First Week of Classes

Well, I’m happy to say that I have successfully completed my first week of school in the land down under.  Even though this week pretty much served as an introduction to all my classes, I still learned a lot about what to expect of my four classes over the next several weeks.  My first class is Integrated Marine Systems, which seems like it should be a lot of fun.  My teacher is from Austria and he seems like a very cool, chill, surfer dude type guy (even though I’ve heard that he is a really tough grader).  He is very passionate about marine life and even uses the top of a fishing pole as his pointer during lectures.  In this class we get to take a two day trip to Fraser Island to do actual research and data collecting, which I cannot wait for!  My second class is Introducing Human Geographies, which also seems like a very interesting course.  My teacher is from England and has a very cool British accent.  Even though she is a geographer, she didn’t know where Maryland was until I told her that it is near Washington D.C.  My third class is Biodiversity and Ecology.  This class almost seems like it should be a review for me since I’ve already taken so many biology and environmental classes, but a review is perfectly fine with me.  My teacher is from Australia and is a terrestrial ecologist with a passion about the environment.  During our first lecture we started talking about mass extinctions that have happened and dinosaurs came up in the topic.  In one of his slides it said that ET impact could have been a cause of dinosaur extinction.  When I read this I thought to myself, “What crazy Aussies!  They believe in aliens and are blaming aliens on mass extinctions!  What are they teaching us here?!”  But then my teacher went on to explain how “ET impact” meant meteor showers and other disasters from space, which definitely made a lot more sense.  My fourth and final class is Introduction to Sociology.  My teacher is a sociologist from Australia and has the most amazing Australian accent, it’s the best one I’ve heard so far since being here.  His voice could be in movies or something!  This class seems like it will be very interesting because it’s all about Australian society which is a whole new topic for me.

Grading, or marking as Australians call it, is way different than in the United States.  There are no letter grades, but instead there is a different system:  High Distinction is 85 – 100%, Distinction is 75 – 84%, Credit is 65 – 74%, Pass is 50 – 64%, and Fail is 0 – 49%.  So pretty much, if you get anything over 50% you have passed the course.  Now, they are way harder graders over here so these percentages don’t exactly equal out to our percentages we get in the U.S.  So the U.S. equivalence to this grading system would be an A+ for High Distinction, A for Distinction, B for Credit, C for Pass, and D or F for Fail depending on the actual percentage.

Your final grade in a class depends on only three things.  In almost every class you only have three assessments for the entire semester, and two of these assessments are essays written outside of class.  The first essay is called the minor essay and is usually worth 20% of your final grade.  The second essay is the major essay and is worth usually 40% of your final grade.  Now when I say essay, I mean full blown research assignment with a minimum of 6 – 10 (depending if it’s the minor or major essay) outside sources.  And then the last 40% of your final grade comes from the final exam.  So there are no midterms or other exams or quizzes, just a lot of writing and researching all semester long.

Even though this semester sounds like a lot of work and a lot of transitioning into Australian education mode, it also sounds like a fun and exciting learning experience for me.  I absolutely love this place and this campus!  The campus is so beautiful and it is all so open to the outdoors.  Instead of walking into a building and then walking down a long boring hallway to your classroom door, on this campus all the classroom doors are all outside.  The “hallways” are all covered in case it rains, but pretty much the whole campus is outdoors.  I just love how you aren’t really ever inside an actual building.  All the classroom doors lead right to outside, it’s beautiful!

So, what have I learned so far?  I’ve learned that people still doodle all over their notes no matter what country you are from or what language you speak.  People still fall asleep during long boring lectures.  Slackers still pack up and leave class early.  8 AM classes are still dreaded over here.  It’s okay not to wear shoes to class or anywhere in public actually.  Everyone just wants to be at the beach instead of class.  Two hour lectures still drag on forever even if the professor has a cool accent.  Everyone lives for the weekends.  And I’ve learned that I should always bring my camera to class because I think I saw a bandicoot on my walk home this evening.  Wild, beautiful Australia!

Mt. Ngungun

 

Glass House Mountains


The Glass House Mountains are volcanic plugs left by volcanic activity 26-27 million years ago. Yesterday, I hiked up Mt. Ngungun, one of the Glass House Mountains.  Mt. Ngungun rises 253 meters above sea level and can be VERY steep in places.  I read up on some information about Mt. Ngungun after the hike on a travel website and they graded the difficulty of the hike as hard.  Which it definitely was!  The hike became very steep and unstable in many places.  There really wasn’t much of a trail once we arrived at the cliffs, you just had to find good places to put your feet and begin climbing up.  This was difficult for many people and everyone was out of breath once we reached the top.  On the website it says, “This trail is rough and uneven and should only be attempted by fit walkers with suitable walking shoes with good grip.  Pace yourself and take care over the steep rocky surface.”  It sure would have been nice if we were warned about this before we arrived at the mountain.  We were all extremely shocked when we turned a corner of the trail and saw a huge rock wall we had to climb up.  The website also says that the hike “for the most part is slightly less than vertical.”  And that sure is no joke. 

