Amanda's Homestay

I thought it was time that I posted some pictures and gave some information regarding where I am living and the people I am living with. I reside in a suburb called Stretton and my neighborhood is named The Parks. The house is nice and new, just over a year old. I have no complaints except that my house is way outside the city. By way outside I mean it takes me two buses and well over an hour to get to the Uni everyday. I have been getting a lot of reading completed on my journey each day but would rather be able to walk or even bike. Public transportation in this city is expensive and I am spending over $30 each week to get around.

My bedroom is very nice and also very purple (see picture below).

The inside of the house has a very modern look. I like the openess of the areas. The house must have been fairly costly for my homestay parents because they have said they are taking their time to slowly fill the rooms with furniture. For now it is a bit sparse but still comfortable.

I share a lounge area and bathroom with another girl living in the house. Her name is Rene' and she is 18. Rene is not a student and is renting the room from my homestay as if it were an apartment. She is great and we have hit it off pretty well.

I am sorry to say that I do not have any pictures of my homestay parents, Aaron and Angela, but I will tell you a bit about them. Angela is studying to be an accountant and works doing some sort of accounting related work in the mean time. Aaron draws the steel designs for buildings and other large structures. Neither have a college education which suprised me. They have done a ton of traveling worlwide and have been to a number of US cities including Boston, Seattle, Anchorage and will be spending the coming New Years in New York. They are a young newly married couple who work a lot and are rarely home. The food is good and the three of us eat dinner together nearly every night. Overall my accomodations are fabulous and I have no real complaints.

Hope you enjoyed the tour of my house.

Must get back to writing a Marine Bio report due soon...

Random Geo Exam Studying Break

Okay, so we have a geology mid-term tomorrow and I need a little bit of a break from studying so I thought I'd write out a blog post that we can all enjoy a little bit. I have a couple of blog ideas in the queue, but I know I'm not going to have time to upload video from the Brisbane Valley Fiesta, so instead I have some of the best signs from Australia. Some are from the zoo and others are from the bike trip I took with Amanda last weekend. There has also been a low roar from the fan base, demanding more pictures of Amanda so I threw in one of those, too.

I actually jumped a lot higher than that, but Amanda didn't quite have the reflexes to catch it on film. Claire, on the other hand, has a picture of me towering over Steve Irwin.

Saw this sign in some weird hippy, theatre area.

Crocodiles apparently have a hard time ripping through you. Instead they "clamp down" drag you to the water, drown you, and let you decompose, while they slowly snack on you. This was described in a lecture recently...

Tasmanian devils are quite shy, but keep your hands to yourself just in case.

Part One.

Part Two.


I wouldn't want to upset an emu.

RULES AMANDA VIOLATED:

Pics for Mom (Laura)

Mud flats on Straddie ourfront of the Research Station. Aren't the surfer booties a nice touch? They look incredibly unattractive but we are promised they will protect our feet from everything that kills.

Spooning a kangaroo at the Australia Zoo

Okay mom, I don't have time to write anything accept here are the pictures I promised. Now everyone at home can see a whole photo gallery of Amanda in Australia! I miss you. Hope you enjoy.

Amanda

at the uni

Hellooo!! steve finally taught me how to use a blog. but we have to go study for our geology midterm tomorrow!!! wish us luck!

Australia from an Amerocentric Point of View

I'll start this one with a few disclaimers. Although I've been in Australia for about two and a half weeks now (time is really flying) I am just starting to get real comfortable, so some of these observations might be a little premature. If so, I'll try to update. Also, we've spent a huge chunk of our time isolated, as a group, in beautiful Australian parks - Camp Laurence (three days) and North Stradbroke Island (seven days), so our time interacting with every day Australians is often limited to our homestay families, our professors and tutors (their term for TA), and whatever guides we meet along the way.

Hopefully Amanda and Liz will have some things to add to some of these topics and I'm sure some people will disagree with chunks. I gave some pretty brief synopsis in a lot of the categories, but leave comments and I'll address them. Until then, I have a bird report to work on (Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus).

