The Last of Lectures and an Unsolved Mystery

Weird Aussie terms of the day…

            So, I was going to just write “spider” as the word for this one but that would have probably confused many people (including myself). So I will just suffice to simply put this really odd explanation; what we would call a “root beer float” in the States, they call a “spider” here in Australia. Because THAT makes sense…

            “Dead Horse” – means tomato sauce.  How in the world does that parallel you ask? Because it rhymes.  If you're an American, don’t try it because the accent doesn't work (trust me, I tried it). Find an Australian to say it for you and then the idea of it rhyming will make a little more sense. Just a little. 

            It was an “American” style dinner at the lodge this past week and it was my job to bring in the flavor which I decided to be the simple and traditional joys that are cornbread, chili, and lemonade made with actual lemons. I must say that I was thoroughly surprised to learn that these are all very American things that very few of my housemates had ever had or even knew what they were. Nobody panic though, I have now amended this terrible travesty. I did have to make a rather "off the books" batch of cornbread though because cornmeal, I have found, is unbelievably hard to find here.  Palenta was chosen to suffice and I must say it worked rather well. 

 

American style lodge dinner

            From this evening stemmed the notorious ‘ice cream’ incident that to this day remains a mystery unsolved.  Dessert was Neapolitan ice cream with brownies and the first thing you should know is that there is no doubt in any of our minds that two containers of this delicious, triple flavor dairy product were purchased. One was eaten to its end at the completion of last Saturdays meal by the 14 of us, and one was placed unopened in one of the freezers for later consumption.  The last time it was seem was the morning/early afternoon that was the next day on Sunday the 25th and by that evening the container and its contents were nowhere to be found.

            Everyone was questioned thoroughly as to their whereabouts and potential knowledge pertaining to the missing ice cream to which no one claimed any knowledge of. Freezers and fridges were checked, cupboards were investigated for any potential misplacement, and trash cans and recycling bins were scrounged for tell tale signs of an empty container.  Nothing.  This could mean that either someone ate the whole thing in that one afternoon while many of us were in the lounge studying and then had hidden the container, the container had been misplaced in some way and the contents are now melted, sticky, and perhaps decomposing, or we have an ice cream thief on our hands. The mystery still remains.

            I knew I was in the clear of course as I had the alibi of going off on an ice skating adventure for the better part of the afternoon (aside from the fact that I could never put away that much ice cream in one sitting). I was reminded anew how desperately out of practice I am with the sport of ice skating and it took a little wall-hugging and a few slow turns about the rink to get my ice legs back.  I think I may have also been beyond spoiled from my days living in Alaska where they actually have Zamboni’s to smooth out the ice.  There was nothing of the sort at the rink we went to.  But it was way fun and by the end I was beginning to get some spins down and could actually skate at a reasonable clip.  I also got to hang out with some pretty awesome people and it was a great afternoon hanging out, catching up, and going on short and scenic road trips. 

Don't even ask what James is doing here; I have no idea.

            Monday marked the end of May Mission Month for the young adults Life Groups (Bible study) at Northreach and we had our social event to end it off.  Our group made it a trip down to the end of Pallerenda on the far side of the strand where we build a small camp fire on the beach and pulled out some musical instruments for campfire songs.  It was a great evening of chatting, playing in the sand, staring into the fire, and looking up at the raw beauty of the night time Australian sky.

            Wednesday I was privileged to have no class for the day and spent it sleeping in, studying, and having a hangout and catch-up afternoon with the other Julia. 

            We made our way to the North Ward/Strand area of Townsville to the Queens Garden park which, by the way, is absolutely gorgeous! They have their own miniature aviary there and it was just an all around really cool place to walk around and relax for the afternoon before the coming onslaught of uni finals. It also has a fantastic view of Castle Hill from below I might add.

            The State of Origin rugby game was on this week and of course I had to head over to the church for the viewing party to see what it was all about.  I can officially admit that I enjoy rugby a whole lot more than American football.  I apologize ahead of time to all my football savvy and supporter friends back home, but American football confuses me beyond compare and I always have a really hard time figuring out what’s going on.  I found rugby to be way more straight forward and, honestly, just much more entertaining to watch.   

