Tara's Study Abroad ExTaraGanza in Australia

Week 15 in Australia:

My vacation in the Gold Coast was such a blast and dug into this week a bit, but I got back to the Village around 9:20am- just in time for my first lecture of the day at 10. Once I put all my stuff into my room and changed quickly, I would have been late, so I decided not to go. It's only a lecture, so I can just go on iLecture and Blackboard later to get the notes and listen online. I did make it to all my other classes of the day (all 4 of them), but it was definitely hard to stay awake! Traveling and going to class takes a lot out of a person, especially someone who's only working off of 3 hours of sleep. Instead of taking a nap like a normal person would in between classes, I decided to catch up on Grey's Anatomy and watch the finale online. Unfortunately youtube doesn't put up the last chunk of the episodes, so I don't know what happened at the very end...boo. I got some work done later and then hung out with some friends in the Village.

Continue reading "Lady G and PCD Ain't Got Nothin' On Me" »

Posted by myers275 at 3:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Week 14 in Australia:

Sunday May 10th was a special day; Happy Mother’s Day to my one and only mom!!! An exerpt from one of my favourite poems I’ve written: “Yep, spoons are the bomb/ They kind of remind me of my mom/ They both may seem common at first glance/ But they’re so much more if you give them a chance/ Sleek and sophisticated describe them best/ I think you’d agree they’re better than the rest!” I love you, Mom! :O)

Other than calling my mom on Mother’s Day, I had another movie date with my twin and relaxed a bit. I meant to get lots done, but life doesn’t always turn out the way you want it…or I’m just becoming lazy…probably the latter, so I should get on that and nip it in the butt before it starts becoming too much of a problem.

Continue reading "Here's a Toast to the Gold Coast!" »

Posted by myers275 at 2:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Week 13 in Australia:

After a fun-filled week of lots of goings out, I needed to crack down hard and get going on my English paper. I couldn’t believe I kept putting it off for so long and now I was in deep and hating myself for procrastinating for so long.

Sunday I had a horrible allergy attack. I couldn’t stop sneezing, and when I finally would stop, my nose would be a drippy faucet. I may as well have stuck a tissue up my nose and left it there. I tried my best to finish rereading The Bald Prima Donna and The Hawlkine Monster, but I just couldn’t finish the second…sorry Richard Brautigan, but my body just wasn’t having it that day. I ended up falling asleep really early, around 9ish, to one of my favourite movies, 10 Things I Hate About You. I love that movie. I love Heath Leger. He was a grrrrreat Aussie…sure, the one time I come here and he’s gone. Geez.

Continue reading "All Work and No Play? Not Today" »

Posted by myers275 at 12:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Week 12 in Australia:

So my spring break was a blast and now it’s time to get back into school mode for the last stretch of the semester. Right away I had to start an English paper because I only had a week left to do it and it’s worth 40% of my grade. I’ve never had anything weigh that much at Morris, so there was a lot of pressure to do well. I started my outline for it and highlighted and reread the two books that my paper was on. I didn’t do much else on Monday, since I was still in vacation mode.

Continue reading "Out and About" »

Posted by myers275 at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Week 11 in Australia (and now New Zealand):

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!! What a trip!!! It's one I'll never forget, that's for sure! Get ready, my people, because this one’s a doozey (more like a book I wrote here...it was just so exciting)!

Sunday April 19th (before the festivities) I worked on my Children's Literature paper I had due in a few days. I was thinking of going into the city by myself, since everyone else was still on all their fun spring break trips, but I changed my mind. I really don't know my way around Sydney very well (there's always someone else in the group who does) and it gets dark around 6pm now, so I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to wander in those conditions. Looks like I'll just have to wait until everyone gets back to the Village and is all settled in again. Originally I didn't want to, but now I want to do the Sydney Harbor Bridge climb. It's kind of expensive, but I hear the view is amazing. Since I probably won't come back to Australia anytime soon after I leave in two months due to being broke, I figure I'd better try it. So far, anything I've tried for the first time here I've liked at the very least, so why not?

Continue reading "Overindulged in Kiwi-A-Go-Go Land" »

Posted by myers275 at 5:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Week 10 in Australia:

Hello, hello! This week's entry is going to be quick for now and I'll elaborate later.

I am still on my spring break (I get 18 days), :O) so it's been nice to be able to relax, except for the fact that i have this paper weighing over my head until I get it done. Monday the 13th I spent four hours cleaning my room, inside and out. It needed it and made my room smell nice and fresh, :O) plus cleaning always clears my head and is very theraputic for me. I had to make a tough decision about whether or not to work in Morris this summer, and it was hard to make up my mind. On the one hand, by that point I would have been away from my family for 4.5 months and miss them greatly, not to mention I know my mom could use my help and I always like spending time with fam, but on the other hand, I REALLY need the money, especially after this amazing trip, and this is a guaranteed job. I know even if I looked now, I would be hard-pressed to find a job for only six weeks of the summer and have time off for my brother's wedding in California in August. I felt guilty for wanting to work, but my parents understand and support me. I'll just have to come home a few weekends of the summer. In the end I chose to work because my mom said I should.

