July 30

This morning I got ahold of Amanda, one of the other American girls (from NC) about going to church. We had found out about a nearby Baptist church and gotten directions for it, but we didn't know anyone to give us a ride. So, I took the printed map with me and we set out to to find the church by foot. We ended up following the directions exactly, which we found out later was longer than the shortcut we took on the way back. It was about a 35 minute walk to church, and we got there about 20 minutes before the second service started. We met three of the pastoral staff and several other members of the congregation before the service started. They all welcomed us, talked to us about our studies in Canberra, and even stated that they hoped we enjoyed the service, but to feel free to check out other churches in the area. It was nice how friendly the people were.

The service was pretty similar to the services back home at First Baptist in Wellsboro. There was contemporary worship, a some prayer and an offering, and then a sermon followed by a closing song. The pastor that spoke today was an older woman, and her official label is "Integration Pastor", as she primarily works on getting new people involved with the church. She gave a sermon about prayer. After the service was over, Amanda and I walked back the shorter way (only took about 30 minutes), then I was lazy the rest of the day, and did a little bit of homework in the afternoon.

In the evening Amanada and I again met to go check out another church, this time one done specificially for university (uni) students, called Unichurch. They typically have rides at 6:30 to pick people up from UC, as this church service is held at Australia National University as a service for all university students in Canberra. The normal ride had left by the time we got there (even though we got there at 6:25!), and we ended up getting a ride with a girl that was picking people up for a Christmas in July party that was part of the international unichurch group, also at ANU. We got to meet this girl (woops, I forget her name), and the two other girls she was picking up(woops, I forget their names too... but I remember one was from Mexico, one was from Vietnam). We crammed into the teeny weeny hatchback car that this girl had, and rode to ANU where we met up with the unichurch people.

Unichurch was very much like the earlier church service, only the worship band was all uni students, and the leader of the group was a younger guy (maybe getting close to 30?). There was probably between 100 and 200 students that attended the service, apparently consisting of a mix of Australians and international students from various continents around the world. It was a nice service, and it was nice hanging out with other students of a similar age after the service. They also had some free snacks at the end, which was a bonus that I really enjoyed. :-D One thing that I've noticed at both churches today, which is different from back home, is that people aren't in a hurry to leave church after the service is over. Back home, once the service is over, most people get up and start to leave. Here, once the service is over, a few people get up and start to leave, and the majority (at both the Baptist and Uni churches) just keep sitting there, and start to talk with the people nearby. I guess they're not as much in a hurry as people are in the U.S. :)

July 29

So At 7:30 am I knocked on Sam's door, since he said he was going to come and watch my race today. After about 15 seconds of hearing fumbling around in the room, the door opens, and you could tell that he was freshly woken up. He decided to go back to bed... and I don't blame him -- I wouldn't have gotten up that early if I didn't have to race either. :) I ate a piece of bread with pb&j for breakfast around 7:30, then left for the bus station. The bus picked me and a bunch of other people up at 7:50ish and we were at the city interchange around about 8:10 or so. I walked for about 10-15 minutes from the bus interchange until I got to Campbell High School, which is where the race started. I had about 45 minutes to spare, and the ultra marathon and marathon (60K) were just starting. I spent my time walking around, stretching, and warming up, then got to the start line a few minutes before the start.

There was some frost on the ground this morning, but after the sun touched the ground it all melted pretty fast. It had warmed up enough by the time the race started (9:15) that I decided to run the race in just a t-shirt and shorts, and was I was quite comfortable. The race started uphill. A lot of uphill. Almost the first whole 1K was uphill and through a field until we got to a "management trail" (just a dirt road, but fairly narrow and not well maintained). I felt the lactic acid in my legs after all the uphill in the first few minutes, and was getting tired pretty fast. Two high-school agers wearing racing flats took off fast from the start, and I couldn't even see them once we got to the flatter part of the trail. By that time I was 3rd. I got the turn-around (2.5K, half-way point) at around 10:20.

On the way back there was one spot where there was a possibility of going left or going straight. There was no signs, so I started going left. A kid wasn't too far behind me, so I stopped and asked him "does it go here?" and he said "yeah", so we both kept running... and came to a fence. Woops. We went through the edge of the fence, and then two older guys came up behind us. It turns out we had all gone the wrong way. We looked around, and figured out which way to go to get back to the trail, got back onto it, and then started running faster again. The older guys decided to let me and this younger kid (probly early teens) go ahead since that was the order we had been in initially. We estimate that our "detour" probably added up to 20 seconds or so onto our race times. With only about 1-2 minutest to go, I started to pick it up, leading the group of four of us toward the finish. When we got closer, I picked it up even more, since I could see the finish. I heard someone coming up on me kinda hard, as if he was going to pass, so I kicked harder. It turns out it was the young kid trying to pass me at the end. He never would have caught me if we hadn't taken our detour, and I wasn't about to let him beat me, so I went into a full-out sprint for the last 15-20 seconds, beating him by a couple of feet at the end. It was kind of fun to finish hard like that.

I'm not sure what my official time was (they haven't posted it online yet), but I think it might have been somewhere in the 19's. I'm also not sure how much different that is from if I had stayed on course for the entire race. It stinks that four of us got lost like that, but it turns out we all finished in the same order that we would have if we had stayed on course... we were just a little bit closer together as a group. For finishing third overall for the men (out of 10 men?), I got a trophy "pottery mug". I can't tell if it's hand-made or not, but it's blue and grey with the rough, red terra-cotta type clay underneath. I would call it a vase, but the guy called it a mug, haha. It's a vase. For entering the race, I also recieved a mug that has the sponsor's logo, "Bush Capital Marathon", the Australian War Memorial and the beginning of the race trail printed on it. Oh, and I got a $10 off voucher for sports massage place. But the massages are pretty expensive, so for $10 off I'd still have to pay $55. No thanks. :)

This afternoon I did laundry, sat around and was lazy (woops, I should probably do some school work sometime... :-P), and cleaned up my room. I then spent some time browsing the internet and watching some music videos and tv shows I was able to download off of the network. :) Oh! When I was doing my warmup today I saw a bird called a "Noisy Miner". It wasn't being noisy at all, but it looked really cool.

July 28

This morning I slept in until 10:30, since I didn't get to bed until late. In the afternoon I went for a 14 minute run with Sam, one of the guys on my floor. Sam has done a couple of road races before, but hasn't run much for a while. He's been playing on a rugby team lately instead. I was telling him about the city to surf race, and the 5K that I'm doing though, and he wants to do some races again soon. He said he's done the city to surf before, but not real fast. Most people that run it don't run it fast, and a lot of people just walk it. Sam was considering doing it again this year, but he said he's going to just concentrate on rugby for the next few weeks, then after Rugby tapers off a bit, he's going to find a race to enter with me. That should be fun.

This evening I cooked up a big plate of spaghetti for supper to load up on carbs, and I'm going to go to bed early. I need to be all rested up so I can be up in time to catch the bus in the morning. Sam said he's going to come along and watch the race, which is cool. We're planning on leaving here at 7:30 to catch the 7:45 bus to civic. We should get there around 8, then it's going to be a ~1K walk to get to where the race starts. I should have about an hour to stretch, warm up, and get ready for my race.

July 27

I went grocery shopping today. On my walk down to the grocery store, a male Australian wood duck opened it's beak and came at me. His lady was with him, and apparently he wanted to defend her. Usually the wood ducks here run away if you get too close, but this one wanted me to know that I was clearly not welcome to get any closer. I thought it was really cute. They've got such tiny bills, and are really rather small ducks (smaller than mallards), so he didn't look too scary at all. :)

Today I bought $44 Australian dollars worth of food, so only around $30 U.S. I kinda stocked up on some stuff, so I won't have to buy a bunch of it for a while. Either way, even if it only lasts me one week at $30 U.S., that's doing pretty good. Some of the things I got should last for quite a bit longer than a week though (jelly, rice, spaghetti, mayonaise, spaghetti sauce, canola oil, etc.). It will be interesting to see in a few weeks how much I end up actually averaging on groceries every week.

This afternoon I got ahold of Jude, a girl that's doing grad school work through Cornell University on Galahs. I did a little talking with her on the phone about what she's doing. She's mostly doing research with vocalizations and callback stuff, and she said she wasn't sure if it would be too interesting for me to come and see or anything. She had to go because she was going to go rock climbing, but she said she'd call me back on the weekend. I will probably want to talk to her a little more about grad school and Cornell, I think, and about what else she's doing. I guess this is her 4th year of grad school, and she's working towards her PhD.

I ran around the lake this afternoon in almost 37 minutes. I ran slow, felt slow, and felt kinda tired. I'm gonna take it real easy tomorrow, then hope that I can beat three guys in the 5K on Saturday. :-D I went online and they have a list of the entrants for the race... so far there's only 6 males and a total of 13 runners entered in the 5K that I'm doing Saturday. More people may enter, of course, as you can enter up until the race starts. The winner of the race gets a Jaggad (brand name) running top and the top 3 get trophies. So that means I have a decent chance at getting a trophy, and even a slight chance of getting a running top if it happens to be a slow race. It should be fun.

