It's been a year...

Last year at this time I was preparing to go to Australia and anxiously awaiting the day of departure. Now I am back at Simpson. It's been an interesting adjusting period. Everyone asks about Australia and it's a challenge to know what to tell them. How long of an answer do they want? I want to tell them all my stories, but at the same time I don't want to bore them and for most of the stories they would be meaningless to those who weren't there when they were actually happening. The more time goes on the more I realize that while I was in Australia, though I was having the time of my life, I was also constantly thinking of people back home missing them, but now that I'm back home I constantly think about the people who I was with in Australia and wishing I could go back with those people and about how many more things I could have done while in Australia. Why is it so hard to just live in the present where I'm at and enjoy the here and now rather than always dwelling on the past and wishing I could go back to it?

Though only in Australia for four short months, it definitely did take some adjusting coming back to the states. Even just little things, but things like remembering which side of the car to get in and not freaking out when it looks like no one's driving....lol. Things like having to go to class three times a week instead of once a week, not being able to just catch a bus/train or ferry to go on random cool adventures with friends or by myself, not being able to simply go to the beach to do homework whenever I feel like it and things like not going out and doing stuff with friends almost every day and night.

I recently joined a program with a group at Simpson where we read through the Bible in 90 days. We read about 12 pages a day and then once a week we all meet for discussion and there's a video we watch with a speaker. This along with resources to help us makes it so it's not simply reading through the Bible but helping us engage in it as well. I have only just started but I am super excited to see where God takes me on this journey. Some people might ask why you would want to read the whole Bible and my answer is that I want to know the Bible in it's entirety, to be more familiar with it and I hope it will draw me closer to my Savior Jesus Christ. Also, when people in my life ask me a question about Jesus or the Bible I want to be able to better answer the question and better direct them on where to look in Scriptures. While in Australia, I had a couple instances where someone on the street in passing heard our American accents and started talking with us. We mentioned that we went to Westley University which led to talking about how we are Christians. One instance in particular, a woman began telling us her story and asking lots of questions and I found myself unsure of how to best answer. Thankfully my friend with me answered with specific verse in the Bible and other knowledge about Jesus that comes from a closer relationship with Him and from knowing His word. This instance really encouraged me to strive to learn more and more so I can better answer questions that are thrown at me.

I hope to continue to update this blog as the semester continues, but we'll see how busy I get.

New Zealand

Once again, I apologize for the delay of this post and it is kinda long overdue, but I still want to post it.

Sunday June 14th all of us ASCers met outside of Wesley ready to set off on a new adventure, but sad to leave the life we'd made the last four months in Australia. It was hard saying goodbye, especially since I knew that the odds of seeing them again are pretty slim.

We arrived in Aukland, New Zealand after an uneventful 3ish hour flight. There was rolling green hills everywhere!! It was so BEAUTIFUL! All the green and hills made me realize how much I had missed home. After collecting all our bags and getting through customs (thankfully there weren't too many snags at customs, just a few minor ones) we were off to the YHA we were staying at for the night.

Monday, June 15th we headed to a town called Whakatani (pronouned Fahkahtahnee) which was a few hour bus ride away. There we stayed at a Maori (the native people of New Zealand) village. The Maori have a sacred house (like our church) that they call a Marae. This is the building we slept in, they had mattresses laid out in rows on the floor, boys on one side, girls on the other (for the most part anyway). Interacting with this Maori family was a lot of fun, I learned alot about their culture and it was very interesting.

Tuesday we began the journey back to Aukland, but stopped in Rotorua for the night. We stopped at another Maori village where in one of their churches they have a famous window with an etching of Jesus that's pretty neat. Jesus is etched into the window, but when you look at it you see him against the view outside the window and if you look at the right angle it looks like he's walking on water. We also went to a Maori cultural show where we got to experience a traditional hangi meal, and some traditional Maori ceremonies. The thermal resort we stayed at in Rotorua had a natural hot springs hot tub that was a lot of fun, though it smelled like rotten eggs because of the sulfur.

