Don't worry mom, we played safe.....kinda

Well, I promised a busy weekend, so here it is:
Friday was pretty relaxing actually. After a mind-numbingly boring physics lab, my academic constraints were gone for the day. I enjoyed a nice and HOT run, but only went about 4k, it was more a pleasure run, then for conditioning, and I just wanted to go fast for a bit. After shower/dinner, it was kind of uneventful for a friday. We stayed up super late, watched a movie, and I fell asleep to Star Trek Voyager. (my new favorite way to end the night)
Saturday was when all the fun began, with hearing people come back home, drunk, at about 6:30. Well, that really wasnt the exciting part, but it was a little astonishing to say the least. It's good to know that stupidity is international, and not unique to America :P. After a few more hours of sleep, it was up for a satisfying breakfast, and a little reading. Around lunch-time, a group of us decided to head down to the river and swim for a couple hours. Well, swim and jump off the rope swing. The water was very refreshing, and the swing/dock area was just busy enough to be fun, but not enough to be crowded. Jimmy and Marisa took plenty of pictures of us being idiots for their photography assignment. Well, to be honest, it was mostly me and Jason being idiots. But nevertheless, we all had fun, and you can reep the photographic harvest of our afternoon via shutterfly. Daring each other to jump off the dock, out of trees, and 0ff the swing was great fun, and after a couple hours, we tired, and headed back for diner. Much to our delight, it was hamburgers in the DC, so all of our tummies were as happy as we were. We hung out in the dorms for a while in the evening, waiting for everyone to congregate, and decided all of us wanted to head out to the small casino down on the strand. We got showered, dressed up all spiffy, and got on the bus for Jupiter's. It's a pretty small place, but it was fun. Some played blackjack, some slots, a couple roulette players, and we all spent some time watching the rugby match on outrageously large tv's. It was a really fun night of socializing, and when we left for the night, I ended up with a net gain of $12. I was pretty excited to come out of my gambling debut with a 60% profit; but dont worry, im not getting any ideas of quitting school and making a career of it. After a sleepy bus ride back and a cup of hot chocolate, I went to sleep.
Sunday was a fun day, packed with education, if you can believe it. The early afternoon was our scheduled time for our field trip to the Reef HQ aquarium. My Biodiversity of Tropical Australia class was assigned to go, and collect data on species richness and diversity. We had sample areas in the main tank to approximate the number of different species, and when they appeared in our sample area over time. To sum up: we got to sit there and look at all the pretty fish for a while, writing down which ones we saw, and when. Well, it was a little more in depth then that, but needless to say, it was a very relaxing and fun experiment. Jimmy, Marisa, Melanie, and I decided not to head back on the bus with the rest of the class, but take our sweet time at the aquarium, and then spend the day at the strand, the surrounding parks, and have dinner somewhere along the way. We headed to many of the small park areas along the strand where all of us enjoyed taking lots of pictures. Jimmy and Marisa had photography asignments to complete, and Mel and I just wanted to take pretty pictures! We climbed some trees, did some swinging, got some sun, and walked alot. It was all very relaxing. When it was starting to get a little dark, we went down to the corner to get some dinner. We found a couple great places to get a burger and chips, and I had a large bacon and egg burger. I have kind of fallen in love with that sandwich since I have been here. Dinner was great, and afterwards, went to Juliette's for gellato. We frequent this place every time we are at the strand, and are determined to try every flavor. My two for the night were Ferrero Rocher and Coconut. It was definetly a winning combination. We played hearts for a while while we waited for the bus, then headed back for the night. I got some more reading done and headed to bed.
Today (Monday) has been pretty standard. My morning was occupied with finishing my revisions on a paper for my nutrition class. I'm very pleased with it, and it was kind of a tricky assignment. I wrote on the accuracy of Bioelectric Impedance Analysis on determining body composition. We were only given 500 words, so we had to be very concise with what we wrote. I actually enjoyed writing this way though, since usually I up filling papers with fluff to fill page requirements. I tend to have a rather concise writing style anyways, so it was nice to have the criterium align with my own preferences for once. Well, a busy day in Academia awaits me, so I need to get some sleep. Enjoy the latest batch of pictures on shutterfly. Mom: try not to worry, and Rob: there's a couple pictures up now that you've been waiting for.
Love to all,
Matt