Continue reading "A Little Sping in my Step" »

Posted by myers275 at 4:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Week 9 in Australia

Thank goodness for daylight savings! I really needed that extra hour to make up for not starting my Music paper sooner. You would think that I would've learned my lesson with the History paper! oops. That was my Sunday. Monday the 6th I worked on my paper and stayed up pretty late (2:30am) working on it, not to mention I had to stay up late in order to register for fall classes on time (it was scheduled for 11am Tuesday MN time). I was excited about my schedule until I realized my fun one credit dance class conflicted times with my fun art class. I decided I won't take the dance class, but I'll participate in Dance Ensemble. I've always wanted to try, but I just never have. I'm going to be taking my Senior seminar, so that'll be a lot of work, hence the two fun classes. I'm also taking American Indian Lit and I have to take ANOTHER math because apparently Pre-calc doesn't count towards Gen Eds. Survey, here I come...yay.

Continue reading "Saving Daylight" »

Posted by myers275 at 11:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Week 8 in Australia

With all the surfing fun behind me, it knew I had to get back to work and play catch-up again the following week.

Monday March 30th was nothing special; I did clean and write a couple postcards to my fam, but Brautigan took the majority of my time. I pretty much researched all day for a presentation I had to give the following day in my Contemporary and Postmodern Lit class on three of Richard Brautigan's novels. I kept getting all this cool stuff and I'd go off on tangents, then I'd review the question I'm supposed to answer (Can comic literature be serious?) and it wouldn't suffice, so I'd have to scratch that, and therefore wasted time. The presentation would have gone really well, but I had some technical difficulties, being that i am computer-illiterate along with my prof and couldn't get the projector to turn on and project my power point. Oh well, my prof didn't hold it against me and it probably helped my grad a bit. I had inspections that day, too, which is weird, because even when I lived in the dorms at Morris, they never had inspections based on cleanliness and hygiene. One of my roommates, who no one in the house gets along with very well didn't help, which sucked, but whatev. My other three roomies are cool.

Continue reading "Aussie Rules!" »

Posted by myers275 at 9:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Week 7 in Australia

Busy busy busy busy busy busy! So many things to do and so little time!

Monday the 23rd of March I woke up to find that i felt 100% better than the previous day when I has what I think was the stomach flu. Since that wasted a whole, day it was time to kick it in top gear and get rollin' with my schoolwork that I had been neglecting. I was pretty productive; I did a lot of cleaning and reading- i think I read three books that day... It was Richard Brautigan , though, so it was funny and absurdist, which is always fun. Not a whole lot else to report other than I had to kill two more spiders that day. They won't be back, but I hope they were the last of their clan that apparently had been hiding out in my room all this time.

Tuesday rolls around and instead of researching for and writing my History paper, I skip that lecture to go grocery shopping (mainly to get spider spray) and search for classes for the fall... not the best idea, and I paid for it, because I put that spray to good use and had SEVEN more encounters with those nasty eight-legged things. I'd spray a corner and all of a sudden they would run away from the infectant towards ME! I tell ya, i don't know how much more of this I can take. I am severely afraid of these buggers, but I gotta' do what I gotta' do I guess.

Continue reading "How Tara Got Her Mojo Back" »

Posted by myers275 at 7:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Week 6 in Australia

After a great weekend at the Blue Mountains, it was time to get down to business with my homework that sort of crept up on me...okay, so I kept putting it off, but either way, it was time to get caught up again. My only problem now was that I caught a cold. :O( Yep, this next week would be filled with quiet nights of homework and reading...minus St. Patrick's Day and another treat of a day at Manly Beach...hey now, I'm only going to be in Australia once so I have to live it up!

Continue reading "Quiet Nights (and a Few Frights)" »

Posted by myers275 at 1:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Week 5 in Australia

After a crazy weekend with Mardi Gras and that dumb eye infection, my next week was pretty low-key. Sunday the 8th of March and Monday I didn't really do anything but read. I just read and read and read and read some more for two whole days to catch up in just one of my classes. The verdict: I read 5 novels and 2 plays in two days...intense is what that is!

Tuesday the 10th exactly marked my one month anniversary in Australia!!! I couldn't believe that I had been here so long already. It really did creep up on me unexpectedly. I just feel so at home here and all the differences from MN seem so natural, as well as all the different accents (I think I'm around more Bostonian and Jersey accents than Aussie). I can probably imitate them pretty well by now; I haven't tried, but sometimes I talk like them in my head without thinking. It's crazy to finally grasp the concept of my LIVING in a foreign country, and being as adventurous as I have been. I have been in the Rainforest, seen animals, scuba dived and snorkeled in the Barrier reef, learned how to travel by bus and train, went to the Sydney Harbor and saw icons, beaches, i learned how to body surf and salsa dance, not to mention all the math- conversions and things. When in the world would I have ever done any of those things at home? It has just opened my eyes to so many other things; new experiences and places and ways of life. I have always learned about this kind of stuff, but this is the first time I've got to experience anything first-hand, and it's pretty amazing! I think i have adapted pretty well, if I do say so myself! :O) I am just so grateful that I got this opportunity and actually took it; I'm glad that I didn't flake out, because I almost did for awhile, because this really is the best time of my life. It feels good to know that actually I did it, that I am doing it, and I'm doing it all on my own.

