Classes/Mission Beach

So classes started last Monday. I guess we will see how that turns out. I keep hearing that classes here are much more difficult than back at home. Although, I dont think that I will have another experience similar to Duke this past summer. For the semester I am taking Australian Literature, The Love Story in Cinema, Biodiversity of Tropical Australia, and Human Development across the Lifespan. I do not think that I have a favorite so far. Everyone keeps asking em why I am not taking more biology courses, and I was going to at first, but the more that I look into biology classes, the more I realize that I can take the majority of them at Spelman. And I didn't come here to take the same classes. So far I will still be on track. The only thing that is throwing me off is physics, but I can't do much about that now.

This past weekend, the JCU crew had our excursion to Mission Beach, although we were supposed to be going to Hinchinbrook island. We took a walk through the rainforest, went snorkeling on the reef, had a bbq, went to a winery, and saw the inside of a sugar mill. We came back yesterday. We stayed in a hostel. I had never been in one before. It reminded me a lot of my girl scouts days. It was a room of 6 and the beds were bunked. The name of it was Treehouse Hostel. The place was really quite amazing. The living room was outside and set up quite similar to a treehouse. There were a lot of other travellers there too. But the place was very peaceful to say the least.

When we were on the reef I attempted scuba diving. I was so excited and I told our leader nice and early that I wanted to do it. So when the time came I listened during the intro session, put on all the gear, stepped into the water and completely FREAKED OUT... I went bizerk! I felt like I couldnt breathe and that I wasn't getting enough air. I told them to get me out of that water and probably wasn't too nice about it in retrospect. But what can I say, I would rather freak out beside the boat than to freak out underwater. But I got to see a little bit of the coral when I was stable enough the try snorkeling again (which I wasn't too good at either). But I am willing to try it again, but I think I want to take classes first. I felt like they had just thrown us out there. Plus, there is no better place in the world to learn how to scuba dive than here near the great barrier reef. I tried to take a few pictures of the scenery, but I don't think any of them came out very well.

Oh yea, on the way back from Mission Beach we stopped at a place called Paradise Wateringhole, which was very lovely. I have included a video of it because a simple picture will not do. Enjoy!

Well I must go off to class now, its Biodiversity for now. Until next time...

Kiara

PS: I promise to start blogging more!!