Homestay Life

I live with a couple other Americans from Union College, Doug Merkert and Jon Campano, in a suburb about 25 kilometers south of Brisbane. We live with our homestay mother, Lauren, a host brother, Alexander (9), and a family friend, Rachel (26). I have Alexander's room for the time being and Doug and Jon share the computer room and the sole connection to the internet. Most of the time I write these blogs ahead of time and then post them when I can plug into the internet, but my computer is broken. So for the time being I write e-mails and blogs out, store them on a thumb drive and post them on campus.

It is about an hour commute to campus via a ferry to a train to a bus. I really enjoy the ride, but lately it has been crowded (because I am not leaving at 6AM anymore and am hitting rush hour), so I can't sit down and read on the train. The ferry is scenic and only takes about ten minutes to move us and a heap of cars across the river. The city of Brisbane has very few bridges, which is a bit of a pain for transport, but I'll elaborate on that later.

Lauren is fantastic and really looks after us pretty closely. I find myself hiding clothes away so she doesn't wash them every day (the environmentalist in me). She's been extremely kind and we can always have a good conversation with her about Australian life, horses, etc. She can also cook a pretty good apricot chicken, which I found out tonight. Lauren owns a beautiful home and trains horses on a few acres of river front property. She has a few claims to fame - she is training for the 2012 olympics, she met John Howard (conservative prime minister), was a model and a bank manager in the United States.

Rachel is hilarious. She is in many ways like Daria from that old MTV show. Kind of pessimistic, but really bright. She is the first to knock Australians and admit their downfalls. She is also a good source if I want an honest Australian perspective about education, politics, Brisbane night life, and so forth. She works really hard - about 60 hours a week in a tissue donation center in a morgue as well as being a full time law student. I get the feeling she really wants to make a difference.

Alexander is a handful. Extremely energetic and he talks like the kids in the movie versions of the Chronicles of Narnia. Very British sounding. "Excuse me, mother, may I have some turkish delight please?" He's a good kid, but I find myself having to trick him into getting to cooperate sometimes.

Homestay life has been very comfortable in both accommodations and the company the family brings. All very good people, always willing to offer a ride, or a perspective.

Australian Culture
(this is the section I might get myself into trouble)

Attitudes

One of the most striking things I've noticed is how similar Australians and Australia is to the United States in many ways. I find that Australians have about the same ratio of nice people to assholes and I haven't noticed, overwhelmingly, the "No Worries" attitude that Australians fame themselves for. Australians seem just as stressed as Americans - in fact, I read today in the state newspaper that Australians, on average, work the most hours of any developed nation. I find that very difficult to believe since there work week is 38 hours and they have three weeks of Holiday with added sick time, no matter the occupation. I have a feeling the United States is still number one in work hours. Anyways, the point is that I haven't experienced the rural, "No Worries" attitude. You might think this is because we are in a city, Brisbane, but almost all of Australia's population is concentrated in coastal cities - Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, and Darwin. I've heard Australians say no worries, but always in the context that Americans would say "no problem." Small situations, such as thanking someone or apologizing is met with "no worries."

Food

The similarities continue. Australians are the second most obese nation in the world, according to my host mother (U.S. is number one). This makes sense. Food here is centered around meat, as in the U.S., especially lamb, beef, and chicken. On top, butter, salt, and pepper are used more liberally here than I have ever seen in the United States. It tastes good, but I think I will be feeling it in the gluts when I get back. They seemingly have a fast food culture, as well. Replace Burger King with Hungry Jacks and their malls, train stations, and suburban shopping centers look very similar.

Societal Differences and Media

There are a few intense societal differences, though. All Australians have healthcare. I'll leave it at that. The fact that their population is very urbanized also allows them to make fairly effective public transportation - I think my farthest walk to get somewhere is two miles. It is very expensive, though. It costs me about 30 USD every week to get to and from school. Student discount doesn't apply, because I am international (they are pretty strict about it, too). Aussies also have pretty aggressive public media. The government advertises and educates about drugs, environmental issues, long term planning, citizen involvement in the schools and on television. On the Australian Broadcasting Channel the ads are mostly government public service announcements. That said, the Australian newspaper I prefer, The Australian is very conservative (a Murdoch paper) and opinion is apparent even on the front page. The alternative newspapers seem to lack focus on national issues.

