First week of school and Tri Nations game

So, I have completed my first week of school and it went over very well. I had one class a day except for Wednesday i had two and friday i had 0! Their schedules are set up with one lecture per class per week and one tutorial or practical per lecture per week. The classes seem fine so far, no complaints yet, i really enjoy my Emerging Technology class because we just talk about computers, cell phones, different cool web sites to go to, and software. So it is right up my ally.

On saturday i went to a Tri Nations rugby game. The tri nations matches are, obviously, between three nations; Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. The matches are in a round robin format, so they all play each other once. the game did not start till 8 pm though, so it went for a little while. It was really cool though. We saw the Australian Wallabies play "SA Rugby" (that was there name apparently). The Wallabies won 30 to 13 so that was good to leave the stadium with a win under the local belt. And that for the most part is all i know for now. Have just started another week of classes so that is boat loads of fun! And i may be doing a little bit of traveling this weekend, but it has yet to be decided.

First day of school! First day of school!

Now I know that all of you have been patiently waiting by your computers hoping i will update any second. Well wait no more, the time has come. (what i mean by that is sorry about the 7 day delay and i will do my best to make the intervals between posts shorter)
My first day at Uni (wow, im so hip using aussie lingo) went a little like this... woke up at 10 a.m. with the thought that i would get over to campus early, wander around and make sure i knew what i was doing and where i was going before my 1 pm class. but alas we all know i am not that motivated... so instead i woke up at 10, made some easy mac for breakfast, finally unpacked, set up my school email(again... finally), and then began downloading Finding Nemo. Well when i did finally set up my email, i had a couple (47) waiting for me in my inbox. So i sifted through them and found one that said the first tutorial class for my monday class was canceled due to there was nothing to work on till after the first lecture. So, my day starting at 1... turned into my day starting at.... 5. What a rough first day i will say. I will tell you what i have already started to like this.
Going to school is slightly different here...obviously. For one, i walk to class across a sweet bridge, second, the syllabus are like 11 pages long, and lastly, the profs introduce themselves by their first names.... and that is it. there is no Dr. Tim Rollins... just Tim. so that took me for a little bit of a loop, but other than that it seems all fair.
in other news, i got a couple new flat mates. two from Dubai, which i rarely see. and one from Boston. so that is all good and fun. and i believe that is about all i have for this installment of the blog. Continue to wait anxiously by your computers and i will not fail at keeping you on the edges of your seats.

I forgot I came here for school

so the other day i went over to the school to get my ID card and all that fun stuff. What i forgot was that i had to sign up for classes... ugh, why cant this just be a long vacation?! I had a bunch of classes ok'ed by QUT and Miami so i had plenty to choose from, it just came down to the days i wanted to be in school. And as most of you know, i am not a big fan of friday classes (or classes at all for that matter) so i did my very best to have friday off. once that was accomplished i thought... i wonder if i can have a 4 day weekend? Turns out i cant, The best i could do was out of class by 12 on Thursday, so a 3 1/2 day weekend is not bad at all. I have signed up for Business Law, Emerging Technology, Marketing, and Australian Society and Culture. So i should have a fairly easy schedule, minus the two business classes.
Yesterday we had to do a whole bunch of orientation things and have them tell us not to binge drink, and dont get raped, and make sure we go to class. the normal bit you get when you are a freshman. the only difference was that this meeting took 4 hours.... with no breaks. and all international students. so that got old real quick.
Well, the only new news is that tonight i am going on a Brisbane River Cruise with all the international students. So that should be a whole bunch of fun. There is a meal, bar, and dance floor all on the boat. I doubt i will be bored, so i will do my best to find my camera and take some pictures.
Thats all for now folks. Enjoy your night/day

First day driving!

ok, sooo, i drove my sweet car today. I have decided to name her Gertrude; and she is quite beautiful! I took her for a drive today with two of my other friends. We just got on the M1 (highway) and started driving towards the beach. We got distracted by a sign with a manatee on it and wanted to go see it. We failed, but ended up finding a wildlife reserve and got to see a couple of wild animals in the the wild. We saw a wallaby, a kookaburra, and some other crazy random birds. then we made our way home and that is the night. Any ways, yesterday i went to school and got my classes figured out. I have class Monday thru Thursday, but i finish at noon on Thursday. so i have a 3 1/2 day weekend. so no complaints there. Other than that, i really have not done anything exciting. I have just been walking around the city trying to get to know everything around here. I think things are going quite well, i like my apartment so i got lucky there. This city is beautiful and so much fun. it reminds me a lot of Toronto, Canada. It is very clean and orderly, but there is some decent night life. Tomorrow a group of us are going to the Sunshine Coast to do some surfing. so a nice early morning drive up north to some warmer weather for some surfing then back again later that night. So that is all for right now, i will be sure to let you know how my surfing fiasco goes.