This afternoon I went to take this online quiz for my Data Analysis in Science class. I studied for about an hour reviewing my notes, then I went to the website only to find out that the time period to take the quiz ended today at 2:40pm. Woops. I thought about e-mailing the professor, but she said in her syllabus to NOT e-mail (in bold like that) her about assessments or online quizzes. Her office hours for the week are also over now. So I think I'm just going to count my loss and not worry about it. It's only 1-2% of my final grade (each quiz), so I'll accept not getting 100% in the course. :-P I just need to pass this semester, I don't care about my grades too much. Everything should be pass/fail when it transfers back anyway. So I just better not fail!

In the evening a lot of people went out to the unibar on campus. I sat in the lounge with a few of the guys from my floor as they drank beer and stuff before we went, then I went up with them and socialized for a couple hours up there. It was fun, but the speaker quality is crap, so all the high-pitches cause your hearing to partially disappear for a short period of time after you've left. I definitely am going to have to avoid the loudness of the unibar as much as possible.

July 26

I got up this morning and went to my 9:00am 2-hour tutorial in conservation biology, where the some students presented (using powerpoint) summaries of several scientific papers that they were assigned, and tied in the conservation biology stuff that we've learned so far. For the most part they were pretty interesting, and I guess now I know what I have to do in a couple weeks when I present mine.

After this class I had about a 40 minutes of a break, and I met up with a couple ppl from the FOCUS (Fellowship Of Christian University Students) group at their market table on the concourse. I introduced myself to the one guy, who mentioned that he had replied to my e-mail. I talked to him a little about the group, churches, and where I was from/how long I was gonna be here, etc. Then I went to my Literary Studies class. I feel a little lost in there, because I miss one out of every two lectures every week (due to class conflict). I have to do an "audit" of an Australian text (I've never read any... haha), which is due in a week. I guess I better get a move on. I might need to ask her more about it, since I'm not entirely clear on the assignment. I might just write something and hope it's what she wants. There's some guidelines kinda in the course outline. It doesn't mater, I'll figure it out. I'm in Australia so all I need to do is pass the class. :) I actually like the professor for this class. She's an older lady, I'd guess in her 70s. I listened to her talk today (i.e. the way she talks, not just what she says), and I realized that the way she speaks is like a well-written essay. For example, she'll say perhaps and other much more fancy words that you might find in a thesaurus for when you want to change some words to make an essay sound better. But that's just the way she talks. She also pronounces everything correctly, saying all of her T's and D's, etc. That's just the way she talks. I like how she talks, because she talks very well and does a good job of conveying what she means, much as a well-written essay does. Sometimes it sounds like she's reading an essay to the class... but she's never reading anything, and is always looking around the room.

At FOCUS, the pastor dude that gave the message had long hair (down past his ears), and he had the same type of accent as the croc hunter (Steve Irwin), only imagine the croc hunter not sounding so excited all the time, and just in a normal, kind of toned-down conversational mode. It sounded just like him if he were like that. Aussie accents vary somewhat (from person to person, partially depending on where you come from), and some are really easy to understand, while others are less so. It's weird the different words they use here too. Like the student that got up and welcomed us all at FOCUS. It went like this "So how ya all going?" (Aussie audience member replies) "Tops". Then he went on to welcome us all and talk about what we were doing. It was pretty much announcements, reading the Bible, hearing a "sermon", then praying and hanging out for a bit, then leaving. So yeah, "tops" I guess is an Aussie word that kinda means "awesome" or "great" or something. When I wrote an e-mail to someone about FOCUS earlier in the week, I got a reply that said something like "it would be tops if you could come". I'm going to have to try to pick up as many Aussie words as possible. Another word is "cheers". Cheers has multiple meanings. It can be just like in the U.S. and when you're doing a toast. But it also means thank you. If you hold the door for someone, it's not uncommon to get "cheers" as the response. If you say thank you to someone, "no worries" or "no worries, mate" is the most common response. :)

I read the one essay in the book for our tutorial today too, and I really liked it. It was an essay that pretty much was about sadness and depression, and the difference between the two, and their histories and current issues, and what is being done and not being done about it. It was really well-written, and I really enjoyed reading it. Heck, if all literature was like that, I wouldn't mind so much. And as boring as it sounds, it was a really good essay.

So yeah, after FOCUS I came back, made myself some PB+J, read the one essay in the book that I had to read for my tutorial (while I was walking to my class), and went to my tutorial. I really liked the essay that I read. It was pretty much about sadness and depression, the differences between the two, their histories, current cultural issues involving them, etc. But it wasn't a scientific essay. It was an opinion essay, and it was written as a real general thing, and in a very relaxed tone. It was a well-written essay, and I actually really enjoyed reading it. I decided that if all literature was like that, I wouldn't mind it so much. In the tutorial (for this literature class) we werebroken into groups of two or three (mine was a group of two, with a middle-aged guy) to talk about our readings. We then each took turns talking to the professor/class about what our group came up with about the readings. The tutorial was much more like a normal lit class back home, where everyone talks about some questions posed by the professor (similarities, differences, tone, etc. between two readings). It was an interesting conversation. When I talked, I almost thought I heard some whispers coming from the rows behind me (I sat in the front row), but I'm not sure. I suspect a couple of people may have exchanged "is he American?" or "I didn't know he was American" after hearing my accent when I spoke. Who knows. I wonder sometimes what people think. I don't stand out at all, because like 95% (an observational statistic that I made up) of ozzies are white. The rest are mostly Asians.

After my tutorial I had a two hour break. I came back then went for a short run. I did about 5 short 30-second sprints after a warmup, and that's about all. I think I'm going to run around the lake tomorrow, then just go for a short run on Friday. Saturday morning I've decided I'm going to catch the bus at 7:00 am and get to the city interchange at 7:30. Then I'll walk/jog the ~1K or so to the start of the race, and I should have a good hour or so to check in, get my numbe, and warmup before the race. The 5K starts at 9:15. If I am in the top-3 finishers (haha, yeah right) for men, I will get a Jaggad (that's the brand name of the company sponsoring the race) sports/running top. I don't care where I finish, I just want to have a good race.

After running I went with Mike from on my floor, because he drove to class. There's a car park right outside the dorm, and his car was right there. It's about a 10 minute walk to class, or a 2-minute drive. So we drove. :-D It turns out Mike owns a Holden ute (Holden = a make owned by GM, ute = utility vehicle, which here means car that is a "truck" -- imagine Subaru Baja, only way better looking) It was my first ever ride in a ute, and it was pretty cool. It's a lot like a car in the front, I guess. Well, it is a car. But the whole back of the car is a pick-up bed. Apparently Mike said they get the same gas mileage as the car-versions, and personally I think they make so much more sense than just exclusively selling big pick up trucks like they do in the states. One, because they get car gas-mileage, two because they're practical, and three, they're already low to the ground, so kids who like to lower their cars for racing and stuff wouldn't have to bother lowering them. :) Plus they make some pretty sporty ones here. Ok, enough about cars.

After my final class of the day I came back and made angelhair spaghetti and green beans. Bea, the girl across the hall from me, borrowed some of my spaghetti yesterday (because she was pretty much out of food) and when she went grocery shopping today she bought be a whole package of angelhair to replace the little bit she ate. Yay! So now I have to buy less spaghetti. :)

July 25

Today was a fairly busy day. I had a 2 hour lecture at 8:30, and then three more one our lectures and seminar at 11:30, 1:30, and 3:30. After my last class I came back to my room and changed to go for a run. I felt much better on my run. It had stopped raining and cleared up somewhat by this evening, which was nice. I felt really good on my run today, nothing hurting or sore at all. I felt like I had a lot of energy, probably one, because I've been eating like a pig lately (:-D), and two, I didn't run yesterday. I ran the loop around Lake Ginninderra again today, finishing right as it was getting close to dusk. My time around the lake was 31:04, as compared to 33:55 the last time, and the low 33's the previous time. I wish I knew exactly how big of a loop it is around the lake so I could figure out how fast I was running. I'm guessing it's somewhere around 4.5 miles, maybe a tad longer. I think I was probably running 7:00 mile pace, or maybe upper 6's. I was definitely pleased with how the run went, and am looking even more forward to this weekend's 5K now! I think I might run around the lake again the next two days, or I might throw in a shorter, speedier run tomorrow. Then on Friday I might just run slow for about 15 minutes or so, so I am all rested up for my 5K on Saturday morning. I think I'm going to try to catch a bus on Saturday morning that will take me to the city bus exchange with enough time to walk/jog to the start of the race (about 1K or so from the bus station). It's definitely different than what I am used to, not having a car here. I'm learning to get around pretty well by foot and bus, and occasionally by bumming a ride off someone. It'd be nice if I could find a cheap bike somewhere so I could explore more that way, but so far the cheapest bikes I've found are over $200.