Education and Native Aborigines



While Australia is much more proactive about certain civil issues, it has a gaping problem, which is obviously ignored - Aborigines. Most of the people I have talked to outside of the University setting view the "Blacks" as drunks who cannot take care of themselves, as drains on society, with special benefits, such as free education. In fact, the adults I have spoken to learned almost no Australian history (Australia started up somewhere around the time that we were ratifying our constitution, 1789, I think) and even less about Aboriginal culture or history. The view of the past and seemingly the present is that these people are inferior and, although intentional genocide was not right, they were bound to die out. Countless times I've heard them referred to as drunks. On the flip side, it seems as though industry always takes precedence over preservation of ancient Aboriginal culture, ad programs destined to help these people are mismanaged. We were told about a week ago that by the end of our brief stay here, we will know more about Australian history, culture, and the Aboriginal people than most native born Australians. I found it shocking that Australians know so little about how their government functions and about the history of their young nation and that they seemingly are very passive about issues.

Environmental Movement

Especially surprising is lack of evidence of the environmental movement that I read about before coming. Maybe I just haven't seen it, but Australia really isn't far ahead of the U.S. I was even told that most Australians didn't really hear about Global Warming until about a year or two ago. For a country so vulnerable to climate and climate change it seems that this should be a larger issue. This is a country that is already very sensitive to drought, so adding increased temperatures, sea level change (nearly all the population is coastal), and more climate variability seems like it would be and should be a huge issue. Haven't seen it. I think there is a preoccupation with the water shortages, but I don't see much foresight beyond that. I have to admit that my culture teacher told me that the climate initiatives in the government were from grassroots initiatives, but either this isn't hitting the people I interact with or it isn't widespread.

Australia has incredible and unique fauna, known nowhere else in the world.

It also has some of the best coastlines imaginable.

Australia Zoo

This past Monday our entire day consisted of strolling around the Australia Zoo. The zoo is located about an hour outside the city and is home to the Irwin family. The first four acres of the zoo were purchased by Steve Irwin's father, Bob Irwin, as a rehabilitation for native Australian reptiles. It was also used to education the public on the small crawly creatures that live around them. Steve Irwin, who we all know as the Crocodile Hunter, took over the zoo after his father passed away and the original four acres has exploded into over seventy. Now the zoo is world famous due to the success of Steve Irwin.

I normally am not a huge fan of zoos, but I must say I had a bloast at the Australia Zoo. The handlers are much more hands on with the animals than I have ever seen. We all got to hold koalas, pet kangaroos and watch wombats being taken for walks. The crocodile show was amazing and the crazy zoo keepers really do get up close and personal. In the afternoon we also saw a tiger show that was incredible. All and all it was a good day.

Mom I wish you could have been here because you would have loved every moment.

Typical Miss Nyberg. Welcome to the blog!

Meet Liz Nyberg

Liz Nyberg, another Ozoner on the trip was recently invited to contribute to this blog. Liz is an Ozone rookie and I thought I'd spend a minute introducing Liz to the blog's fan base consisting almost completely of Amanda's mother. Liz's participation in the blog completes the triumvirate of Ozoners participating in this blog on a trip that has historically had Ozoners on it; Nathali Neal in 2005, Matt Smith in 2006, and Liz, Steve, and Amanda in 2007. I feel like I'm forgetting someone...

Anyways, Liz is a track star from some place in Connecticut that is most recognized for introducing Lyme's disease to the rest of us God-fearing Americans. A junior bio-chem major, Liz spends time reading biology textbooks and has been known to spend 60 hour weekend periods studying taxonomy. An avid outdoorswomen and bird watcher, Liz has been known to get hopelessly lost on field trips, but relies on her lightning fast speed to hunt down and catch up with the rest of the group. Her powers of speed, mixed with Amanda's powers of fury (picture storm from the x-men), and Steve's sad sense of humour (sic) make this trio an unstoppable force.

