in regards to this issue, specifically related to new housing development.  We also took a hike into the bush where they live just to get an idea of their habitat.  It was a beautiful walk....swarmed with mozzies though!  We saw some cassowary droppings, but no cassowaries.  :(

After that we were off to a fan palm forest, the largest remaining fan palm forest in Australia to be exact.  There was no real purpose to this stop....just a cool walk for us to do.  It was really cool!  It was shady because the leaves were so big, but still bright since the leaves were somewhat translucent.  It was like being in an umbrella forest, if you can step into the brain of Jamie and imagine that.  hahaha

That pretty much ended the trip.  We loaded on the bus and headed to Tully (the wettest city in AU) for some lunch, a group photo, and of course some admiring of the giant Tully gumboot!

Easter Camping

So the great thing about Easter in Australia is that they consider Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays....which meant a 4 day weekend for Jamie!  hoorah!

I jumped on the opportunity to go camping with some of the tubing crew...even though the weather predictions were less than ideal.  The wet season just will not leave!

We packed up and headed out Friday morning.  We stopped at a beautiful swimming hole in Cardwell and then continued on our way to Murray Falls, where we stayed for the night.  It was a pretty hopping campsite actually.  Easter weekend is a huge camping weekend so it was filled with families and extravagant camp sites.  We had the basic "tarp over a picnic table" set up, which suited us just fine!   We got there pretty late so we just set up camp, cooked some dinner, and played a few games. 

The next day we walked around the area (for the few minutes of sunshine we had!) and saw the beautiful falls and forests surrounding our site.

In the mid afternoon we packed up and headed north again.  We weren't sure exactly where we were going to stop and camp, but since we were going into the Atherton Tablelands we figured we'd find something. The drive was absolutely beautiful...despite the rain.  It was bright green with rolling hills.  It reminded me a lot of New Zealand, actually.   We kept winding up the Palmerston Highway into the heritage listed, wet tropics rain forest!  Amazing.  We had planned to drive a bit more but everyone was getting tired so we settled in at the Henrietta Creek campsite.  This site had very little people so we decided to commandeer the covered area and make it our own living area. :)  We set up camp, cooked dinner, and played some more games.  The next morning we woke up, had some chocolate for brekky (it was Easter after all!) and wen't off on a rain forest hike. It was, of course, still raining...surprise surprise.  At this point we were so used to all of our belongings being wet we just decided to stuff it and enjoy it.  It was THE coolest hike I have been on.  It wasnt hard by anymeans but it would between forests and waterfalls.  Absolutely amazing.  It was almost nice to have it raining because it added some mist in the distance...and made you feel legit.  What would a rain forest be without rain?  The only bugger was the mother effing leeches!  I picked 6 of them off me!  Two of which sucked a significant amount of blood before I noticed.  But, like I said, it was SO worth it!  Here are some pictures from Emily's camera.

After the hike we stopped by the watering hole for a little "bath", since this campsite didn't have showers.  That night we had a massive vegetarian BBQ with some wine and a game of fishbowl.  Considering I couldn't be home with my family this was the next best Easter Sunday I could have asked for.

We packed up the next morning and started our journey home.  Not without a stop at the Murdering Point Winery for a taste of some tropical fruit wines!  mmm mmm mmm! 

We arrived home a few hours later, where I had a fabulous warm shower, scrubbed my feet for what felt like an eternity (after 4 days of flip flops and mud my feet were NASTY!), and put everything I owned into the dryer.  It was a nice feeling!

Overall, another fantastic weekend!