             We had our final Friday afternoon Bible study meet-up this week and I have seriously been so blessed to have the opportunity to develop some awesome friendships and delve more into the Book of Romans with this lovely group of ladies.  I will certainly miss all those late morning chats and discussions!

.  

            I finished off the week with taking the last of my lectures for the term on Friday and taking part in the James Cook University Completion Ceremony for international student completing their degree or study abroad/exchange program.  It’s so weird to think that my time here is slowly getting shorter and shorter though I still have a couple months of travel and explore time still ahead so I don't usually like to think about it.
            This coming week will be free of classes and full of study vacation before 2 weeks of exams and then my time in Townsville comes near to a close. Not for good though I’m glad to say as I certainly have to show my parents around when they get here!  And, who knows, maybe a time of return and visit sometime in the future?  

Queen of Coordination

Aussie term of the day...

“Ripper” – basically means "amazing" or "really good."

“Banana Bender” – a term for describing basically anyone who lives in Queensland. Apparently it’s a running joke that Queenslanders that have nothing to do just sit around bending bananas all day to put a curve in them because apparently this region of the country grows a lot more bananas than any of the other regions.

            I was reminded again this week just how coordinated I can be and just how well I think things through sometimes, especially when I’m tired. Let’s take, for instance, the blender incident. It was a Monday like any other Monday except for the fact that Michelle was around for the earlier afternoon. The two of us got to hang out a bit as opposed to my normal “solitary cave man” Mondays and decided at one point to try our hands at making fruit smoothies.  It was a wild blend of kiwi, watermelon, orange and various fruit juices and at its completely pulverized state, the both of us grew quite skeptical of how it would taste, even wondering what we were going to do with all of it.  While it was Michelle who took the cutting board and knife to rinse off, I was left to remove the blender from the base and pour out the contents.  In the process of said action, I somehow thought it would be a great idea to take the lid off the thing and, as you can imagine, things did not go quite as planned. The end result was a blender still very much attached to the base and the removal of the liquid from the blender in a way that I would say did not resemble “pouring.”  A more appropriate adjective for it would have been something like “blasting forth” or “exploding.”

 

The face me of trying REALLY hard not to laugh.

            Needless to say, we didn’t have to worry about having heaps of extra! And yes, it had an odd taste… 

Beautiful sunrise over Riverway

             Wednesday was an insanely early 5:30 morning but oh so worth it!  A good friend from church and I had been trying to make plans for quite some time to hang out and catch up and were finally able to make good on that promise, heading out for an early morning walk around Riverway.  The sunrise was gorgeous as always and the chilly morning air was great for waking us up after an early rise. I cannot tell you how uplifting and encouraging it was to be able to take that long morning walk with Belindi in the quite brisk morning, do a short devotion, and just talk about life.

 

Belindi and I on the foot bridge.

            Wednesday was also the day my phone decided to give me that black screen of perpetual death for no apparent reason…  So I lost all my photos and contacts… again. I guess I'll have to make good on that warranty when I get home in August hey! But the upside is that I now have one of those super classy, red flip phones that was the cheapest unlocked phone I could get at the post office. But hey, who says I don't like being a bit old school sometimes? And it does exactly what I need it to. J

            Later on in the week was sushi night over at the other Julia’s house with a number of the gals from the lodge.  It was just a fun and hilarious night of bonding learning how to prepare and how to make sushi the traditional way. And for some of us, it was a lesson of how to not make sushi…

Bonding time with the girls!

I cannot tell you how much I love this awesome group of girls!

            Reminder number two of my impeccable coordination skills was one pretty late evening hanging out with Blessing in her room.  I remember I was sitting on her bed while she was writing some stuff on her white board and going over med notes on her laptop.  I don’t even remember what we were talking about, just roommate things I guess, and I started to fade pretty quick.  Realizing it was time to turn in for the night I said goodnight and, in my attempt to get up, somehow tripped over myself and fell awkwardly off the back of her bed.  I suddenly found myself stuck squarely between the bed and the wall and felt this really cold feeling on the back of my leg and a sharp hissing noise coming from somewhere behind me.   Turns out I had somehow in my uncoordinated state, landed squarely on an aerosol can of Aeroguard in just the right way so at the spray the whole of my back side in the strong smelling mozzie spray.  Needless to say, I didn’t have to worry about mosquitoes much for quite some time after that...