Drought?

There is a lot to say about Australia. So much that it is actually a little overwhelming, because I have more topics to write about than I have time to write. One thing that has been striking about our stay here so far is that it is completely failed to live up to certain expectations. Namely, it has been raining for the last five days. On term abroad, you are not supposed to have expectations, but I really could not have expected this if I tried. You'll have to take my word on this, but I am not complaining about the drenching we've received.

It would be a little selfish to hope for dry, warm weather in a continent that has been rain starved for five years now. Brisbane's dams are around 20 percent capacity and after the last bit of rain projections are up; they will now run out of fresh water in January of 2009.

To me, that is a little concerning, yet I fail to see overwhelming concern from the Australians I come into contact with. Maybe it is the "no worries" atmosphere. Four minute showers really don't cut it, though, when the crisis is this imminent. On top, I still see and hear of people watering plants. Even more ridiculous, I heard some people complaining about the rain! Apparently this rain has been the best rain they've had in quite awhile.

So what are they doing? I've mentioned the four minute shower bit. I think most people probably follow that pretty well. People are also installing grey water systems and storage tanks when possible. Low flow shower heads are also popular. Everywhere I've been they've had controls as to whether you want a half-flush or a full-flush and toilets have tanks that are way up in the air so the water can rush your excrement away with as little water as possible. People have a limit of 120 L per day, which seems like more than enough if people worked at it a little.

The city is installing desalinization plants and will also be installing treatment plants that recycle the water. Exactly what this means is unclear, but I fear the worst. No Brisbaner has been able to tell me exactly what water is recycled, but I don't think they have separate lines for toilet water and gray water. Either way, Brisbaners do seem to know that the water meets "the highest" quality standards. That's good to know. It's also good to see incomplete recycled water lines across the river from me - the recycling bit won't be done until after I leave. A bit of a relief.

**SHORT INTERLUDE ABOUT THE REST OF NORTH STRADBROKE

North Stradbroke fits into this post, because most of the soaking we've received so far was on the island (it's been raining since Tuesday and we left the island Friday). On the island, after the marine portion, we looked into some terrestrial ecology. I guess the main part of that was learning about rainforest and sclerophyl vegetation. I hope to go into a little more detail about that later, but, in short, sclerophyl vegetation, such as eucalyptus, is a type of vegetation that has very thick, woody leaves that are well adapted to dry, nutrient choked soils. Australia has very nutrient starved soils.

On the field trips, one of the exercises we had was to do a "Species Area Curve." Basically, we start by counting the number of distinct species in a 1 x 1 meter plot of land, then a 2 x2 meter plot, then a 4 x 4 meter plot and so on. So if in the first quadrat we count four species and the next we have two new species, we have four then six (they add). Plotting the number of species versus the length of the quadrat is a way of estimating the total number of species in a region, because eventually the curve reaches a horizontal asymptote. There is some interesting mathematics to think about that I will probably try to work out on the train ride; we are plotting number of species versus length of quadrat, instead of number of species versus quadrat area, which seems odd. Anyways, in both cases the graph kind of climbs up and hits a wall, which tells us the total number of species. An approximate graph of what this looks like is below. As it flattens out at the top that is the "wall," which marks the number of species.



So anyways, we did all of this work, enthusiastically in our rain gear in the rain for three straight days. Personally, I thought it was better than being stuck in a classroom, but I think others had a different opinion. The picture at the very top of the blog is the day before the rain hit us, when we got to go to the beach and the picture below is Amanda and I on the bus in between rainy forests (not quite rainforests).




**INTERLUDE COMPLETE

So, in all, I'm glad for the rain, even though it really doesn't effect me. I think water scarcity will be the biggest problems for my generation and I'm glad that large metropolitans in first world countries are coping, because it gives hope that maybe some of the third world countries will be able to cope. Maybe. Anyways, I'll be back in New York with our plentiful water in no time.