Tonight I had spaghetti with pasta sauce and cheddar cheese, and then brocolli and zucchini for desert. So I guess I'm learning to cook all my own meals, and eat healthy. :-D I have classes all day tomorrow (with several breaks) from 8:30 until 7:30, so tonight is going to be an early night for me. I guess I'll have to party some other time. haha.

Oh! I saw a kangaroo in some brush/field stuff on campus today when I was walking to class. It wasn't too close, but it was still cool. I found out from my one biology professor this morning that apparently platypuses live here in the Canberra area, and they can be found along creeks and stuff, especially at dawn/dusk. He said I definitely have to put it on my list of things to do while I'm here, to go out and find one. I need to find someone that will be my guide, since I don't really know the area that well yet, nor do I have a car. It will be so cool to see one in the wild!

July 24

It was annoying getting up this morning and realizing that I had classes again today. I'm not used to ever having more than two day weekend during school, so this whole nearly four-day weekend thing is making me lazy I think. Perhaps after this week, when classes really get rolling, I'll be less lazy and start to feel like the studious guy I should be. :)

Today was rainy most of the day, so I didn't end up going running at all like I had planned. After I was done with classes it was still raining (only a light rain though), and the temperature was only 45 degrees, so I still didn't go running. Maybe I'll run tomorrow. I'm such a bum!

This evening I met Astrid, a girl on my floor from San Diego that just got back from traveling. She seems pretty cool and seems to be really nice. Yay, I'm not the only American on the floor anymore! haha, there's actually a lot of Americans here.. I think there's approximately two on every floor in my building. I have officially met everyone on my floor now, except for the one guy that apparently is never around. It's cool knowing everybody, and it seems much more like a "community" than the dorms back home. Probably because we're forced to share the same kitchen and make our own meals, and as a result we end up hanging out and talking more. Plus Ozzies don't take as many classes as you do at American schools, and drink a lot more, which just causes people to meet and hang out to an even greater extent.

Well, I haven't taken many pictures in a while. I figured I'd better put some up today before you all stop checking my blog because of the boring black and white text. ;) Anyways, todays pictures are of one of the athletic fields with lots of straw-necked ibises (there were 41 on the field!) and a white-faced heron, and the other one is of some Australian coins compared to American coins. From left to right... the U.S. penny on top, with the Australian $2 coin on bottom., the U.S dime on top, and Aussie 10c on the bottom, and then the U.S. nickel above with the Aussie 5c below. I showed another 5c face-up. All of the Australian coins have queen Elizabeth on the front, so they're rather boring. I'll have to get pictures of other coins, and hopefully more clear pictures in the future.

July 23

At 5:30 this morning I woke up because there was a drunk guy being very loud outside singing and shouting about who knows what. Fortunately after about 15 minutes he was quiet, or left, and I ended up going back to sleep. I didn't sleep in as late this morning as I have the past few days, because I wanted to go for a run. I ran around Lake Ginninderra today, but I ran it the opposite way as I did previously. I manged to do the loop in about 34 minutes today. It will be interesting to see if my times get faster in future weeks.

Later this morning I walked down to the mall to buy a copy of the Sun-Herald, Sydney's sunday morning paper, so that I could get the entry form for the City to Surf race in August. I filled it out and tomorrow am going to try to find an envelope and send it out. Only 3 more weeks until the big race! I'm excited about the 5K I'm doing this Saturday too!

Around noon a couple of us exchange students (Jamie from CO, Steve from Chicago, and Megan from San Diego) decided to hop on a bus and try to find the "Old Bus Depot Markets" in Kingston. It took almost 45 minutes on the bus before we got there, but it turned out to be a really nice market. There was plenty of homemade sauces, breads, candies, and other goods for sale, as well as a modest amount of fresh groceries, as well as jewelery, artwork, and crafts sellers, among others. There was also an antiques section, and two art galleries of really beautiful scenery photos, many of them panoramas. A lot of them were for sale for several hundred $$, and I would have to say their quality definitely made them worth (almost? ;)) that much. In one corner there were some restaurant-type booths as well, offering a variety of ethnic foods, including Chinese, Thai, Ethiopian, and others. I ended up getting a "large" plate from the Ethiopian place with "lentil stew". It was pretty much just a plate of white rice with a bunch of this yellow lentil stew on top. It was really good though, and for $7.50 it was well worth it for how much they gave you.

Back on campus, this evening I went with a couple of the guys on the floor down to civic, and just wandered around and hung out for a couple hours. We went to the casino and I got to watch everyone lose their money. It was crazy watching some people there play. One guy put $100 on the table, and bet all of his money playing roulette, and lost it all. He put another $100 down, and bet it all, and this time ended up winning it back (he bet on black). It was just crazy how much some people would bet, and then lose. I saw another couple playing blackjack, and they managed to increase their money significantly, and then they quit when they were ahead. They were smart gamblers though, and only bet $15 at a time, even when they had a lot more that they had won.

After a few minutes at the casino, we went down to an irish bar down the street, and a couple of the guys drank a beer while the guy that drove, and myself, just sat and we all talked about random stuff. After a while we finally left and came back to campus. The car we took to and from civic was a white toyota camry. It was kinda weird having the driver in the "wrong" side of the camry. This is the first car that I've been now where I've experienced both the American and Australian positioning of the driver's seats. At one point we were talking about the radio, and how apparently all the radio stations in Canberra are crap. I asked about XM radio, and apparently Australia doesn't have satellite radio. I reckon it's pretty much true what I heard back home about Australia being somewhat behind the U.S. in technological advances. It's kinda weird, seeing how it's a developed country that's not all that different culturally from the U.S. Anywho, I have classes tomorrow. Time for the second week of school to begin!

July 22

This morning I slept in, again. Haha, It seems to have become a habit the past few days since I haven't had any classes. I'm gonna get spoiled this semester!

Early this afternoon I was bored, and so was Jamie, so we decided to go get off campus and go check out this market we heard about that runs on Saturdays. We hopped on a bus at the Belconnen interchange and went into city centre (also called "civic"). From there we followed a few street signs and maps and got to Ainslie Avenue, where we were able to successfully locate the Gorman House market. The market consisted of two courtyards where a variety of vendors selling things from second-hand clothes, hand-crafted jewelery, made-in-china-type jewerly, and books, to homemade fudge, apples, oranges, and other foods. It was a nice little market, although I didn't end up buying anything. It was still a lot better than sitting around the dorm all day, and Jamie managed to find a book that she wanted for only $6.

A couple hours after supper I was invited to go with a few of the people from my dorm to a Thai restaurant. I wasn't very hungry, nor did I feel like paying for an expensive meal, but I went along and decided I would order an appetizer while everyone else ordered their meals. There was nine of us in all, and it was a really nice restaurant. I got vegetarian curry puffs as my appetizer, and they were really good. One of the interesting differences between Australia and the U.S. is that in Australia you aren't expected to tip waiters and waitresses. Apparently some people do still occasionally tip, but it is definitely not a common practice. Of course, the higher minimum wage in Australia probably makes up for this, as minimum wage is always at least 10 dollars, and depending on the state it can be over 15 dollars per hour. I guess that kinda makes up for the lack of tipping, and also for the higher prices of some items here. But I still don't know if that would cause me to want to buy a new pair of my running shoes for $AU200 when I could get them for $US90 back home!

July 21

This morning I slept in until almost 10:00am. It's so nice being able to sleep in on a Friday morning! It's a new experience for me in college. :-D I ate breakfast this morning, bummed around the room for a while, then decided to go for a "long" run today. I decided that I would set out this afternoon to run completely around Lake Ginninderra, which I had heard was an approximately 10K run. I enjoyed the run, but when I had completed the loop, I was disappointed to notice that I had only run for 33 minutes -- clearly the lake loop is only 4 to 5 miles, and not 6.2 as it had been rumored. To get the distance in, I ran out and back along a road near campus until I had run for a total of 47 minutes. I don't know how fast I was going, but I hope that I ran about 6.5 or so miles in all. It was definitely my longest run since February, although I still have some endurance building to do before the city to surf race on August 13th.

On my run I passed a picnic table in the park where a couple was eating food, and feeding the birds some of their scraps. It was cool to see the group of birds crowded around the table begging for food. A pair of black swans (the only swans that they have here) with their like, 3-foot long necks were looking eye-level at the food, and occasionally pecking at it. I saw a purple swamphen grab a french fry-looking thing that the guy threw to it, and wander away from the other birds to eat it's treat. There were coots and probably some moorhens and black ducks mixed in with the group also. Later, I passed a couple of people sitting together along the shore. I couldn't tell if they were eating food or not, but there was a trio of Australian ravens within mere feet of the people, looking for any handouts. When I'm running, it's not uncommon for me to run within five to ten feet of some of these birds, including magpies, magpie-larks, ravens, black ducks, moorhens, australian wood ducks, and swamphens. It's really neat to see them up so close like that.

