Stradbroke Island

Argh, I just wrote a long entry and accidentally pressed a button and erased it all. Figures.

Anyway, this will be the condensed version of my weekend. On Saturday, I went with my marine science class for a field trip at Stradbroke Island in Moreton Bay. It was pretty fun; I got to see dolphins, a sea turtle, stingrays, and lots of fish  and crabs. For one afternoon we had to design an experiment with a group and we picked sea cucumbers, which are silly little animals that filter sand to eat bacteria, so all they basically do is lie in the water and occasionally (and extremely slowly) make their way somewhere else. We saw a 60 year old boat wreckage with a bunch of trees growing out of it. We went hiking along the beach, clambering over giant rocks, and then we all went swimming. I'm getting used to the water a bit more, and I had a really fun time playing in the huge waves like I did at Noosa last weekend. We played cricket, and turns out I'm amazingly good at it (somewhat surprisingly). I had a really good time, and then we drove back to Brisbane. It was St Patricks day, so a lot of us went to an Irish pub, where a band was playing and we all had a good time.

Tomorrow I have a busy day at school and museum volunteering, and then Thursday commences my Easter break. It's weird to have a break because I feel like I just started school a week ago (really three weeks ago or so), but it just happened to work out that way. I'm going to Fraser Island until Monday with my Australian biology class. I'm pretty excited about it, and I'm sure we'll do interesting and fun things. Everything is so relaxed here; it's typical of the state. Some people have license plate frames that say "Relax, it's Queensland". Next Tuesday, Marie and I fly to the Whitsunday Islands to meet up with some other people. We plan on going swimming, snorkelling, kayaking...you know, the usual. (Haha.) That should be fun, so I'm looking forward to getting away for a week and a half before I have to  come back to school. I've just realized that I have two papers and a midterm one week after I get back, so I'll go straight from relaxing like crazy to seriously getting some work done. It's fair though...I've been at school for a month and my classes have hardly requested any work.

I really hope I get my camera delivered tomorrow as scheduled. Otherwise, I won't have one for Fraser, but at least it'll be here before I go on the other half of my trip. So, this is likely to be my last entry until April, unless I hijack a computer at the hostel we'll be staying in.