Wednesday we completed our journey back to Aukland. On the drive back we stopped in Hobbiton, the town where some of Lord of the Rings was filmed. However, to get technical, the movie was filmed on a farm just outside of Hobbiton, and you have to pay lots of money to go out to that farm, but the town is now called Hobbiton. We also stopped at a place called Te Puia where we saw a geyser and lots of other natural thermal areas. We stayed the night in the same hostel in Aukland we stayed in the first night.

Thursaday we went to a place called Laidlaw Mountain where we were going to hike up and look at some ruins of a city, however, I had been having issues with my foot (shoes with bad support and it had been hurting pretty bad) so Kimberly (the ASC director) had me stay behind in the bus. I had a nice long chat with the bus driver though, I got to hear all kinds of stories about trips he'd been on, groups he'd had in the bus, etc.

Friday was our free day, we could do anything we wanted to. I started out shopping a bit with some of the group, but we got split up so I went off by myself to explore Aukland more. I had a map and found several parks around and began to head towards one. I walked to several different ones before I found one that was what I wanted.....peaceful, off the beaten track, and with good places to sit. I found a nice tree, climbed up in it and jornaled and just sat and relaxed for quite a while.

Saturday we again packed up all our stuff and returned to Aukland airport. These goodbyes were even harder than Australia because we had to say goodbye to Kimberly, Melanie, and Matt and we said our goodbyes to each other there too in case we didn't get a chance in the confusion at LAX. I pretty much bawled my eyes out.....yep that sums it up. The flight back was super long, even though it was only 12 hours (which was 2 hours shorter than our flight to Australia) it felt like an eternity. I didn't sleep at all and I was boxed in by sleeping elderly people. I watched 5 1/2 movies. This was the day I got to live twice. We left the Aukland airport at around 3pm on Saturday, June 20th, were on a plane for 12hours, then arrived in LAX at around 7am Saturday, June 20th. Weird. A bunch of us went to Chantel's house from the airport for something to do during our layovers. Her mom made us breakfast, it was amazing, though we all fell asleep all over her living room floor. I however, didn't go back to the airport. My aunt and uncle, who live nearby, picked me up.

I spent a few days with my aunt and uncle and got to see my cousins and their new baby and got to hang out with my other cousin. Then on Tuesday, June 23rd, they drove me to the Long Beach airport and I flew home. And that ends the most amazing 4 month journey ever!

The Last Few Weeks in Sydney

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted, the last two months were crazy busy!

Here are the pictures I took for my final photography portfolio:

I went surfing for the first time ever! I wasn't very good at it, but it was such a fun experience. I almost got up a couple times, but my timing was a bit off. On one wave, I fell off the board, only to be pummeled by the next 3 waves and somewhere in that time, my board hit me in the head right above my eye. Thankfully it wasn't bad, but it did bleed, haha, a battle wound.

I also did the Harbor Bridge Climb where I climbed up over the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It was such an awesome experience! By the time we got to the top it was dark outside so the city lights were spectacular. We also got to see what they call the "black rainbow". The lights under the Harbor Bridge are so bright that they cast the bridge's shadow in the night sky, it was so cool to see! It was also super windy at the top so that made it more fun as well.

The last Wednesday at Wesley, we had our chapel time (The Gathering) outside and it was a BBQ. Well, my trip to school this day involves yet another crazy bus story. I was walking to the bus stop and I was only a few feet away when I saw the bus drive by. So, I sprinted to the bus stop in hopes that I would catch the bus. I reached the stop while the bus still had it's doors open so I approached the steps and right as I was about to step up into the bus, the driver shut the doors, in my face I might add, and drove off. He wasn't even late or anything, in fact he was early so I don't know why he was in such a hurry and why he so rudely slammed the doors in my face. So, I ended up having to wait for the next bus and consequently that made me late to The Gathering.

The Friday before we left, Charlie (one of the ASCers) threw a party at his house and a whole bunch of Aussie's came and also most of the Americans. It was super fun, but hard to say goodbye to some of the Aussies.