Later this afternoon I went up to the bookstore and bought the textbook for the exercise science class I'm taking. Then I went to the mall and bought some food items that I needed, including pasta sauce, some fresh veggies (onion, pepper, zuchhini, carrots, and green beans), as well as some stuff to make pumpkin pie with.

After I got back I made myself some supper (i.e. I reheated some rice I had made two days ago), and then made a pumpkin pie out of a butternut squash (called butternut pumpkin here) that Kate (one of the girls on my floor) had. I used a recipe I found on the internet to make the pie, and I don't know what I did wrong, but it didn't turn out looking or tasting like a normal pumpkin pie. It definitely wasn't sweet enough, and it was a very light orange color. I googled a few more recipes after I was done making it, and I found several variations. I think I know what I did wrong now, so I'll have to see if I can make a real pumpkin pie in the future.

July 20

At 8:30 in the morning I had my first and only class of the day, and my final class this week! It was my intro to exercise science class. The professor is a young guy, and I found out today that he pretty much just flies through powerpoints without always explaining everything. He also talks fairly fast. I guess it's kinda understandable as he is a new professor (this is only his second year teaching), but it's too bad he's not better. It's an intro-level course, and he pretty much flew really fast through all of the physiology behind muscle movements. I understood what he was talking about because I took physiology back at Mansfield, but I talked to a few people next to me that were getting pretty lost, because they had never had any of that before. Who knows how this class is going to go. I'm going to buy the book so I can hopefully fill in any gaps that might be created by his teaching style, and by the fact that I'm going to miss this class every Wednesday due to a class conflict with a "more important" class. :)

In the afternoon I went for a run along Lake Ginninderra again this afternoon. I decided to step up my training a little, and I spent about 10 minutes of my run (right in the middle of the run) doing a sort of "fartlek" workout, where I ran semi-hard for 30 seconds, then jogged slow for 1 minute, then repeated the cycle. After 10 minutes of this I did my "cool down" back to the dorms and in all ran about 30 minutes. At one point on my run I looked across to a pretty big open field, and I was able to see some animals that looked somewhat deer-like in the distance. I watched to see some of them move, and my suspicions were confirmed -- they were kangaroos. Scattered around inseveral groups across the field, I managed to count 19 kangaroos of various sizes. The largest ones were about deer-sized, and all of them were the color of white-tailed deer in winter. I guess they are probably gray kangaroos? Hopefully I'll get to see some 'roos more up close in the future.

In the evening they had a talent show at the unibar (i.e. the university's bar) on campus. There were some talented musicians, dancers, and other performers, as well as some people that just wer there for sheer entertainment purposes. One guy balanced a bike, a chair, and a big keyboard (one at a time of course) all on his chin, and then he balanced a knife (point-first) on his nose. A girl played the accordian. They had a dance-off. It was fun. The sound system was horrible though, so you could hardly hear the announcers or the performers because everyone was really loud. I stayed for a little while and talked with a few people after the show was over, then came back to the dorm to let my ears recover from the noise, and to go to bed.

July 19

Wednesdays will be my busiest day of classes, as I have three tutorials on Wednesdays. Only one tutorial was actually happening today though, so I didn't have too many things to go to. I went to my literary studies class today, and found out the professor is kinda boring and sorta just starts talking. You sit there wondering if what she's saying is of any importance or not.

This evening I had a tutorial for my data analysis class. The tutorial professor was Indian, and he reminded me of Dr. Shaker back at MU. Only he was quite a bit worse at speaking English, and not very good at all at explaining things. The tutorial was supposed to be a basic series of "exercises" to get everyone familiar with the basic functions of Microsoft Word and Excel that will be used this semester in that class. It turns out the tutor wasn't very good at reading the handout instructions, and there was much confusion for him, and the rest of the class as a result. Fortunately I was able to figure out most things on my own as I have extensively used both excel and word back at MU. However, I did learn a few tricks that I hadn't known before.

Only one class tomorrow morning, then my "weekend" begins!!

July 18

I had several classes today. This morning my online timetable told me that I had a tutorial in the morning, and I was told that tutorials were not going this week, so I didn't go. This afternoon I found out that the online timetable for that class (conservation biology and genetics) was incorrect -- it was actually the lecture for that class this morning, and I missed it. I was able to stop by and visit the professor though, and got caught up to speed with what we're doing, and what I missed.

This morning I was able to enroll in my "Introduction to Exercise Science" class. So my classes are all sorted out now. My first lecture in this class makes me think it will be a relatively easy class. In the U.S. typically a lot of assignments end up making up your final grade average, but here I've learned that typically very few assignments make up your entire grade for the course. For example, my exercise class assesment will be fully based on my performance on three equally-weighted multiple-choice exams, each worth ~33% of my final grade. I also had my third and final lecture for Data Analysis for the week today. It's weird being done with lectures for a class so early in the week.

July 17

This morning I slept in again. At 1:30 pm I had my first lecture in Data Analysis in Science. At 3:30 pm I had my second lecture, also in Data Analysis. It's weird how they have the lectures for a class sort of "all in a row". I'm used to the same time on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for each class, but here I have two lectures on Monday and one lecture on Tuesday for one class, and then a tutorial at a time of my "choice", and then I'm done with that class for the week. I liked the professor. She is a physicist from South Africa, and seemed like a really smart woman. She seems like an easygoing type of lady also, and sounds like she cares about us learning what we're gonna be taught. Today she pretty much just explained to us some concepts and definitions behind understanding statistics and data analysis in science and talked about what we are going to be doing. At Mansfield, a comparable course is biostatistics (which is what this is going to transfer in to fill). There are two MU professors that typically teach biostats, and they usually use their one preferred data analysis computer program exclusively. A nice advantage to this class that I learned of today, is that we will be using how to use all three statistics programs this semester, which undoubedtly will give me an advantage for future job applications over those who only know how to use one program. Yay.

It turns out the stupid class that I was going to take for my my stupid "heatlh and fitness" general education credits isn't going to be an option for me. So I looked around online and found several possibilities for alternative classes to take, and I think I am going to try to take Introduction to Exercise Science. I am sure that this will be sufficient to fill the requirement, and it sounds like it will be an interesting course. I'm going to go up to the international office tomorrow to get it all sorted out.

I registered online today for a 5K trail run in Canberra on July 29th. This morning I ran for 24 minutes. I'm going to try to run about 5 days a week to get back into shape. I'm excited about doing races again, and I'm looking forward to seeing where I'm at in two weeks when I do that race. Lately I've also heard some things about a big race in Sydney called "City to Surf", so I looked up more info online today. It turns out it is a 14K race (about 8.7 miles), and it starts in the city of Sydney and goes through several suburbs then finishes on one of Sydney's most famous beaches, Bondi beach. Apparently I need to send in "proof" of my race times from a 10K or longer race in the past year to be considered for the "preferred" and "group A" starting sections at the start line. I think I'm going to try to find an entry form tomorrow (supposed to be in the newspaper that sponsors the race), and then I'll give them my boilermaker 15K run time from last year (~58 minutes) and hope I get a good starting position. This race is a huge event, and I found out today that in recent years the number of entrants has exceeded 50,000 people! After finding this out, I must say that I definitely want to get into a starting group up close to the front of the pack. I don't want to have any more than a couple thousand people starting in front of me, because it's a big pain to weave and try to pass slow people when you start farther back. No matter where I start though, I'm sure it will be a fun event, and definitely worth it. I have almost a month to train until that race, so I better start increasing my distance soon. It'll be interesting to see how I do in the 5K so I can try and guage my performance in the city to surf a couple weeks later.

Not much else going on. If I get enrolled into my exercise science class, I'll have three classes to attend tomorrow.

July 16

This morning I slept in then spent the rest of the morning just lounging around and enjoying the lack of things that needed to be done. :) It wasn't raining this morning, and there was only a breif raindrop here and there throughout the day.

This afternoon I decided to go down to the mall to buy a microphone for my computer, and to go food shopping again. I still had plenty of food from my previous shopping experience early last week, but there were several items that I had run out of, so I decided to stock up. I decided after I got done shopping, I would go running. The supermaket was crazy today though and there were tons of shoppers and lots with full carts of groceries. I chose to wait inthe shortest checkout lane, and it ended up taking me 15 minutes until I was checked out! Crazy. By the time I was done shopping and had brought my shopping trolley all the way back to my dorm, it was after 5:00 and was already getting dark. I changed and got ready for a run anyway, and just did a short 15-minute run instead of my planned 30+ minute run.

This evening most of the people in the residence halls are arriving back. I have lots of neighbors on my floor now, and they all seem pretty cool so far. It'll take me a while to remember all their names. The Ozzies seem to be so much more social here than the Americans in the dorms at Mansfield were. I barely knew a handful of people on my floor back there, but here everybody knows everybody, and everybody talks to everybody. Of course, there's more compulsory interaction, though, as we all must share the same kitchen and prepare our own meals. At Mansfield we just go to the cafeteria to get a meal. Most of the people I've met so far seem pretty cool, which is pretty cool.