Ice cream party with the girls

            To finish of this fantastic week of uncoordinatedness and bonding time, all the lodge girls decided to take advantage of the sole feminine influence of Friday nights and take another well earned study break for an ice cream party and movie night. I don’t even know whose idea it was for some of the toppings we went and bought, but we had some mighty interesting cookies & cream ice cream sundaes piled high with sugar and concentrated energy that kept us all up and awake for hours to come. 

A Glimpse of Home

Aussie term of the day...

“Hey” - They say this all the time.  No joke and it's not just in the context of like "Hey, what time was that underwater basket weaving class today?" No, it's more like it's used as the most reasonable way to end a sentence ever.  "You had that under water basket weaving class today hey.  How was that?" Or "This American lemonade tastes like lemon cordial hey." Almost like you are asking a question and stating a fact at the same time so just to make sure it's clear, you end the sentence with hey. Makes perfect sense hey. 

Another fantastic Townsville sunset.  How are these always so darn beautiful?!

            So apparently there is a part of Townsville that is still considered Townsville but is pretty much as far as you can get away from people and still be in Townsville.  That very last stretch of road before you reach the end is just this one row of houses right on the road and then a wide expanse of wilderness before it encompasses you completely. You reach that bit of road that just seems to change and the only thing you can think about is that long country drive with nothing around you but creation.  The kind that makes you want to just roll your windows down and blast that guilty pleasure music you can sing your heart out to. That’s what I thought about anyways. Except the rolling the windows down part, because I'm the weirdest person ever and absolutely hate it when people do that... But that's beside the point. And in case you were wondering, that area is Ross River Dam. 

            I finally got to meet up with the other Julia again after several weeks of business on both our parts and for a change of scenery we decided to give it a look.  And boy is it pretty! They have this open picnic area with several stone picnic tables placed scenically under a group of large over arching trees and a couple informational signs plopped on the tree line giving you a short blurb about the areas history. A family homestead originally. It was here that we decided to make out our little afternoon “picnic,” that is if you consider a packet of caramel chocolate slice and a good read through the book of Job a picnic.  A good one for the heart and mind whatever it was J.  And can I just tell you how much I love afternoons like that??  Seriously the best medicine after a stressful week of uni and the most uplifting way to start off the week. 

 

The view of one side of Ross River Dam

            It was more of the same in terms of uni work this week.  A group project here, a meeting there, working on writing that big paper some more over here.  Pretty exciting stuff.  A couple weeks back I finally got that package from home I was told would be coming and I finally did something with those thirteen letters I got (other than read them all of course!) and made a bit of a cork board collage above my desk. Definitely an encouraging sight to look up to whenever I get frustrated with school work and the going ons' of life. What have I done to be so blessed with so many awesome friends??

            Speaking of which, I finally got a Skype call in to several friends from home! We have been planning out the darn "get together" for several weeks now and we finally got the time conversion all figured out and a set time to sit down and call each other.  Or so we thought.  Turns out they got the times an hour off and while I was in the process of closing down my computer to catch an early ride to uni with a housemate got a Skpye message saying "Call you in a minute!" Wait, what?! My suddenly frantic mind quickly typed out a confused jumble of words more or less expressing my confusion before a call from my friend awaiting me outside prompted me to just shoot a message simply saying "Going to uni. Call you in 20" before slamming my computer shut and running out the door.  Good thing I have some rather forgiving friends and no 20 minutes later we were finally on that long awaited Skype call. 

A rather fuzzy photo but not bad considering the 7,500 mile distance.  Still can't believe I have known this awesome group of gals since our days in high school!