The Rest of the Super Long One

Saturday I had my service placement again. This time we started off by going to one ladies apartment and cleaning windows. When we'd finished she had lunch waiting for us, she was super nice! Service placement has been so good! I am really glad I was placed where I was.

Sunday I went with Amy and my host brother Anthony to the Salvation Army church. It was interesting, I thought at first I'd come to the wrong place because the person up front was reading verses in Chinese, but then it went back to English and all was good.

Monday the Indigenous section of the ASC class started and we have an Aboriginal teacher named Jennifer. She's really fun, we drew pictures of how the Aborigines believe the land got settled. i'm really excited for this portion of the class and to learn more about the Aborigine culture.

Tuesday a bunch of us went over to the guys house to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We had chips and salsa and guacamole. Mexican food is very rare over here, so it was nice to have a taste of it again. We played several games of Mafia, it was lots of fun!

Wednesday I had a New Testament paper due (yes, I do actually have school work over here) so I was scrambling to finish that up. For this paper we had to take a passage in Mark and find it's parallel in Matthew and/or Luke and compare and contrast them. It was really interesting. Wednesday night I went over to the guys house and hung out for a while. We were there until 3 in the morning and by that point none of them wanted me to walk home alone, so I went home with some of the other girls and spent the night at their house then left early the next morning to get home.

Thursday I went with Amy and Jess around the city to make a movie. We stopped at Westfield shopping center in Burwood and rode in shopping carts and such up and down their escalator ramp thingys, then stopped by school and filmed some around there. Then we went into the city and swam in several different fountains, Hyde Park fountain being our main destination. It was super fun! Thursday night was movie night, we watched The Castle, well, most people watched it, I kinda slept throught the whole thing. I want to watch it though, I hear it's really good. After movie night we went over to the guys house yet again and hung out for a while.

Friday was an interesting day. For class we were meeting in the city at a museum. Amy and I went to catch a bus to the city, but the bus was 20 minutes late. That was the first thing that went wrong with the bus. Second, we were in the city and the bus turned in one direction that made Amy and I questions whether we were on the right bus or not, we were pretty sure we were, but we decided we should make sure. So, I stood up to go up and ask the bus driver. We were at a red light at the time, but as soon as I stood up the light turned green and the bus driver floored it, jerking the bus forward. I reached out to grab the bars, but missed and went flying backwards down the aisle of the bus past about 4-5 rows of seats and landed in the back sprawled out on the floor. Don't worry I wasn't hurt too badly, it was more shocking and funny then anything. I just banged up my knee pretty good, that's all. Third, on the buses here you have to press a button signalling to the driver that you want off at the next stop, otherwise they don't stop. So, I press the button so the driver would stop at the next stop where Amy and I needed to get off for the museum. We got to the stop and the driver looked back at us and kept driving. We said "excuse me, we wanted off there" but he kept on driving and driving all the way down the road and around the corner to the next stop. By that time Amy and I were in the front of the bus telling the driver that we had wanted off at the last stop. Well, he starts yelling, yes, literally yelling, at us saying that we didn't tell him we wanted off there and he'd asked if that was where we wanted off but that we didn't answer, etc. etc. Well, if he did ask us, we didn't hear him and what the heck are the buttons for if not to signal that that's where we wanted to stop, why did he think we pressed the button, for fun? Anyway, he was still yelling as Amy and I just decided to walk off the bus. He was an awful bus driver. Despite all that, we made it just in the nick of time. The Australian museum was neat. There was a whole bunch on Aboriginals as well as other many cool exhibits, such as skeletons, dinosaurs, jewels, etc. After the mueseum, we proceeded to the NSW Art Gallery and were shown around the Aboriginal art by our teacher Jennifer. We also got to see this new exhibit that had just been put up and wouldn't be opening till the next day, but Jennifer new one of the workers who let us go down and check it out! It was cool! Friday evening a group of us went to the Opera House for the Message Sticks Indigenous Film Festival to watch a bunch of short films made by Indigenous people. It was free to get in and it was in the Opera House, so why not go?? It was really interesting and I really enjoyed the films. Each of them had a strong message to share about Aborigine's and their culture.