Tomorrow's my first day of classes (all lectures tomorrow). I'll have to let ya'll know how it goes!

July 15

Today was dull and dreary and depressing. I had planned on going to the mall today to buy a few things, and also on going running. But it turns out it was drizzly and raining all day, so I decided not to go. I found out this morning also that the leak in the roof that I was told about wasn't completely fixed, as there was a small amount of water dripping in the corner of my room. Fortunately it's right in the corner, where there is nothing important, and it is also a very small volume of water, so it dried up pretty quick.

I spent much of the day on the computer, where I played some video games, and went browsing websites and shopping online. I found that on eastbay I could order my shoes on sale for $69.99, and then pay $30 shipping to have them shipped over here. They're normally $89.99 in the U.S., and they are regularly priced at $199.99 here in Australia. So, after the currency conversion, it would be WAY cheaper for me to just order them online and have them shipped here than to buy them here. I need to check and make sure that I can receive packages here (I'm sure I can), and I have to see if there will be any issue with customs, as that might technically qualify as "importing". (The Eastbay website said to check with local customs). Hopefully it wouldn't count, since it would be just one pair of shoes. My old shoes are still working for now, so in the meantime I'm not going to worry about it.

This afternoon I spent some time hanging out with Sam and his friend Shawn from Sydney. We sat in the common room for a while watching a rugby union game (Australia versus South Africa), and then went out to the green room where a 21st birthday party was going on. We played a game of snooker, which is a billiard game that uses a HUGE table, and has a lot of red balls and some colored balls. The red balls are each worth one point, and the colored ones worth different amounts depending on the color. You must sink a red ball before you can take a shot at a colored ball. If you aim for a colored ball worth 6 points, and completely miss hitting the ball, then the other team gets 6 points. Also, if you get a foul (i.e. white ball goes in the pocket), the other team gets 4 points. So it's pretty cool, because those penalties keep you guessing who's going to win up until the end of the game.

There was actually a mechanical bull at the party, and we all tried riding it a couple of times. Out of three tries, my best one ended up being 11 seconds. I'm not too good at it. He kinda went easy on me at first that time, which is why I stayed on so long. For a few hours we ended up just hanging out down there, and talking with each other and the occasional other person. Not a real exciting day, but it was alright. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit less rainy. Enjoy the photos of Australian money!

July 14

Today was fun. It started out by me sleeping in until almost 9:00 after going to bed at a reasonable hour. My sinuses were a little sore and congested again this morning, which stunk. They got a little better thoughout the day, but still don't feel like they're healing too much. There's quite a few people around with colds, and I guess it's just that time of year here down under. Hopefully I'll feel all better soon though. Fortunately it's not too terrible in the meantime.

Anyway, around 10:15 AM I met up with Jamie from Colorado and we set off to explore Canberra with the dual purpose of searching for and shopping at Salvation Army thrift stores and visiting tourist attractions. We started by walking around Belconnen and locating the local Salvos (Salvation Army) store. We shopped there for a bit, and Jamie got some Fiji shot glasses for gifts (only 50 cents each!) and I almost bought a pair of pants that were size 82. I don't know how they do their sizes here, but I can tell you I certainly did NOT gain that much weight yet, so don't worry guys. :-P After Salvos we visited another thrift store around the corner, then walked over to the Belconnen bus interchange.

At the bus interchange we studied the large map of the routes for the Canberra Action bus service and determined that bus number 56 was the one that we needed to take in order to get to Mitchell, which is where another Salvos store is located. We waited on the bench for about 10 minutes or so before our bus arrived, and then were off toward Mitchell. This time we knew where the bus stops were, and were pretty sure we knew where the Salvos was. When we approached the store I pressed the cool little "stop" button by my seat to signal the driver to stop at the next stop, which was about a half block from the store. Right next to the thrift store there was a pet shop and we both really wanted to go in and see what they had. It turned out to be one of the best pet shops either of us had ever been in, and it was amazing! They had a "tropical fish room" which was heated to a much warmer temperature than the rest of the store, and contained many different types of tropical fishes. There were also long-necked turtles and short-necked turtles, both of which looked really cool.

In another separate room of the store there were birds. We entered the bird room and it was the most amazing bird room we'd ever seen! ALL of the birds were in big aviaries and flight cages, and there were many birds of a variety of different types and colors. All of the aviaries had several tiny button quail in the bottom, and there were separate flights for finches, canaries, cockatiels, parakeets, smaller parrots, quaker parrots, and several types of larger parrots. Some of the smaller parrots were some of the most beautiful birds I had ever seen, and I managed to get some photos of them through the cage bars. I wanted to get one of the most colorful ones - yellow, green, blue, red, and orange all on one bird! It was such a striking bird! Unfortunately we cannot have any pets in the dorms here on campus, so I had to settle for just some photos. Scattered throughout the rest of the store were a few rainbow lorrikeets, a big sulphur-crested cockatoo, and a rather dull-colored galah that was very affectionate and wanted me to pet it.

After exploring the pet store we shopped for a bit in the salvos store next door, and then waited on the curb for about 15 minutes the bus to come back by. We caught the bus again and rode it to the end of the line at the city centre bus exchange. We got off here and then walked a block to a subway, ordered foot-long sandwiches, then walked into the food court of the canberra centre mall to eat. I got a foot-long veggie delite sandwich and had the bread and cheese toasted, and I must say it was one of the best sandwiches I've ever eaten! After we were done eating we moved on, walking outside over the bridge across Lake Burley Griffin, and up Parliament Hill to the parliament house. At one point the sidewalk was pretty close to parliament house but it went away from our destination, so we cut up over a hill and over part of the lawn of the parliament house, which saved quite a lot of time.

After taking some pictures from outside, we went into the parliament house and picked up a couple of pamphlets, asked about tours, then followed directions and took a lift (elevator) to the roof. We were able to go up onto the roof and see the 360 degree view of the surrounding area. It was interesting that there was grass on the roof, and even some patio tables and chairs. You could see the straight landscaped view from the roof to the old parliament house, across lake burley griffin, and to the Australian War Memorial. Canberra was an engineered city, so it was pretty neat being able to see so far in a straight line that was a planned part of the architecture. On top of the roof of the parliament house there is an enormous metal structure that we learned was one of the largest steel structures in the world, and which held the Australian flag erected on top.

After exploring the roof of the parliament house, we went back down to the first floor and waited in a gallery for the tour to begin. During the tour we learned many interesting things about the history of Australian government and the city of Canberra, and all of the symbolism that was incorporated into the construction of the new parliament house. It was interesting to learn about the origins of Canberra, for example. It turns out that during the early 1900s parliamentary meetings were held in Melbourne, Australia. Later on though, Sydney wished to be the capital of Australia, and Belbourne did not want to give up the privilage of being the city where national governmental meetings were held. To compromise, the Australians decided that a new location in between the two cities would be chosen for the nation's capital. Canberra was eventually chosen as an intermediate location, and plans were made to make this place be the capital. Before it could become the capital, however, it was necessary for a city to be built, since there was at that time no city where Canberra is today. What then occurred was an international competition to design a city for Australia's capital. Eventually the winning design of the competition was chosen to be that of Walter Burley Griffin, a landscape architect from Chicago. It is interesting to note that due the fact that Canberra was designed and completely planned, it developed much unlike any other city, and the location and structure of main roads, commercial areas, suburbs, etc. were all determined prior to actually being created.

The city eventually built and old parliament house began being used for the first time in 1927. Over the years, however, several extensions were added to parliament house, and eventually the building still became too small. It was then decided that a new parliament house must be built, and that this new parliament house must be big enough to become a permanent parliament house. Once again, Australia held an international competition for the design of the new parliament house. This time several hundred designs from people in over 30 countries were submitted. This time again, the winning entry was submitted by an American, although an Australian architect and a third guy from Europe were also very influential in the designing and construction of the new parliament house.

Because Walter Burley Griffin viewed the natural lay of the land to be a very important part of his design of Canberra, it was decided that they would do their best to build this large new building without significantly altering the landscape. What they did then, was, instead of building a large imposing building on top of parliament hill, they actually removed an equivalent of 125,000 semi loads of soil from the top of the hill, and then built the building where the hill had been. After the building had been constructed, they then brought back much of the dirt that they had removed and essentially "put the hill back". We found out that this is the reason why there was grass growing on the roof of the parliament house, for example. The building also has many sky lights and windows, which were designed to allow a maximum amount of natural light into the building.

