Just a look around campus
Here are a few pics from around campus that I took when I just arrived. It’s really a good looking place, very old fashioned.
Here are a few pics from around campus that I took when I just arrived. It’s really a good looking place, very old fashioned.
Each night at dusk, the bats come out. These things are huge, about the size of a large crow. They are really creepy and fly totally silently, unless you happen to scare one out of the tree once it has landed… then there’s this gross leathery flapping noise as their wings hit each other in the air. There are thousands of them and they come each night from the south and head up north towards Southbank. Who knows if that’s where they stop… I think they are fruit bats, and they don’t seem to bother anyone, so I’m not too concerned, but they still are very creepy.
I saw one once, on the ground in the middle of the day. It must have broken a wing or something, cause it was still alive. I could see it’s heartbeat in it’s furry little chest. It’s beady eyes would pop open and look around, seemingly panicked, when I came close. It would breathe faster too. Big furry ears and an upturned nose gave it that weird bat look. I felt a bit bad leaving it there, but didn’t have the courage to do what was probably the right thing. Someone else phoned the SPCA and they came and got it. I’ll bet they just chucked it in the garbage.
I’ll try get a photo sometime. (Of the living/flying ones)
We had yesterday off because of some strange scheduling (mis)fortune and decided to hit the beach. With our sights set on North Stradbroke Island, just east of Brisbane, we were up at 5:30 am for a 6:30 bus, and the combination of buses, trains, ferries and walking gave us an arrival time of about noon.
The beach was beautiful, wide and flat, with great sand. We swam, tried to surf and just took things easy. Sean, Brian and I reverted to our boyish roots and started catching crabs in the tidepools. A retreat to the restaurant started the trip home. It was a good 4 hours in the sun, and I’m really feeling it now. A few days hiding from the sun and I’ll be good. Hopefully I don’t molt.
I am writing this from my home. Literally in my bed, which is great because up until now I have been unable to connect from home, through my cell phone. It was extremely frustrating, and I even spent an hour on the phone with the provider’s tech support to no avail. Even he gave up, and said he’d have someone call me.
Then, the solution came to me in a dream. Not really, but it did come to me. See, to speak to people in Canada, I run a program on my phone that connects to a Canadian phone number. I thought maybe this is somehow getting in the way of the computer connecting. Sure enough, turn off the program, and click! it’s on, no problem.
So it’s great, and now I have internet wherever I go.
Which brings up a new, good problem. Internet wherever I go is no longer good enough, since I now have a roommate. His name is Brian and is in the Med program. From the east coast of Canada. So I’ll be getting more internet soon. And some more furniture. (Fridge and washer are in.)
It’s pouring rain today, and the air conditioners are still blasting away. I’ve been cold all day, and have twice had to go outside to warm up. It’s a strange feeling stepping out into a grey wet day to warm up from the cold library or class! Not much new to report, just getting things together here.
I have no internet connection at home and it makes a lot of things very difficult.
I am supposed to be able to connect my laptop to my cell for internet, but it doesn’t work. What’s worse, it worked once. Not the first time. It was about the tenth time. It made me think I had solved it, and then hasn’t worked since.
Literally more frustating than typing a post on nine keys… At least this is working. Hopefully it stays working since it’s my only link!
Two days ago. Despite living through the peak of the late-nineties-wear-scrubs-to-school fad, I donned a set for the first time at my apartment. I have them so that I can wear them for the Med sports day, which I understand we all will be wearing them and running around like crazy. Anyways, that brings up another point, and that is that I do in fact have an apartment now. It’s pretty close, and takes me 11 minutes to walk to campus and 15 to get to where the lectures are held.
What I don’t have is furniture, but that is slowly changing. I took delivery of a bed, and will hopefully very soon be getting a desk and couch. A fun little feature of the Australian property rental scheme is that tenants are responsible for their own refrigerator, which means I have no fresh food right now.
Also along the lines of what I don’t have is internet at home, but am looking to resolve that fairly soon. I’ll takes some photos to show where I’m living soon. (I updated the “Where’s Dave” link to the left to show where my new place is)
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