ok, i tried to upload some images... but it did not work. so make sure you check them out on facebook

Great Barrier Reef

So, our second to last day in Cairns we went on a little boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a two hour boat ride out on a big dual hull sail boat. Our first stop was at some bird sanctuary island that the reef was right by, so we were boated to the island then snorkeled out to the boat to get ready for our scuba dive. And i really do mean scuba dive. I am an non certified scuba novice that they let go down 35 feet for about 30 min and scuba the reef. Oh and did i mention that this dive was a mere AU$70. So that was realllly awesome! we then went to a second area of the reef where i just snorkeled. there was a slight problem with the whole day, it was mad crazy windy, like gusts of 40 knots. But it was the GBR... so i got over that quite quick. any ways, after our 2 1/2 hour boat ride in we got back to the hostel and hit the sack because we had an early morning the next morning. We flew out of Cairns at 10 with breakfast at 7. There were a couple problems with the taxis as we were trying to leave, finally got to the air port where they tried to charge me $200 to check my bags because i could not show proof that i came from the states. As if my passport and accent were not enough. found my original tickets and finally got around that. Slept the entire flight to Brisbane. Arrived here is Brisbane and got into our rooms, only to find out that the previous tenant has yet to move out. And the lady helping us at the counter was not exactly doing that... so, after trying to explain what she had done wrong (nicely of course mother), i got moved to a different room temporarily. And i will be moving back down to my original room shortly. Had a wonderful burger just down the road from my building and am currently waiting on my phone to get here. And if you have any desire to call me for an absurd price, my number you need to call is +61449874509
so there we go, and off to the next adventure, i will be sure to try and get some pictures up the next time i am on my own computer and able to upload them.

Held a Koala and pet a Kangaroo

So, got up nice and early this morning and went to breakfast. Nothing exciting, just some toast and peanut butter. Had the option for some vegimite but decided it was not time yet. We had our second session for how we are going to be living in Australia rather than traveling here... so that was a little depressing. But after that we went out on this rainforestation thing which was pretty cool. I hung out with some kangaroos and even got to hold a koala, i also had a snake draped around my neck... but that is no where near as cool as the other two. And i would love to put up some pictures to show you all but at the moment i am not able to use my computer and the ones i am using do not allow me to upload pictures from external drives... damn you internet cafes!!! We took a ride in this boat called a duck or something. it was an amphibious vehicle. so- half of it was on land and the other half on the water. mainly looking at some crazy plants and what not. I am just about to go learn how to play cricket. so im pretty pumped about that. so for now, you all will have to do with this short little post and wait until i have another adventure or am able to upload photos.

Sorry it took so long

Sorry i have not posted in a while, I have just been trying to enjoy every bit of japan that i can.... and i have found that computers have no place in that when you want to walk around a beautiful city like Tokyo! Anyways, did a lot of fun stuff since my last post. I went to dinner with Mari's friends from her old school. We went to a place where you cooked your food on a hot griddle right in front of you, kind of like hibachi places, except you do the cooking. so that was really cool. I also spent a day with Nita-san, who works for Ferno Japan, we went to Mt. Fuji and took a scenic boat right around a beautiful lake. then we drove up a mountain a little bit and we bought eggs that were black... they turn black when they are hard boiled in the hot springs on this mountain. In my opinion... they were better than normal hard boiled eggs, but i digress. We also saw a shrine and a temple (Mari told me the difference but i cant remember what it is). Those two were pretty cool, we threw some money at Buddha, waved smoke over our head, and go a fortune out of a drawer.
On my last day, mari and i went and did these photo booth things that are at like carnivals and what not in the states... but they are HUGE in japan. Huge as in, it is sunday and we have to wait in line to do these picture things. Then we went to the busiest intersection in the world, the one they drift through in "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift"... sooooooo cool, and to top it off, i saw a Nissan GTR go through the intersection.
i then had to say goodbye to that lovely girlfriend of mine and make my way onto a 9 hour flight. The plane was smaller than the first flight i took... so that made sleeping impossible seeing as my knees were in my chest and the back of the seat in front of me was in my face. But i survived to make my connection which was delayed. And i finally landed in Cairns, Australia, checked into my hotel (only $20 a night... awesome!) and i am just about to go grab a bite to eat. so you all enjoy your day because i sure as hell am enjoying the 80 degree sunny with a slight breeze Australian weather.