We learned many other interesting facts about the parliament house and how the Australian government works on the tour. We learned that there are several different buildings that make up Parliament house, and they are all connected by glass-encased "catwalks". The whole complex contains a total of 17 different courtyards, and over 4,700 rooms! There are also several thousand clocks throughout the parliament house, and when they vote on a bill in the house or senate, there is a light on the clocks that flashes for four minutes, the precise amount of time everyone has to get to the house or senate in order to cast their vote. Also, after a senator spoke for over 12 hours once to prevent a vote from occuring before some of his colleagues got to parliament (back before transportation was great), they came up with a rule that would stop future filibusters from occuring - no senator can speak for more than 20 minutes. They have a "speaking clock" in the senate that counts down from 20, and after 20 minutes is up if the senator is not yet done speaking, his microphone is cut off.

We learned also about how a lot of symbolism is incorporated into the buildings that make up the parliament house. For example, the house of representatives is green, and the senate is red -- just like the similar governmental meeting places in England. One difference, however, is to make it more Australian shades of green in the house of representatives were chosen to represent eucalyptus leaves, and the red of the senate was chosen to closely represent the pinkish red color of eucalyptus flowers. We also learned about a lot of symbolism in the largest room in parliament house (used for many functions, holds up to 1700 people). For example, the beautiful wood floors and most of the wood in the rest of that room is native-grown Australian timber. The different colored timber had different symbolism that it represented. There is also an enormous tapestry along the one wall in that room, the second-largest tapestry in the world (I believe the lady said England has the biggest one). The design for the tapestry was designed by commissioning an Australian artist. There was a lot of symbolism incorporated into the original painting of things that represent Australian culture and life. There was even a bird (a sulphur-crested cockatoo) incorporated into the painting. After the huge painting was created, a much larger (sixteen times bigger!) tapestry was created by commissioning ummm.. people that make tapestries I guess. It took a while to create, but eventually a replica of the original painting was woven out of wool, linen, and other fibers using 360 different colors!

More symbolism was encountered in the main room just inside the entrance of the parliament house. For example, the marble pillars and staircases were made from different colored marble (green and pink) imported from European countries that had a significant influence on Australia's culture and development. Aside from this, nearly all of the materials for the rest of the building were produced in Australia. Outside the main entrance to the parliament house the red stone also had symbolism, and a large picture made out of stones in the ground was created by an aboriginal artist, and symbolizes the coming together of everyone in Australia to a common place.

By the time the tour ended and we were done exploring parliament house it was after 4:00 and Jamie and I decided to head back to UC since it would soon be dark. We caught a ride on another bus that took us back to the Belconnen bus interchange and then walked back to the dorm from there. I actually found all of this information that I learned today quite interesting, and I hope I didn't bore too many people by filling you in with the details. I never knew much at all about Australia or its government before this trip. I didn't even know what the capital of Australia was until I started researching where I was going to go this semester. I had never even heard of Canberra before this trip! Apparently most Americans and even some Australians think that Sydney is the capital of Australia. Now everyone that reads my blog knows the truth. :)

July 13

This morning I got up early because I had to be up at the Interational Office at 8:00 if I wanted to sign up for the wine-tasting tour or the surfing trip. When I woke up I wasn't feeling either trip, so I took my time eating breakfast and getting things together here at the dorm and then went up finally around 9:00 to get my classes sorted out. I was able to get enrolled into one more of my classes and I hope to get into the other one by tomorrow (I need to get the professor's approval since there are pre-reqs).

At 10:00 there was an information session about how to use the student academic web portal known as OSIS to check your e-mail and register for tutorial sessions. Following this demonstration we were given a presentation by a surfer from Sydney that drove down and talked about beach safety and what the surfing weekend will involve. It turns out the weekend will include all meals, accomodation for two nights, and four two-hour surfing lessons on a 7-mile beach surrounded by mostly park land. After seeing pictures of the beach and realizing all the trip included, I had kind of wished I had signed up. After the presentation was over Kate, the international office lady, mentioned that there were several spots left if any one else wanted to go. I talked to her afterward and had her hold a spot for me since I didn't have my payment/sign up form with me.

This afternoon I went back to the International Office and officially signed up for the surfing trip, so it appears I'll be learning to surf (hopefully!) this spring (fall for you all back in the states). The beach where we'll be learning to surf sounds very safe and looked beautiful in the pictures. There shouldn't be any of the deadly jellyfish or anything at this beach as there are at the more tropical beaches, and the water is shallower so you can even stand once you're out past the breaking waves. This will be quite advantageous for beginning surfers such as myself. :) While I was at the international office I ended up picking up a free t-shirt that was available for me. Afterward I went to the place where they were making student ID cards and I was able to get my official University of Canberra student ID. On the walk between my dorm and the main area of campus I happened to pass two white-faced herons that were walking around on the lawn foraging for insects. I wished I had my camera as I was able to get within 15 feet of one individual, and the lighting made their soft powder blue-grey feathers look really beautiful. Maybe next time.

At 4:00 PM I went out for a run along Lake Ginninderra. It was perfect running weather and the sun was getting pretty low in the sky. At one point there were some kids feeding the waterfowl along the path. I had to run right through a group of coots, moorhens, black ducks, and black swans as a result, coming within a couple of feet of most of those species. I ended up running to the far end of the lake and turning around, running about 4 miles or so in all. I'm going to have to find out how I can register for a 5K trail run on July 29th that I found out about.

July 12

Last night I went with a group of Australians from my floor to the movies. There's a Hoyt's Cinemas down in the mall and on Tuesdays the movies are cheaper. When we got there there was a large line of people waiting to go into one of the theatres and we found out that Pirates of the Carribean 2, the movie we were going to see, was sold out. A minute later though, we found out they were going to open up another theatre for Pirates 2. We bought our tickets for $9 (that's like, $7 U.S.) and stood in line to wait for them to let us go into our theatres. Before we were let in, the line for Pirates was so long it went out into the mall and past several stores! When we finally were let into the theatre our cinema ended up being about 75% full. It's amazing how many people were there, and the Aussies I was with said they'd never seen such a long line for a movie before.

The movie was good, I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend it to anyone who was a fan of the first one. We didn't get back until about 12:30 and I didn't get to bed until around 1:30. We didn't have any orientation activities to go to this morning, (except commencement which was optional and everyone skipped), so I slept in until after 9:00. My sinuses felt just as bad, maybe even slightly worse, this morning as they did yesterday. They ended up getting better throughout the day though. I'm trying to eat a little healthier until they get better. We went to an organization fair type thing ("Market Daze" and barbeque at the concourse on campus this afternoon. It ended up being hotdogs with onions and bread... so I had an onion sandwhich. There were also very few organizations present with tables, but there were several pamphlets with information about various clubs. I think I am going to join the Outdoors Club. It's $5 and then every couple of weeks they go on a trip and do fun stuff, such as canyoning, surfing, hiking, biking, camping, rafting, etc. It costs only $2 for each activity that you participate in too, which is way cheap. Definitely sounds like it migh be fun.

This afternoon Jamie, one of the other American exchange students from Colorado, and I decided to go thrift-store shopping. We had heard about a Salvation Army right here in Belconnen, but when we went to check it out we found out that it was closed due to a water pipe breaking which was requiring them to repair the store. We had heard about another Salvation Army in a different suburb (Mitchell) and decided to catch a bus and check it out. Neither of us had ridden on the Canberra buses before, so we looked at the map at the bus interchange and found out which buses went to our destination. We then went to the bay and waited for the bus. After about 5 minutes or so the bus arrived, we found out that with a student ID it was only $1.50, and we were off. Neither of us had a map and we didn't exactly know where we were going. We knew the bus went on the street where the store was, so we hoped we could spot it and then press the button that tells the bus driver to stop at the next bus stop. We rode the bus for an hour, but we never noticed the salvation army and somehow missed it. We ended up riding the bus to the end of the line, getting off, and then catching another bus to get back to Belconnen. It was a fun trip though anyway, as we had nothing else better to do besides sitting in the dorm all afternoon. We had fun getting to know Canberra better while talking about various topics including where we might go on weekends or breaks -- New Zealand for example, and Cairns, Melbourne, and other fun-sounding destinations. In all we spent a little over an hour riding the bus then walked back to the dorm from the bus station.

July 11

This morning my sinuses were bothering me a bit. They ended up feeling a little better throughout the day though. We went to another orientation session at 8:00am and received our mailbox keys and addresses. If anyone would like to send me anything through the mail my address here is:

Benjamin Israel
LPO Box 5380
University of Canberra
Bruce, ACT 2617
AUSTRALIA

We also were talked to about how the education system here is different from what we're used to. Pretty much you don't end up talking to your professors much, if ever here. Instead you have tutorial sessions and you talk to your tutorial instructor about the class work. It's kind of an odd system, but apparently the reason they do this is because the professors that teach the lectures are required to do their research, etc. and therefore are rather busy and with the often larger lecture class sizes, they would never be able to help out and answer all of the questions asked by all of the students. Tutorials are small group sessions where you get a chance to learn more about what the professor is teaching, and interact and talk about the work and ask questions. It sounds like it might be pretty cool, but it will be very different from what I am used to and will take some time to get used to.