Saturday I had service placement again. I woke up and realized I couldn't really move my neck, I could a little bit to the right, but not at all to the left and it even hurt just to hold my head up sraight, I had to tilt it slightly to the right. This was whiplash as a result of falling on the bus the day before. Despite this lack of mobility, I still went to service placement and I'm really glad I did, it was an amazing day! We re-visited this elderly couple we'd seen back towards when I first started. Dick and Vivian. They are such a sweet couple; they have the kind of relationship I want when I'm older. They have been married over 50 years!!

Sunday I was going to go to Hillsong with Jess, but her bus came early and she missed it so I didn't end up going to that. Instead, I went to meet up with a few other ASCers at the Opera House for more Message Sticks stuff. This time it wasn't short films, it was one longer film called Barking Waters. It was interesting, not the greatest filming quality, but the story was good. From there we went to a local theater to see the movie callled Samson and Delilah. It's a story about two Aboriginal teenagers and their journey. It was a fantastic movie! Very strong message!

This is a LONG one!

Wow, sorry it's been so long since I last posted, I have been crazy busy. Get ready for a long one, cause a lot has happened.

Going back to Monday, April 20th....I had my group project for my ASC class. I was talking about Australian art. My group focused on two artists: Syndey Nolan and Rosalie Gascoigne. Sydney Nolan is most known for his series of paintings on Ned Kelley (an Irish man that was very mistreated by the Austrlian police). Rosalie Gascoigne takes things she find laying around in Australia and puts them together to make art. She arranges them in such a way to portray the Australian landscape in which she found them. Both of these artists are really interesting, and I would encourage anyone reading this blog to google them and view a few of their works.

Tuesday I had my first exam since coming to Australia. It was in my Theological Foundations class. I was really nervous about it because I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't do too badly which is nice. Amy and I walked to school this morning. It was a really nice walk, and more reliable than the buses because we controlled when we left and the speed we walked and there was no traffic on the sidewalks...haha. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to walk; it's 6.4 kilometers. After my Theology class I went to a Thai restaurant just down the road with all the Theology professors and some other students because it was free Theology lunch day where Theology students could go eat lunch at this restaurant and the professors pay for it all. I got Chicken Pad Thai and it was AMAZING! I LOVE Thai food and it'd been a while since I'd had it so it was extra good! From there I walked back home. Tuesday night I went to a bible study at a friends house in Concord. Normally, I would take a bus all the way to their house, but I wasn't paying attention and got off way early and had to walk about 20 minutes to their house. So, all together I walked about 10 miles in one day!

Friday we didn't have to be at school until noon because it was the day we were leaving for our outback trip and we weren't leaving until 12:30pm. We were headed out to the back of Bourke at a place called Trilby Station. The total driving time was 12 hours and we split it up into two days. Friday, the first leg of the journey, we drove 6 hours to a little town called Dubbo and stayed at a little motel called Matilda's Motor Inn. Saturday we got off to an early start and drove for 6 more hours to Trilby Station. I had expected red soil at this station because that's what I pictured there being in the outback: red soil. On the drive out there, there was lots of red soil, but at the station it was a light brown. We found out this is because it floods in certain areas and where it floods the soil is light brown, so there were parts of the property that were light brown and parts that were red. The owners of this station, Liz and Gary Murray, own over 200,000 acres and they raise sheep for wool. At the moment, they have about 17,000 sheep. We stayed in the shearers bunkhouses, however, several people slept outside on a tarp under the stars. I slept outside the first night. It was amazing, the stars were SOOOOO beautiful and I saw so many shooting stars. Saturday night at campfire we had s'mores, but they were interesting s'mores because they don't have graham crackers here, so we had to use these ones that were similar and the marshmallows here are different, more sugary, less gooey and creamy if that makes sense. Also, instead of milk chocolate, we had white chocolate bars to use. They were yummy!