Learning to Surf

A nice shot during a hike we took along the coast.

Beautiful view of the Pacific and some extrusive igneous rocks!

Steve and Rodbell on the mudflats.

Sunset at low tide looking out across the mud flats.

Stradbroke Island Fery.

I made it safe and sound back from Stradbroke Island late last night. Steve went home with the group but I chose to stay an extra night camping with six other students. Yesterday the weather finally cleared and I spent the day on the beach lounging and surfing. Yes, surfing. It was my first experience and poroved much harder than I had anticipated. I woke up this morning sore and bruised. Now back in Brisbane I must head to the Uni (University of Queensland) and get some work done. I have a bit of a paper due tomorrow and haven't started yet. Typical procrastination tactics. Steve is going to meet up with me and try to explain the politics of Australia to me so I can write a decent couple pages on a political cartoon. However, before I get to work, I thought I would post some pictures. They are from Stradbroke Island. I hope everyone enjoys them!

Another Blog

Prof. Rodbell set up a blog that everyone in our group can access and update. I will probably not post anything, but it will still have more information and pictures from our trip. Feel free to check it out.

http://oznz2007.blogspot.com

Time for Spit

We are still out here on Straddie surrounded by ocean and enjoying every moment. Yesterday began our couple days of Terrestrial Ecology lectures and field work. This has meant studying the plants and how they manage to grow on an island made completely of sand. The short end of it is lots of mychorizae and other symbiotic relationships with nutrient grabbing and nitrogen fixing fungi. The number of species which manage to thrive is impressive.

I have learned a new card game, Spit. Sounds gross, but is really fun. Steve and I played multiple rounds this evening and it got a bit competitive. Steve ended up winning in the end but I think it is for the best. It really tears him up when his weaknesses are exposed to me.

On the island there is the absolute best Gelati shop. The past few days we have hurried over during our lunch breaks to get double scoops in hopes of trying all of the flavours. Stradbroke Island is a quite place with a little tourist area of cute shops and restaurants. If the weather clears up, a bunch of us are planning on staying on for the weekend. The group is slotted to leave Friday evening but if this rain would stop, we are going to stay an extra night and spend Saturday surfing! Learning to surf has been on my to-do list for a while so it will be good to be able to check that off.

No worries, we still do work every once and a while. Today we had to turn in our Terrestrial Ecology work books to get ‘marked’. 15% of our grade for that class will be determined before we leave the island. So far it has been easy to stay on top of the workload, but it looks like the future holds many more late nights at the library.

Currently we are all trying to figure out how to best use our free time. Much time is spent on the internet looking up places and events that are fun, cheap and accommodate college kids. So far Steve and I have plans in the works for visiting Sydney, the Gold Coast, Tasmania and maybe even some win tasting. Budgeting is tough since most places require a plane flight or vehicle rental. No worries though, hostels are cheap and at worst, Steve brought a tent!

Still loving it in Oz.
Amanda

Ole' Straddie

School has taken on a whole new meaning for all of us here on Stradbroke Island. Today was a typical Monday spent beach combing, body surfing and playing cricket. I enjoy life at Moreton Bay Research Station much more than the city. We are staying in a sort of bunk house with four bunk beds per room and group showers. The food is incredible and they insist on feeding us every few hours. Tea time occurs between breakfast and lunch and then again between lunch and dinner. Then, just in case you didn’t get enough to eat at dinner, supper is set out in the kitchen around 8pm. It is fabulous.

Okay, I am exhausted and I just don’t comprehend how Steve has the energy to write such lengthy posts. For my family and friends, read Steve’s blog entries for the main facts and mine for supplemental random facts. That’s my suggestion.

Highlight of the day – Probably the sand castle competition. Not surprisingly, my team were the champions. The winning design was a father and son Japanese Devil Ray. Our inspiration came from getting to see one up close and personal at the station yesterday. A male Devil Ray became stranded on the beach but unfortunately it died before the researchers at the lab here were able to help. However, what is extremely cool about this find is that it is only the third Japanese Devil Ray that scientists have had a chance to study up close and the first mature male. Needless to say the scientists here at the station were ecstatic. It was pretty exciting for all of us students as well. Plus, it was great for the sand castle competition.