During a break in between the orientation info-session and our afternoon activity I went for a run on the paths along the shore of Lake Ginninderra. I ran for a total of 26 minutes and probably covered close to 4 miles. It felt great running with a t-shirt and shorts in the sunny, breezy low-50's weather. A runner's perfect day. I am excited about getting into shape pretty soon here, and then entering some cross-country style races as well as road races. I found out about a cross country trail-style run on July 29th that I am thinking about doing. It is entirely on trails through some nature preserves, and I would do the 5K course. Apparently there are courses the distances of 5k, 10k, 25k, 42k (Marathon) and 60k (ultra-marathon) that will be run that day. It would be super fun to do a long run on those trails, but I definitely won't be in shape to do that, so I think I'll stick to the mere 3.1 mile 5K race. :)

This afternoon we took a one hour or so bus tour of Canberra during which we drove around the city and were told about important landmarks and locations. We learned where some of the major bus interchanges are, learned about the Australian War Memorial and parliament buildings, and drove past the embassays for many foreign countries. It was interesting to see the different styles of buildings in which each embassy was located. For example, the Chinese embassay was actually built by workers brought over from China, and thus architectually was very Chinese in appearance. The U.S. Embassay was pretty much an entire block, made of red brick buildings and surrounded by a white fence. It was designed in very much eastern America-type architecture complete with representative landcaping.

One of the highlights of the tour was driving up Mount Ainsle, one of the best lookout mountains in Canberra. From atop this mountain we could see the entire city of canberra and almost a 360 degree panorama of the surrounding area. While researching potential running races here in the Canberra area online I found out that once per month there is a race called the "Mount Ainsle run-up". This "run-up" consists of running somewhere between 2 and 3 kilometers from the bottom of Mount Ainsle to the summit. I love running hills, and I think it would really fun to do this race. Hopefully I will be in shape to do this run in August or September. It would be an amazing run with an awesome view at the finish. Plus they don't have too many runs like this back in the states and it sounds like a lot of fun!

After the bus tour four of us North Americans (a Canadian, an American/Canadian (pretty much lives in Maine and Canada), a girl from New Jersey, and myself all went to the grocery store in the mall to do some food shopping. I ended up purchasing just over $50 in food, but I'm hoping that it will be enough food to last me for about two weeks. We'll see I guess. After we all bought and paid for our items we "carpooled" them all into one shopping cart (trolley) and pushed the cart down the escalators, out of the mall, all the way back down the sidewalks and paths and across streets back to the University of Canberra campus. Apparently in Canberra you are perfectly welcome to take a shopping cart from any store in the mall with you when you leave, to wherever your final unloading destination may be. It's odd to see so many trolleys on campus sitting alongside the sidewalks waiting to be collected by the mall staff. Not all end up making it back to the mall, however, as some have been sighted in the lake, and I've heard rumors of sightings in trees near campus. Ah, but it was oh so convenient and easy to wheel my groceries all the way to the dorm and save my arms the tremendously difficult task of carrying them for the 10-minute walk. Thank you, trolley-sacrificing mall stores.

July 10

Got up this morning and went up to register for the orientation week here for international exchange and study abroad students. They gave us each a packet of useful information about this week which was then explained to us later in the morning. They then proceeded to feed us breakfast which consisted of various hot foods (I had hash browns and cooked tomatoes) and cold foods (I had kiwi, strawberry, honeydew, and danishes). After breakfast ("brekkie") we moved to a lecture room in one of the academic buildings on campus and were told about the various policies and quirks of the campus and Australian and UC life. We found out that the ACT (Austrailan Capital Territory, the state in which Canberra resides) is a very "liberal" state and people don't mind talking about politics, religion, etc. no matter what you believe. Aussies like a good debate apparently. Also, it turns out if someone in Australia really likes you a lot, they'll tell you something such as "your clothes look absolutely horrible today", or something like that. A few of us asked another Aussie student later if that was true, and she said it definitely was. Aussies also apparently don't like people that "talk themselves up", and it's common for people to play down everything they do. An example that was given is if in Aussie studies 15 hours for an exam and come up and talk to you before the exam, they'll say "I haven't studied at all for this test, I'm probably going to fail". Apparently it will be rare to see an Aussie studying in the library or outside on campus and most students study "in private" in their rooms. She said that was one aspect of culture shock that we would definitely experience here.

I learned a few other things in that lecture that I didn't know before also. One thing that I was disappointed to learn was that we are allocated $25 of internet credit to our user ID, and every time you use the internet it charges you according to how many megabytes of data are transferred. I found out how to check online my credit balance and it turns out that me uploading lots of large pictures to my blog has used up a significant portion of my internet credit. I am going to have to undoubtedly go and pay for more credit to be put on my account sometime in the future. As a result of learning of this policy, in the future I am going to make an effort to significantly decrease the file size of all the pictures I upload to my blog. I will, however, continue to upload photos. Maybe I should start charging everyone for viewing them. ;-)

Another thing I learned is that University of Canberra is the only Australian University that has kangaroos on campus. They are supposed to be on campus more inthe morning than at other times, and I saw pictures from one of the other American girls of a small group of kangaroos that she photographed outside her dorm this morning! I'm excited about that, and am going to have to get up early in the morning and go out to look for some 'roos in the future. I learned also of a surfing weekend where for $240 Aussie you get transportation, meals, accomodation, and surfing instructions for an entire weekend in October. It sounds like it would be a lot of fun, but I'm not sure if I'm going to want to spend the $240. Apparently that's a good deal, but it's still a lot of money. I have to decide by Thursday morning if I want to commit and sign up for the trip. Hmmm...

This afternoon several of us went to the international office when we heard from the study abroad officer of free stuff that other study abroad students had left and not taken home with them. Responding to her invitation we went on a first-come, first-serve basis to claim our free stuff -- and it was well worth it! I ended up getting up getting many things that I needed and wanted, including post-it notes, a pot with lid, some hangers, a dish towel, a dish washcloth, a picture frame, three-ring binder, some push pins and paper clips, another electrical converter, some measuring cups, several tupperware food containers, an extension cord, some dishes (bowl, plates, cup) and silverware (forks, spoons, butter knives, and sharp cooking knife), as well as a beach-type towel. I'm not sure what the retail value for all those items would be, but I would guesstimate that I obtained probably about $100 worth or so of items. The great thing is, at the end of the semester I won't be needing to take any of these things home, so I can just give them right back to the international office for some exchange students next year to have.

Today I managed to meet several Mexicans, a few Canadians, two girls from Kuwait, some girls from several Asian countries (including Taiwan and Japan), as well as U.S. students from around the country (CO, NJ, MS, ME, CA, NY, CT, NC, and probably others). Not too many Aussies around yet, as most of them are still away for winter break. Many will be returning this week, and especially this weekend. This evening some of us exchange students are going to hang out in the lounge/rec room of my dorm and play some games and stuff, then tomorrow morning it's time to get my classes sorted out.

P.S. Good Job to my fiance Rachel Hall for running the 15K (9.3 miles) Utica Boilermaker in 61 minutes and 8 seconds and being among the top 400 finishers out of ~11,000 competitors!! :)

July 9

Not too much happened this morning. I noticed today that the masked lapwing was still on the roof outside, in the same spot. I decided that was kinda of peculiar and wondered if there was any chance it was nesting there, and incubating eggs. So I did some reasearching using Google, and lo and behold, masked lapwings are known to nest in "inconvenient" places in suburban areas, including parking lots, lawns, and even rooftops. So it seems like I might be watching a pair of masked lapwings trying to start a family on the roof! I wonder how, or if they babies will be able to get down if they hatch? I guess I'll just have to find out first-hand.

This afternoon I felt like I needed to be active, so I got up and went outside for a walk. I walked down a couple of streets from my dorm that I hadn't been down before. They ended up going by a couple of office buildings, a fitness center, and then the Belconnen bus interchange (handy knowing where that is) and back to the mall. I went into mall breifly to price battery chargers. I plugged my battery charger in today and didn't notice the little writing that said something about 12 watts. I guess this converter didn't convert Aussie electricity to 12 watts, because my battery charger stopped working only a few moments after I plugged it in -- I'm pretty sure I fried the sucker. To remedy the situation I am either going to have to buy extremely expensive alkaline batteries to power my camera, or I'll have to buy an extremely expensive battery charger instead. The new battery charger would be cheaper in the long run, even though it's an expense up front that I don't really feel like paying. I was able to find a 16-hour charger with 2 batteries for $20. But batteries don't last 16 hours in my camera, and it takes 4 batteries, so I should probly go with something a little bit farther up the scale than that. It will cost me about $40 (Australian) to get a cheaper new battery charger that comes with 4 new batteries. I didn't buy it today though -- I wanted to shop around a little more first, and the mall closes at 4:00 on Sunday.

On the way back fom the mall I took a few pictures. I decided to get a couple of pictures with me in them this time. I also took another picture of a little pied cormorant that was being photogenic.