            As Friday is the day all the boys are out for the evening, the rest of us girls finally made good on that promise to have an all out "girly" night.  We made it complete with nail painting, face masks, and a screening of the movie Frozen which we sang ALL the songs to of course.  I painted my finger nails red for the first time in the history of... ever.  Not sure how I feel about them... it's just weird looking down and thinking "What the...? Wait... it's just my nails.  Nobody panic!"

            I finally cultured my housemates a little more this week and made the American version of lemonade! It went over quite well I think but now I have a crud load of lemons sitting in my fridge that I need to do something with.... Michelle's sister's mother-in-law (not a confusing relation at all) lives in town and insisted Michelle come to her if she ever find herself in need of lemons as they posses one insanely productive tree. The recipe I  had called for 4 to 6 lemons and with the hospitality of Michelle mother-in-law-in-law (is that even a thing?) I ended up walking away with 12.  Turns out these lemons are GIGANTIC and produce like 1/2 a cup of juice each so I only needed 4 lemons to make a solid 2 batches.  Lemons for daaaaays...

            I also had that first day this week that I genuinely had NOTHING to do.  I was in a stuck spot with my group projects as I needed to meet with my groups before doing anything else and I was waiting to converse with another group about project results before working any more on that big paper.  And lucky me NO ONE was out and about at the lodge.  I live with 11 other people so to walk around the lodge and encounter not a soul for a good couple hours is quite a feat.  I think I finally rooted one out of hiding in the cavernous recesses of their room and convinced them to watch the Pink Panther 2 with me.  I think I did bribe with brownies. Yeah, I'm a good influence...

When the Road Gets Rough

Taking the time to remember this week  just how blessed I really am.

            If I’m being completely honest here, I would have to admit to you that this week has been a rough one.  It’s been a good one, yes, and I cannot tell you how blessed I have been in so many ways by the people I have come to know and really love here. But, you know, if I were to say it has been without its massive struggles that would have been a lie.  It got to the point where I just had to stop and break down into tears. And I don’t do that very often. At all.

            It’s that point in the term where you begin to realize just how much you have to do before the term ends and the daunting presence of all those projects begins to really take its toll. The deadlines for those big papers and projects begin to appear on the horizon and all those group projects begin to really show their true colors as to who is doing their part, and who is not. The group for my Coral Reef class met up to talk about who was writing which part of the essay. My marine mammal research proposal group came together and finally settled on a topic and began researching the main points. My vertebrate fauna group began submitting in portions of the project in preparation for final compilation.  The massive essay I am writing for Wildlife Management finally started to take a fairly solid form. It’s been nothing, nothing, nothing for so long and then it just seems like all the big assignments that can either make or break my grade finally get thrown in. And I think that’s where it started.

            Friday I made a call in to my parents and we finally nailed down some dates and plane tickets for travelling around when they get here. Just the process of figuring all that out got to be pretty stressful. All together I think it took us 3 ½  to figure out just the part that we did. And there’s still more!  My mom told me that my horse had decided to be an escape artist again (Oh Toby...) and had broken out of the pasture, impaling himself on a fence post in the process.  He’s fine, thank goodness, but he is currently unridable and has a good number of stitches in his side now. The internet at the lodge has been ever more frustrating and though we have had the internet guy come out about 3 times and even had the router replaced once, it still decides to stop working at the most inopportune moments. Every time I do homework I have to grab all I need offline for fear it will give out again, and every time I Skype I have to call back somewhere around 10 times in between bad connections. 

            Saturday I started having troubles with my computer while writing that big paper I was talking about and after spending 2 hours trying to fix it, I finally just decided to restart the thing.  Then popped up that ever joyful black and white screen of death with counting numbers and I just said heck with it and gave a call back to a couple of my friends to take them up on their earlier offer to go out around town for the day.  

            Sunday I decided I was going to finally get a lot of stuff done and got cracking again on my Wildlife Management report. It was about that time I realized with sinking dread that all the data I had previously spent hours working on had all been done wrong and I would have to do it all again. That was about when I cried.

            But you know, it’s at times like these that I realize the flip side of life in that everything can’t always be butterflies and rainbows (well… obviously…). I mean if everything was always great and nothing bad every happened, would we really ever appreciate the good things in life that do happen? How would we ever be able to say that the good things were good if we had never seen the bad to know the difference?

