Welcome

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't written in such a long time, but it's time for a new leg of my journeys this year. In six days I am leaving for Australia, the wonderful land of OZ. Let me tell you a little bit about the program I am going on.

Background: This is a Stanford program that was started about four years ago. There are 47 Stanford students (mostly Juniors) going on this trip. The program is through the Marine Centre of the University of Queensland. We start on the 25th and finish final exams on the 16th of December. Then I am jetting off to New Zealand for five days.

Locations: As you may have noticed, I included a map in this posting. We start out in Brisbane and stay there for a week. Then we go off the Moreton Bay Research Station in Stradbroke Island for a week and a half before heading to Lamington/St. Lucia (half the group is in one place for four days and then we switch). We then spend two more weeks in St. Lucia on Heron Island; I should google this place and see what's so special about it. This long stint is followed by five days of gruesome traveling (and lectures) to get to the Daintree Rainforest. We spend a week and a half there before booking it to Sydney where I only get a week! Three weeks in Brisbane finish off the quarter, with classes and exams.

Courses: I have a fun-filled quarter of amazing classes! Everyone takes the same five courses, so they better be interested in ecology and conservation! We take both Coastal Forest Ecosystems and Coral Reef Ecosystems; Coastal Resource Management; Australian Studies; and the Targeted Research Project (I'm hoping for Coastal Resources and Indigenous People).

It should be an exciting trip that is very much along the lines of what I am studying. We don't get weekends off, but we have 9 free days and a lot of fun exploring for classes. I mean, snorkeling around a coral reef to look at the ecosystem just isn't the same as sitting in a lecture hall. So, I'm super-excited, super-nervous, and have a super-large amount of things to get done before I leave.

-Signing off, but stay tuned!