This evening I went to a dinner on campus for the new students that have arrived for this semester. I sat down at the only table they had, and pulled up a chair. When one girl asked me where I was from, I said "USA" because that's what I'm used to saying. Then she said that she thought just about everyone at the table was, and we got to talking about the different states we were from. It turns out the four other students I ended up talking to the rest of my meal were all Americans: two were from San Diego, one was from North Carolina, and one was from Colorado. It was kinda fun talking to some more Americans about what their experiences with the lingo, accents, customs, weather, etc. were. It was also kind of weird to be talking to a group of Americans and think to youself "I'm talking to a group of international students". I met one Mexican student and another new Aussie student also, and I talked indirectly to a few other Americans. Tomorrow's orientation events begin at 9:00am and I'm sure I'll meet plenty of other students from America and other countries.

July 8

This morning I got up and went running. I ran an out and back loop in the park that's alongside the lake that's right next to campus. About halfway through my run (10 minutes into it), I stopped because I was practically stepping on birds that would fly up alongside the path no more than 5 to 10 feet away. I stopped because I like birds, and of course, I had to look at them and see what kinds they were, and what they were up to. It turns out there was a bunch of yellow-rumped thornbills and superb fairy-wrens, both species which I had seen before. They were both busy foraging on the ground in the grass. As I watched them for a period of about 10 minutes, though, I saw a few new things I hadn't seen before. The first was two adult male superb fairy-wrens in their breeding plumage -- they were a brilliant electric blue and black pattern -- it was hard to believe that they were real! As I watched the fairy-wrens and thornbills I caught sight of a couple of new species as well: several bright red and olive red-browed finchs and two gray and white double-barred finches. I've seen both species in pet shops in the United States before, but this was my first time seeing them in the wild, and it was really neat. Most of you probably could care less about these birds, but if I could get any pictures of them, you'd like them better. :)

Finally I continued my run and came back to my dorm. I showered, shaved, made myself some more oatmeal for breakfast, then proceeded to spend the next several hours at the computer where I finished cropping and editing pictures and worked on getting them onto my blog. :) I noticed outside my window on the roof of another part of the dorm building there was a masked lapwing sitting down and occasionally sleeping on the roof. It was all by itself and just stayed there all morning. I forgot to check to see if it was still there this afternoon or not. I took a picture of it through my binoculars though. :) It's fun taking pictures like that. It kinda makes up for not having a huge lens on my camera in some cases.

This afternoon I decided to go for a walk and took my camera along in case any opportunities came up to take photos of cool things. I was happy to find that a big cement post in the middle of the lake still had an assortment of birds perched on it, and I was able to use my binoculars to identify the birds and even take a couple of photos. The birds were little pied cormorants, little black cormorants, and a darter. They are all related birds that catch fish underwater, but unlike ducks they don't have the oil glands to keep their feathers dry, so it's not uncommon to see them perched in a sunny location, such as this cement post, sunning themselves to dry their feathers.

I continued on my walk and ended up taking a path that I think looped around and came back. but I turned around and came back the way I came for fear of it getting dark. I ended up walking between 4 and 5 miles in all, and saw lots of cool birds. I got some nice pictures of several species including Pacific black ducks, coots, moorhens, Australian raven, little pied cormorant, crimson rosella, a female magpie-lark and a cicada casing. :) For those who don't care much about birds, hopefully the photographs will be appreciated anyway. :)

July 7

This morning I got up at 8:00 am. I borrowed Sam's pot to cook breakfast (oatmeal!), then spent some time in my room trying to figure out how UC's online class registration and student web portal features all work. I looked at the two courses that I am already enrolled in, and the other possible courses that will fulfill my requirement, and I found some conflict between classroom meeting hours. I will definitely be able to get one more class, and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get another one on top of that, atlhough it does conflict slightly one day. I must have not figured things out right when I was looking at classes and chose to come here, because I realized today that even if I can get those courses to work out, I might come up one or two credits short on "biology electives" that I need to graduate. Yikes. I guess I'll just have to see if I could get those credit(s) waived once I get my classes all sorted out, and if not, I might have to just take one class in the spring semester back home. I'm not gonna stress about anything for now, I'll do what I have to when the time comes.

By using the handy Australian yellow pages website this morning, I was able to locate a Salvation Army store about 4 miles or so from my campus. I decided in the early afternoon that I would try to catch a bus down at the Belconnen interchange (UC is in the Belconnen suburb of Canberra) and see if I might get a ride over there to do some shopping for some supplies that I'm going to need here in the dorm. On my way over, since I didn't really exactly know where I was going, I happened to go into the Westview mall. I was gonna turn around and go back out and try to find the bus stop, but a store caught my eye just inside the entrance that was called "The Reject Shop". It turns out it's a discount surplus store of sorts, and there was lots of really cheap stuff there. I wandered around the store, then went throughout the rest of the 3-story mall, and ended up deciding to shop at some of those stores. I got a lot of stuff at the reject store, including tissues (10 pack of pocket tissue packs for $1.00... that's 75 cents U.S.$!), a 48 pack of "super" AA batteries for THREE DOLLARS, scrubbing pads for washing dishes, a can opener for $1.50, some chocolate-covered sultanas (raisins = sultanas in Aussie.. It's funny to see Kellogg's Sultana Bran cereal...), some laundry detergent, and some water. I found a grocery store in the mall that had some cheap stuff too, including $0.99 Cambell's condensed soup, and really cheap oranges and other stuff. I was going to buy a plain white polyester blanket for my bed at the reject shop for $19, but I found a much nicer blue one with stars/moons on it at a store that had a lot of stuff on clearance. It was regularly $50 (the normal price for the lower-end scale for blankets and comforters here..), but was on sale for $25. It was supposed to come with a matching pillow case, but I found out when I got back to my dorm and put it on my bed that someone had stolen the pillow case out of the package. It's ok though, I didn't really need the pillow case. I'm glad I brought my sheets along with me, because it looks like you can't get a set of sheets for less than $20 around here either. So I got a deal with my blanket. :)

I was looking at shoes in the mall again today too. I checked several different stores, including a Foot Locker, a sports store, and a shoe store called "Athlete's foot", and was disappointed by the high prices in each place. Normally I can get my Asics Gel-2110 running shoes back in the states for $89.99. They're kind of expensive shoes, but they're the best running shoes I've ever had, and it's worth paying the extra $$. Here though, EVERY store I checked today had them for $189 or $199!! The sport store had them on sale for $149.99 but even when you figure the conversion with the U.S. dollar being worth $1.25, it still comes out to being $112 for a pair of shoes that I'd normally pay $90 for. Everywhere they're not on sale, it'd be equivalent to paying $150 U.S. I guess I'm gonna be wearing my old running shoes for a while!

This mall was bigger than the one back in "City Centre" mall by the hostel. I saw a lot more stores that I recognized from America, including McD's, Toys R Us, K-Mart, KFC, Foot Locker, and a few others. It's interesting when you walk through some of those stores though, because a lot of the goods they sell are different than you would see in the U.S.; for example, there's a LOT more Australian-made and produced products. I've noticed it is the norm to see everything say "made in Australia" on it. Rarely is there a "made in China" sticker that is so commom back in the US. Kinda funny considering how Australia is much closer to China, and actually seems to have a lot more Asian people than the U.S. does.

After I was done shopping at the mall I decided it was too late to go to Salvation Army; it was already after 4:00 pm. I think I might try going tomorrow or something instead. I still need a pot, a knife, some silverware (I'll keep using my plasticware until I buy some), a dish towel, etc. I'm not gonna spend big bucks on those things when I might be able to get perfectly good ones at a salvation army for a fraction of the cost. I did go back this afternoon though to an electronics store in the mall and purchased a card reader for my digital camera card. It was $30 Aussie money, but it's well worth it to avoid the frustration of my camera refusing to upload directly, and it will come in handy because it's a card reader for up to 5 different kinds of digital media cards. I uploaded my pictures to my computer tonight, and am working on putting them on their respective blog entries so you can all see the pictures I'm talking about. I've seen several advertisements here in Australia about the next generation of uploading for digital pictures -- wi-fi cameras and camera cards. Apparently a lot of people find it appealing to have the ability to beam their pictures directly to their computer without plugging anything in, especially travellers, and an article I read made it sound like pretty soon in the future most cameras will have this capability. Technology sure is advancing quickly!

Today the maintanence guy came by when right before I left for the mall, and he had to leave to get some tools and parts that he had forgotten. I had no curtain, and my bed had a broken leg, and he was going to get me a curtain rod put up, and a curtain for the curtain rod. When I got back from the mall, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find not only a completely installed and fully-functioning curtain, but also a brand new bed frame. Apparently he took my old bed stand and brought in a new one and put my mattress on it for me and everything! The new bed is a little higher, which is nice, and is a much sturdier, smooth, steel pipe frame that's painted white. I'm not used to the maintanence people at Mansfield being so on top of the needs of their residents... it's kinda nice having things like that get done. :-D I still need another closet door though. But that's not too big of a deal.