            That's why that despite all the frustration that I went through I can say that in the end, the week was good.  Rough maybe, but good. When my computer was showing the signs of impending doom and eventual death, one of my housemates offered me a spare computer to work on and when times got even more frustrating looked up and simply said “Here, eat some chocolate.” When the internet guy came to check in on the internet router again he happily agreed to take a look at my computer for me and give me suggestions on where I can go from here.  When I had had enough of all my frustrations and just needed to get out of the house, two of my friends took me out into town to hang out and we spent time baking and just chatting about life. When the frustrations and discouragements of life got so bad that I cried, Michelle came over and gave me a heartfelt hug, making sure I knew it was ok to mess up and things would get better.  Later on she left a note in my room saying how blessed she was for knowing me and thanking me for letting her see even the not so good sides of me.

            It’s at times like these that I really see how blessed I am and just what kinds of people I am surrounded by. I cannot thank God enough for the grace He has given me and the forethought that He gave into putting all these people in my life. People that five months ago I knew nothing about but now can’t bear the thought of leaving when my time here comes to a close.  I may be on the adventure of a lifetime right now, but sometimes it’s good to remember the “life” part in that at the end, it’s not always an easy road to follow.

Whipper Snippers and First World Problems

Australian term of the day…

“Whipper Snippers” – What they call weed whackers. Seriously, how much cooler is that?! Never again will I call it a weed whacker. "Oh don't mind me, I'm just heading out to whipper snip the edge of the path." 

            I was officially initiation as a “Townsvillian” this week! For Bible study group this past Monday, we decided that instead of meeting in the church lounge room like we normally do, we would mix it up a bit and take the trek up to Castle Hill to gaze up at the stars and enjoy the night time scenery of Townsville. At the top of said hill lies a bunker built during World War II times that has since been abandoned and fenced off so you can’t go inside. You can, however, climb on top and it is often a tradition, apparently, to make your way to the edge and lay on your back, hanging your head over the ledge and filling your vision with a view of Townsville from an upside-down perspective. It is quite spectacular really and it’s fun to just sit there and take in the lovely view!

 

Townsville from atop the bunker on Castle Hill

            Wednesday I got to hang out with the other Julia again and catch up after our couple weeks of hiatus while I was on all my field trips and swamped with uni work.  Since it was evening and neither of us had really tried out many of the restaurants around town, we decided to give one of them a whirl. We ended up settling on a pasta restaurant down the road called Fasta Pasta. It was kind of different in that it was set up with tables and waiters like a "nice restaurant" but when you wanted to order you walked up to the counter with your menu and ordered and paid right there as you would in a fast food restaurant. Different, but cool and it's apparently the norm here in Australia.

            Both of us were feeling the hunger of the moment when our food got there and in the typical “if it’s in front of me I’ll eat it all” manner, we both consumed the majority of our respective meals.  By the end, we were both feeling the fullness and decided to combat it with a walk around the entirety of Riverway.  Can you say first world problems?? We had some great conversations even though the both of us just wanted to lay down and go into a food coma for part of the walk.  I will say that Riverway is really lovely at night and the stars really jump out!  That is one of the things I miss about home; the stars.  I live out in the country where I’m from and the stars are always a sight to die for!

            On Saturday I got to go into complete girly mode and do my housemate, Michelle’s, hair for a wedding she was attending. Throughout the week I had been experimenting with different hairstyles and when the moment of truth came, I decided to step out on a ledge and attempt a hairstyle I had never done before.  And boy did it pay off!

Much of the credit goes the Michelle's patience and the loveliness of her hair I must say!

            Also, the past week has been getting cold! I know, you wouldn't think that of Australia and I feel incredibly weak for thinking thus… I am originally from Alaska after all and feeling that 17ºC (about 62ºF) is chilly is just… not even right. My only defense is that I have now been acclimated to the warm and fuzzy temperatures of Australia and I have no clothes to dress for the cold, but still… I’m just going to go wallow in my shame now with my fuzzy blanket, 2 layers of socks, and a cup of hot tea.

Thanks Dot, you understand me ;)