Sunday we had our own little worship service type thing where we sang songs, read some Bible passages and talked a bit. After that a group of us went out to explore the property some. The flies were not too, bad but still annoying, very persistent. I had a fly net, but I never used it. If the flies would have been much worse I would have used it though. It was really not that warm and a bit windy which helped keep the number of flies down. Sunday night I went with half the group on a drive around the property to look for Kangaroos. We didn't see that many, only about 5 or so, but we
also saw wild goats, wild cats and bunny rabbits.

Monday afternoon we split into two groups and got taken on a tour of the property. I was in the second group and was in Liz's car. We saw tons of Kangaroos, they would just be chilling in the middle of the road until we drove up and then they'd run to the side, but if we slowed down and stopped, they would stop too, so we could look at them and take pics and stuff, it was cool! A few of the Kangaroos had baby joeys in their pouches. We saw all kinds of stuff on their property: an old double-decker bus, the old farm house where they used to live, a dam, etc. Liz cooked for us the whole time we were there and she made some AMAZING food! We had a beef and veggie stew one night, for breakfast every morning we'd have toast and eggs, for dessert we had things like an apple crisp, dumplings with a carmel sauce, custard, some type of cake similar to rum cake, etc. YUM! However, we ate like 6 times a day (breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, dessert) so by the time I left I felt so over full, I felt like I could go without food for a whole week I ate so much! But at least we were well fed.

Tuesday we begin our long trek home, this time we split the drive up unevenly. We drove for about 8 hours this time. On the way we stopped in Bourke and visited this new cultural center that had just opened. We drove all the way to a town called Bathurst and stayed at a place called the Bathurst Sheep and Cattle Drome.

Wednesday morning we got to watch the animals perform. The people put on a cd with special music on and the sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, and goats would run in and go right to their labeled spots on the platform. It was amazing! They were well trained. Then we got to watch a sheep being sheared, some of the group got to try milking a cow, we got to hold a baby lamb, try to crack whips, etc. It was a lot of fun! We stopped in the Blue Mountains for lunch. They are so pretty, I am definitely going back and hiking in them at some point before this semester ends! They aren't really what we'd call mountains back in the states though, more like rock formations with deep valleys in between.

Thursday I went with Amy into the city. We went to the Rocks so I could look for an Opal necklace and just explore a bit. Opals are native to Australia and it's my birthstone, so I wanted to get one as a special momento. The place we found was rather expensive so we started walking back from where we came from. On the way, we found a jewelry store that was having sales so I went in. I found an Opal necklace that I really liked and it ended up being only $28 American ($40 AUD). Originally, it was $110AUD, but it was half price so $55 AUD and then the lady gave me a discount because it was my birthstone. I was super excited to find it! Then, right next door, there was a store with all kinds of Aboriginal art and such in it and it was closing down the next day so they were also having super sales. I found several things there for people back home as well as myself. And they were all directly from Aboriginal people, so they were very much authentic.

Friday was the start of the Aboriginal portion of the ASC class. We took a field trip to La Perouse in Botany Bay and were shown around by an Aborigianl guide. We went through the bush, along the cliffs overlooking Botany Bay. It was gorgeous! We learned about history and different plants we could eat or not eat.

A Week Up North

Wow, where to start. So, early Sunday morning, I caught the 5:19 bus to the airport. The trip had begun! We flew up to a town up north called Townsville and then took a ferry over to Magnetic Island. The island was so cool! It reminded me alot of the island from the tv show LOST, but minus all the creepy/weird things on that show. We stayed in a youth hostel right along the beach. It was a cute, nice hostel.


There were eight of us in the group (7 girls and 1 guy) and we all were in the same room which turned out to be a nice little cabin. It was super hot there and very very humid; it was around 85-90 degrees Fahrenheit all week and the air was super wet and sticky.