Continue reading "Katoomba Matata" »

Posted by myers275 at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Week 4 in Australia

I will do my best to keep updating this once a week...sorry for the delays!

After my exciting Bondi experience on the 1st of March, I had to kick it in gear for my schoolwork that was starting to quickly pile up. It's really hard to stay on top of it all when there's always so many fun things to do around here! That first week of March mainly consisted of reading, drinking (the usual Scruffy's and the Village), learning how to Salsa dance, and finally correcting my registration stuff, which is kind of a funny story:

So a couple weeks ago I was buying the cutest dress for only $3 AUD and I was at the checkout counter when my phone rang. I answered it even though it was an unknown number, and the voice of the lady sounded familiar, but I didn't know who it was off-hand. I figured it was someone from one of the student groups I signed up for earlier that week. Since the music in the store was so loud, I could barely hear this lady and I felt rude for being that girl on the phone at the check out, so I told told her it wasn't a good time to talk and I was waiting for her reply, but I thought she already hung up, so I did too. When I went into the registration office on Wednesday the 4th, I told the lady (Alex, I think her name is) my troubles and she looks at all of her papers. When she sees mine, she just bursts out laughing and I had no idea what was going on. Apparently she was the lady who called me the week before, trying to explain that I needed to come into the office because I was enrolled in too many credits and couldn't add another class until I dropped one, but since I didn't hear her, I got flustered and hung up without knowing which number to call back. Alex said she thought I was in real danger or something and they almost called someone higher just in case. Haha. I felt really dumb at that point, but it's okay because everything worked out, but it was a funny process.

Continue reading "Hardy Mardi Gras" »

Posted by myers275 at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Week 3 in Australia

Hey everyone! I have been having lots of fun here and have been so busy, so it's taking me longer to keep you all updated...sorry!

My first day of classes was on Monday February 23rd, which is cool because by that time Morris was already a quarter of the way through their semester. Since my registration got all screwed up, I went to my safety net class, Creative Writing (my favorite!), just in case I decided to stay enrolled in it (they are pretty strict on attendance here; if I don't go to at least 80% of my classes, I will automatically fail). That was a fun class and it made me realize how much I miss that kind of writing and how a class like that can really broaden my writing abilities and improve them immensely. In the end, I got into the other class I wanted, so I had to drop Creative Writing, even though I flirted with the idea of keeping it. I don't normally have class on Mondays when the lectures are, so I may just pop in just for fun...we'll see. My schedule for this semester is the best I've ever had: No class on Mondays or Fridays (yesssssssssssss!), my earliest classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays is at 10am, and I only have one tutorial in the afternoon on Wednesdays, which means i get a four-day weekend EVERY weekend! How sweet is that?! I am pretty jazzed about it, that's for sure. I am taking a 100 level (easiest level) Australian history course to fulfill a gen ed, an intro to contemporary pop music class that's an easy 100 level throw away class, Australian Contemporary and Postmodern Literature, and Australian Children's Literature, so I have a full schedule! It should be fun, though.

Continue reading "So It Begins..." »

Posted by myers275 at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Week 2 in Australia

I arrived in Sydney safely (but brought the rain with me) and waited in the baggage claim (all 50 of us) for a good 20 minutes because the lady who was supposed to pick us up apparently was told to meet us at a different claim. I took lots of pictures on the bus ride to North Ryde, a suburb of Sydney where my school is located, and the scenery was great. View image The bus driver was giving us a history lesson of all the buildings we passed, including the Sydney Harbor Bridge when we drove over it and the Sydney Opera House when we passed that.

Continue reading "Settling In the Village" »

Posted by myers275 at 4:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Week 1 in Australia

Sorry it has taken me so long to write a new entry; I didn't have internet the first week of my travels and I have been going nonstop since I arrived in Sydney.

As I waited for my first flight out of MN to L.A., I was a nervous wreck! I just got really overwhelmed from the airport and negative scenarios kept going through my head. I couldn't believe I was going to fly half-way around the world by myself, not knowing a single soul! Thankfully I had a window seat and got over it as soon as I was in the sky and saw the beautiful landscapes of the plains and Rocky Mtns. I saw the Grand Canyon from up there and it was gorgeous! I think that was the first time I smiled all day; it made me realize that I shouldn't waste time worrying about what might happen, but what I am doing right now, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

Continue reading "G'Day, Mate!" »

Posted by myers275 at 8:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)