Okay, that’s about it. It is about 7:15pm here and I have a lecture at 7:30pm. We are learning all about coral reef colonies and it is pretty interesting. And after lecture we all have a meeting at the local pub, the Little Ships Club. Last night they were closed by 9pm so today we called in advance to let them know when we would be coming down so they could stay open. Pretty great when the community is so small that you can keep a pub open with a big enough group.

TaTa for now.

Moreton Bay Research Center: Marine Ecology and Tea Time

We're now in Moreton Bay at the University of Queensland Moreton Bay Research Center (MBRC), which has been an incredible experience. We took a ferry to the island on Saturday morning, sat through a couple lectures and went out and looked at the rocky shoreline. The shoreline was covered in oysters, clams, hermit crabs, sponges, anemone, snails, etc. We even saw some poisonous stuff, such as the blue ringed octupus (above). When the octopus flashes, it is going to bite you. The bite is extremely painful and if I remember right, it requires anti-venom. Cool stuff. That first day we also tried our hand at Seine netting; one team pulls one side of a net out into the surf, while another team holds the other side anchor and then both teams pull the net into shore. This is a way of looking at the type of fish in the area and some local aborignal kids helped us out some. Well, mostly they were destructive and played with the fish, but they could atleast work without gloves on. We were not trusted (for good reason) to identify the dangerous critters.

WARNING: This section is extremely boring and should be skipped unless you like graphs and or biology. Less boring stuff is continued below (labeled "slightly less boring" and is after the graph.)


The next day we dreamt up and carried out an experiment that we were interested in. My group decided to look at how the thickness of the oxygenated layer of sand affects marine population. Ofcourse, we couldn't look at all the marine species, because they run away, so we actually looked at the number of holes (from marine organisms) versus the depth of the oxygenated soil. There is a clear distinction between the oxygenated sand and the unoxygenated sand - the oxygenated sand is light colored and the oxygen deprived sand is dark and smells terrible. Picture at above-right is embarassing enough, so I will save Amanda the trouble of trying to steal it from me to post (right). The picture shows me counting off a five meter increment. The way we actually carried this out is we started at low tide and walked toward shore, taking a sample every five meters. We ended up going a little under 1/4 mile or 355 metres (meters in the U.S.). At each 1/2 meter-squared sample site we counted the number of holes and measured the depth of the oxygenated layer. Pictures below.









The data turned out all right. Amanda's group did the same thing, except with seagrass (they looked at seagrass density versus oxygen depth and we looked at the density of holes from marine organisms). Unfortunately, Amanda's groups saw no trends. As expected, we found that as the amount of oxygen increases the number of marine organisms increases. The graph below is a transect line. Basically it is a line stretched out from the sea shore to low tide and one series tells you how much oxygen and the other tells you how many organisms. They fit together well - as O₂ goes up, the number of holes goes up. They O₂ varies because there was a big channel going through the center, which is why we had to look under water sometimes. The data is below.


*The x-axis actually ranges from 0 - 355 metres, I messed up the scale somehow.

SLIGHTLY LESS BORING

After doing all that science stuff (sparing the written report due in a couple weeks), we had kind of a fun day today. We have spent the last week and a half almost exclusively in six hour classes, so this was a welcome change. Today we hiked along a gorge, saw some volcanic rocks, and then were able to swim, hang out, and play some cricket. I don't have pictures now, but it was incredible. The water was the bluest blue and the waves were massive. Basically we had a solid three hours to play at the beach after a really cool walk with whales, dolphins, and sea turtles visible from the gorge.

Tomorrow we'll be back in the fray of classes at the research station, with an emphasis on terrestrial ecology, rather than marine ecology...

A couple weird things: Thongs are sandals (the kind that have a strap between two toes), bathing suits are togs, tea time happens three times a day, sunnies are sun glasses, boardies are boarding shorts, and cricket is a hell of a lot of fun.