Tuesday 6 of us went down to Horseshoe Bay and went on a horseback ride through the bush, along the beach and in the water if you wanted. It was super fun!! It turned out to be about a 3 hour ride. We got to see so much and when we got to the beach, after riding along it for a while, we had the option to go bareback on our horse into the water. I didn't end up doing that, I don't know exactly why, I kinda wish I would have, but I can't go back now. Those who did go, though, got to do different things on their horse while in the water, such as stand on the horses bottom and jump off in to the water. It looked like lots of fun! I was on a horse named Kloe, she was dark brown with a white stripe on her forehead. Before the horseback ride, we had walked around Horseshoe Bay a bit and we found Wallaby Way, but unlike in Finding Nemo, there was not 42 Wallaby Way and there was no P. Sherman. Ialso got to see a few Koalas in their natural habitat.

Wednesday was the trip out to the reef. We caught the boat at 7:30 in the morning. There were about 30 people on the boat (that included us). It was a 4 hour boat ride out to the reef. Unfortunately, the trip there was pretty miserable for me. I've never gotten motion sickness on a boat before so I didn't think anything of it, but I had to fill out this waiver form and it was pretty rough water and that combination was bad. I felt pretty sick the whole 4 hour ride. It was raining off and on the whole ride over there as well, and there were no seats under cover, so I had to sit out in the rain, so I got completely soaked. Once the boat arrived at the reef, the sun came out and it was beautiful weather! The snorkle gear was passed out and we all put on stinger suits (like wet suits), flippers, and the snorkle masks, then it was off in the water we went. It was sooooo pretty!!! I didn't get my hands on an underwater camera, so I don't have pictures, but man, it was AWESOME!! I saw a giant sea turtle and swam over it for a while, and I saw reef sharks, teal/bluish fish, big ugly fish, clown (nemo) fish, black and white striped fish, etc. and of course lots of coral! I snorkled for about an hour, then came back to the boat for lunch, then went back in the water for about another 1/2 hour. I didn't want to leave!! It was so beautiful! The boat ride back was much better, I didn't feel sick and it was sunny and nice the whole way back. After getting back the group of 8 I was with, walked down the beach to a house that a group of 7 ASCers had rented and had dinner and hung out.

Thursday I hiked over to this private beach that Kelsey and Audrey had found a few days earlier. It was a nice, peaceful beach. There was no one else there for most of the time we were there. We couldn't go swimming in the ocean though because of the box jellyfish, so that was a bummer. There were some neat rocks to climb on this beach.

Friday we had to get up early and catch a bus to the Nellie Bay ferry so we could get back to Townsville and catch our flight back to Sydney. I wasn't ready to go back, it was such an amazing relaxing week!! I sat next to this crazy lady on the flight back. She was nuts!! For one, she was terrified of flying and apparently dealt with it by talking to someone (not her boyfriend, who was sitting next to me as well, she said because she always talks to him) and that someone ended up being me. She was very.......I'll just say eccentric. From the airport I went with Keri to Burwood Park to use her camera to take pictures of the giant chess board there for a photography project I had to do.

Oh yah, how could I forget. Okay, so around the hostel there were ring-tailed possums everywhere and they were not scared of people. One night, I don't remember what night exactly, Matt, the one guy in the group, decided it'd be funny to play a joke on the girls. So, there were five of us girls in the cabin and Matt picked up a possum by the tail and threw it into the cabin. I heard a thump and looked down and there was a possum in between my feet nosing up to my feet. Several of us started screaming, more from the shock of a possum being flung into the room than from the fact that is was a possum, and that freaked the possum out. Eventually we all made it outside, possum and us girls. The guys in the cabins next to ours had heard us screaming and all had come outside and were all laughing at us, which I was laughing to by that point. It was pretty funny!

Good Friday Production

Jesus talking to his disciples in the garden
The disciples fell asleep
Jesus crying out to God in the garden
Jesus waking his disciples
Judas betraying Jesus
The guards arresting Jesus
Pilate
Jesus being whipped

Carrying the cross