Hey peoples! How's everyone doing? I hope Miami peoples are enjoying their spring break so far!
By this time I've settled into my weekly class schedule quite nicely. Tuesdays a proving to be the most tiring. I have 6 hours of lectures and labs with no breaks in between. I don't even get lunch most Tuesdays. Instead I just make sure to eat a big breakfast before my 9am lecture.
I can't believe I've been taking classes here for over 4 weeks now. Which means I've been in the country for about a month and a half. Time is going by so fast, especially because I've been doing things every weekend. This past weekend was my first weekend off since I've arrived. I needed a bit of time to rest. It was fun though because on Saturday I was talking to my friend Peter at lunch and I mentioned that I was thinking about watching Tangled that night. Later that afternoon I got a text from him asking me what my favorite ice cream was. After dinner he surprised me with said ice cream and we watched Tangled together. Little hint for you boys out there, the best guy friends are those who are not ashamed to watch Disney with their gal friends. And if you bring ice cream that's even better. Just saying ;)
Here at JCU they have a lot more hands-on practicals/labs. In general I really enjoy and appreciate that. Although last week was... a trial... to say the least. In lab we had to dissect a fish head to look at the bone and muscle structures. That wasn't bad. The trial came after the lab, later that night. We had to take the fish head home and take all the bones out. Because my lab partner and I didn't want to stink up any common areas in the college and the sun set so we couldn't keep working on it outside, we ended up spending 5-6 hours taking the head apart on my balcony. Yup. My room smelled like fish and formaldehyde for several days after that. The next night we had to clean the bones and I got stuck dealing with the brain. For your sake I won't go into detail. Thankfully because my balcony is in the sun most of the day my lab partner is in charge of changing the water for the rotting process (the remaining flesh rotting off the bones in a sealed pale of water). In a few weeks we have to reassemble the main bones of the skull for assessment. That doesn't bother me. The process leading up to that, however, was definitely a test of patience, stomach strength, and mental stability. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if they had given us time to do it all in the lab but in the end you just have to put your head down and do what you have to do, right?
I'm discovering that you don't get to sleep much on Friday nights in Uni Hall because of all the noisy drunks in the beer garden outside my room until midnight and then because of all the noisy drunks returning from the pubs between 2-4am. It's too hot to close the window.
Next week on Thursday I leave for my first field trip to Orpheus Island to study coral which I'm super excited for! Definitely looking forward to that!
Lastly, I kind of have my senior year at Miami planned out. I will for sure be a full time student next semester but with minimum credits and minimum academic classes. I would be graduating at the end of fall semester except the last class that I need for my thematic sequence isn't offered until the spring. So I will be a part time (instead of a full time) student and a part time employee spring semester.
Overall I'm doing well and I absolutely love it here. Honestly I would not be surprised if I ended up living in Australia for a while sometime in the future. I guess we'll see where life takes me. As far as my collarbone is concerned, there have been no signs of returning infection and the scar is still red but has thinned out a lot where the second surgery was done. It still gets a bit sore when I sleep in one position for too long so I still wake up a couple of times every night but it's getting better as I slowly work on strengthening the muscles around it.
That's about it for a life in general update from me. As a concluding note, I saw this online yesterday and it really caught my attention. I wanted to share:
Something to ponder.
Later peoples!
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