Even though the hike up the mountain was rough, it was totally worth it when we reached the top.  The view was amazing!  You could see for miles in every single direction.  If you looked west you could see the other Glass House Mountains and when you looked east you could see the ocean in the distance.  I literally felt like I was on top of the world, or at least on top of Australia.  The top of the mountain wasn’t that large since it was just the very tip of the peak, so we were all gathered closely around being careful not to fall off the cliffs.  It definitely was kind of scary, but at the same time absolutely amazing.

When we were on the top we saw some people repelling off the cliffs.  That would have been the easiest and quickest way down the mountain, but our group had to walk/slide down the cliffs.  We definitely had to take our time and be very careful.  Occasionally, someone would step on a loose rock and we would all watch in terror as the rock quickly rolled down the cliff.  We all hoped that we wouldn’t be like that rock and roll down without being able to stop for a while.  Fortunately, everyone who came on this trip with me made it down the  mountain safely and we were all very excited once we reached flat ground again.



Very top!



Cool cave we found





Kondalilla Falls and Mary Cairncross Rainforests!

I’ve never been to a rainforest before, and today I was lucky enough to hike through two!  Our first hike was to Kondalilla Falls and the second was to Mary Cairncross, both very beautiful rainforests.  Sure I’ve been on plenty of hikes before, but nothing like this.  Hiking in Australia is way different than at home because all the plants and animals are so tropical.  It seemed weird at first to be hiking through a forest of palm trees and other tropical plants.  There were vines hanging down everywhere and trees braided around each other.  The view was absolutely amazing.

Kondalilla comes from an aboriginal word meaning “rushing or running waters” which is a very appropriate name for this rainforest.  There were many waterfalls throughout the mountain with the biggest one falling 90 meters from above and into a nice wading pool.  If it was warmer, it would be no surprise to find people swimming under the waterfalls.

 

During the hikes, we were lucky enough to spot some amazing wild animals.  Many brightly colored birds filled the trees and sang a sweet song all day long.  One of the coolest birds we saw was a kookaburra!  You know, the kind of bird in that one song…  “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. Merry, merry king of the bush is he…” Yeah, so cool! Another awesome animal we found prowling through the bushes was a family member of the kangaroo, it’s called a red-legged pademelon.  It is smaller than a kangaroo and a little darker in color, but every bit as cute.

 

Kookaburra!

Today was a great day because I got to see another side of Australia.  I left the beach and traveled further inland to some rainforests.  It is so cool to see the many diverse sides that Australia has to offer!



Australia!

 

After 22+ hours of traveling, I have finally made it to my new home in Australia!  Sunshine, kangaroos, beaches, and happiness have all met me here so far.  After getting all settled in in my new apartment, my friend Holly was ready to take me out on some new adventures.  Day one on the Sunny Coast was full of many firsts for me.

Our first adventure involved checking out the “Uni” (Australian slang for University).  The campus is very beautiful and full of extremely modern looking buildings that are environment friendly.  The fancy architecture is designed to use as little energy when it comes to lighting and keeping everything cooled down.  On my tour through the Uni I had my first kangaroo sightings.  I was beyond excited and was surprised of how close you could actually get to them without freaking them out.  Although there are signs that say “Do not approach the kangaroos,” I could not resist relaxing with them under a tree. 

After chilling with the kangas, we made our way to Mooloolaba Beach.  The name Mooloolaba is Aboriginal in origin, and is kind of difficult to say correctly.  The beach is absolutely beautiful!  It has the softest sand I’ve ever touched and the water is such a beautiful shade of blue.  This was the first time I’ve ever touched the Pacific Ocean and it was exciting although the water was a tad bit cold. Right now it is winter in Australia, so it will probably be a little while before I go swimming.

Our next stop was at Sunshine Plaza which is like a shopping mall, but it’s outside and right on top of the water!  It was amazing!  Holly showed me all the good places to shop and took me to Maccas (McDonalds) for an ice cream cone.  Well, surprise! I was fast to learn that the Australian dollar is way different than the American dollar.  There is no “Dollar Menu” in Australia (and no sweet tea!) and a Big Mac alone would cost you about $9.  This freaked me out a little bit… and the shock wave didn’t stop there.

Later that night, we went grocery shopping. WOW! Number one, the trolleys (shopping carts) don’t have stationary back wheels.  All four wheels swivel, which makes it extremely difficult to drive around a store.  I was taking wide turns and just trying not to run into anything or anyone.  The prices of food are so much more expensive than they are back home.  A box of good name brand cereal is around $10, bananas are around $14/kg, any fresh meat or fruit is crazy expensive, and the list goes on. 

I LOVE AUSTRALIA!