Cairns, Australia!

Okay, so I know I'm a little behind on updating this thing... but here's a short summary of what I did last week in Cairns, Australia!

Since I'm studying abroad through the Australearn program, I had an orientation week in Cairns with 150 other Americans. I hated being with so many other Americans! It made me feel like such a tourist (which I was... but still!). It was really nice meeting other people doing the program though, and I feel like I made a few friends.

On the first day we were there, we planted fruit trees for cassowaries. Cassowaries are an endangered, dinosaur-like bird in Australia. They are major players in Australia's ecosystem since they are they only birds that eat the fruit from specific fruit trees, which allows the trees to spread their seeds.



On the second day I was there, about half of our group went snorkeling on the reef. It was amazing! We took a two hour boat ride out to this bird sanctuary island and snorkeled right off of the beach. I saw many colourful fish and coral, jellyfish, and even a tortoise! Here's one of the only pics documenting my crappy swimming abilities:



On the third full day, we went to this place called 'rainforestation.' We held koalas and pythons and pet wallabys and kangaroos. It was AWESOME.



Here's a picture of our whole group:


On Friday, Ashley (my housemate in Brissy... who is a raw vegan) and I went to the largest farmers market in all of Queensland. It was a city block long! I decided that I wanted to go raw for a day... and this was literally the best day I could have chosen. I ate tons of avocados and carrots all day long.



All in all, it was a great week! I'm glad I got the touristy shit over with though...

New Neighbors

Yesterday I discovered that there are new neighbors next door...

Last year a couple feral cats moved into my neighbors garage. We were shocked and somewhat disgusted that our neighbors were actually feeding the feral cats, but not de-fleeing or sterilizing the cats.

The cats have had more than one litter of kittens, but this is the first litter that has actually allowed us to hold them.

AND THEY ARE SOOOO DANG PRECIOUS.

There are three white and grey kittens and one black and grey kitten.


I'm hoping that I can tame them to the point where they can be adopted out. So there isn't a shitton of inbred cats around my parents house within the next few years.

Updatezz

This weekend I went to Ames to go to bootytronic with some friends from Decorah. It was pretty fun! My friends met my parents, and my parents loved all of them. It was a random group of kids... Me(tall girl with bleach blonde hair), Rose(a small redheaded girl with a mohawk, Yves(a french guy suited in american apparel clothing), and Will and Josh(two football players from the south side of chicago).

In other news... My hermit crab, Turtle, the best pet in the world died this weekend while I was away in Ames. I was going to bring her home this weekend, but she had been looking pretty splotchy inside of her exoskeleton, so I figured she was going to molt soon. She must have been in the process of molting, but didn't quite make it. Poor thing. Loved dat crab. She had so much personality for having a brain the size of a pin eye. So curious. RIP Turtle... you'll be missed.
Update #3 is that I got accepted into the Queensland College of Art at Griffith University in Brisbane. So I WILL be taking art classes while I'm in Australia. Which will be awesomeeee... I also just booked all my flights through the Student Travel Agency and I found out that I will have a stopover in Fiji for four days on my trip back. THAT will be wicked. Never thought I'd ever go there, WOW. I'm also leaving the states on July 10th now instead of July 5th. (Returning on November 30th)

Update #4 is that I dyed my hair turquoise. I've decided I need to go back to my normal colour(dark brown). I'm sick of bleaching my roots every two weeks to keep it from lookin' trasheee... I've gotten mixed reviews, but I really don't care either way because it's only temporary. People tend to either love it or hate it. It's something I'm probably never going to do again but I think it turned out pretty successful.

My final update is that I have one final left. It's a take-home essay final, so I've just been putting it off for the past few days. It's due at 10 am tomorrow morning and I'm not allowed to spend more than two hours on it so I might work on it for an hour tonight and an hour tomorrow.

i repeat... volcanoes are awesome.

Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull - May 1st and 2nd, 2010 from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.

The Very Best

Some of my favourite movies were made in the the 80s.


In 1982:
Jim Henson's masterpiece was produced; The Dark Crystal.



Tron... starring Jeff Bridges!!


Andd... We must not forget, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial... CLASSIC. Makes me cry almost every time.



In 1984:
Purple Rain... All songs written by PRINCE and the Revolution!! (even the songs that Morris Day and Appolonia sing)



[THE ORIGINAL] Repo Man! COMPLETELY different plot from that new movie starring Jude Law. This one has aliens, punk rockers, andd Emilio Estevez in it.




In 1986:

David Bowie's Labyrinth... I think it speaks for itself.




There you have it. The BEST movies from the 80s.... That I can think of off the top of my head... I'm sure If I thought about it a bit longer I could think of many many more. Love da 80s. Probably one of the most innovative decades for movie making.

Volcanoes are AWESOME.

awe·some(adj); \ˈȯ-səm\

1 : expressive of awe
2 a : inspiring awe

I watched a show on Discovery last night about volcanoes. It was soooo cool!

My friend Laura Ihry spent the year in Iceland. This is a image she took of the eruption at Eyjafjallajökull. It is truly awe-inspiring..

BBBbbbbbbbb

It's been two weeks since Rachel left Decorah and one week since she flew out of the country. I'm holding up, to say the least. I do find that I've been bored more often and feel like I have less to look forward to on a weekly basis though. I've had to force myself to be more creative with my time, otherwise I feel like a worthless sack of meat.

I went to Milwaukee and Madison this weekend. I am the trip planner for LAC(luther artists' collective) so I had to plan the wholeeee trip by myself. It turned out to be a success.

The drive down was a little stressful because it was pretty stormy and windy for the majority of it... but at least when we drove past my favourite tree on highway 18 it wasn't raining so I could get this cool shot of it.



The Milwaukee art museum is one of my favourites in the midwest.

It TOTALLY trumps the Walker. For one, they have a pretty good selection of art, and a pretty good variety in artists/genres. Probably the biggest letdown there was seeing the Raphael "Woman with the Veil." It was cool, but the entire mezzanine floor was devoted to this one painting. B0ring.




We also walked around the historic third ward for a while on Saturday... And that was cool because we went to a lot of smaller galleries.

Sunday in Madison was kind of silly and maybe a waste of time because nothing opened up until 10 and we had to leave by 1... but it was still fun to walk around State Street and people watch.

The only problem with the trip was that I didn't get a lot of school work done.... AND I just got accepted into the program at Griffith University in Brisbane and have a shit-ton of paperwork to still fill-out before I can actually fly over. I'm in the process of making up a portfolio to submit to the art college! If I get in to that my housing situation and finances will change AGAIN... Ssosooo... although I'm accepted into Griffith, a lot of my future plans still hang in the air. It's frustrating, but I should have everything solidly planned soon.

That's all for now I guess!
Z