2nd place isnt so bad

Well, most of this last weekend was dominated by the Fisher Shield basketball tournament. We had a team of 8, and thought our chances were pretty good for the tournament. On the first day, We lost our first game by 2 against our bitter rivals, George Roberts, but then won our next two games by significant amounts. I even had 4 steals in our second game. It was a really fun afternoon of games, since lots of people come down to the courts to cheer on their respective dorms and everyone is just there to have a good time. Saturday night was loads of fun, and all of us stayed up way too late. We had some fun looking at pictures that Jimmy and Marisa took for their photography class that involved "light painting". It involves shooting in the dark, and using different colored lights to add effects to your pictures. I got to do one where I shot lightening from my fingers!
I was a little sleep deprived for our games on Sunday, but a good lunch was enough of a pick-me-up, and we started out the day well, winning our last 2 round robin games. We relaxed for a bit, and watched some TV, went to supper, and then it was time for the semifinal match. We played against St. Marks college, and beat them handily, although, halfway through the 4th quarter, the court light turned off suddenly, and we had a 20 min. intermission until they could be turned back on. The championship game was once more against our rivals, George Roberts. We were up the entire game, until their point guard decided he didn't want to miss any shots, and scored about 12 points single-handedly. Needless to say, it was enough to overthrow our lead and take the win away from us. Although, we scored lots of points for the dorm by getting 2nd, and I even got some applause for my jump shot in the championship game (so there Carolyn; you thought we would be terrible :P) The games finished up at about 11:00, so i was pretty tired and just headed to bed.
The Week started out very busy for me, and I had a 3 slide presentation to give on my progress for a project on dietary needs, specific to elite swimmers. My partner and I found some interesting figures and charts, so I think we impressed the T.A. more then anyone else, by presenting good, raw data.

A full weekend

Well, this Friday started off a very eventful weekend. After a full day of classes, I went upstairs to buzz my hair down to a shorter length, and when I was about to start, Melanie and Jimmy shouted to me "Do a Mohawk!!" so...I did. I buzzed the sides, and spiked up the middle for a very silly and entertaining hairdo. Next, we all decided that it would be for the best if we went into town for the afternoon/evening/night. After busing down to town, we grabbed some supper at a cafe place that served good sandwiches, then walked the strand for a bit. After the sun had gone down and it was totally dark, the 12 of us or so went swimming in the ocean under a huge full moon. Out on Magnetic Island, there is a huge full moon party every month, so i think we are all going to try and make it to the next one. We all had fun playing in the waves, throwing the volleyball around, and burying a semi-cooperative Chris in the sand. After we rinsed and dried off, we started walking down the strand again until we found the night market out in the oval. I guess it pops up on the first Friday of every month, and the entire mall area is filled with tents and stands selling their wares, souviners, trinkets, food, and anything else worth buying. None of us had much cash on us, so we are eager to head back to that next month as well. I can imagine that i number of you might be seeing some items from the market sometime in your future! On our walk back, a few of us grabbed some delicious ice cream and gellato, and then took the bus back after some very silly frisbee in the street.

Saturday started out very early, since it was the morning of the annual Fisher Shield Cross Country race. For those of you that dont know, there arent a whole lot on intercolliegete sports in Australia, so at JCU, there is a huge, year-long competition between all the dorms and colleges. There is swimming, Cross country, basketball, cricket, rugby, soccer, water polo, and most other sports you can think of. Points are tallied throughout the year, and the winner is presented with the Fisher Shield; a glorious traveling trophy. Needless to say, everyone here in Uni Hall is eager to defend our title from last year. Anyway, everyone was awoken by the fire alarms and megaphones at 6:00 AM to head out to the oval for the start of the race. It was a mass of people that I have never seen so early on a Saturday morning. It was a 5k course, over some pretty varying terrain, including one very rocky hill, but when it was all said and done, Uni Hall place 4 people in the top 10, awarding us some very handsome points. Yours truly placed 6th overall, with a time of 18:20. For not killing myself, i was pretty happy with the time, and it was a very fun race.
After heading back for a nap, we discovered that all study abroad students were invited to a lunch-time Wine and Cheese tasting with some faculty, so a number of us enjoyed that very much. The snacks were amazing, and all tof the faculty was very friendly, and were great conversationalists.
Following that, the rest of the afternoon was filled with a giant party out on the lawn for the residents of University Hall only. It was loads of fun with BBQ, games, slip&slides, and at the end, a huge mud pit, and a mud wrestling. I didn't feel like getting to dirty, so some of us went inside, and chilled until a great evening of celebrating our Fisher Shield Victory wore us all out for the night.
Sunday was a very lazy day that involved mainly doing laundry, and going down to the river to feed turtles.
So far this week, I have shaved off my mohawk, since I have some rather important presentations coming up. I cleaned my room *gasp* and last night, a huge group of us headed out to Cactus Jacks for all-you-can-eat chili, and to celebrate Chris's 20th Birthday.
The rest of this week wont be to strenuous, but this weekend, we are going to the North Queensland Cowboys Rugby game, playing in the Fisher Shield Basketball Tourny, maybe driving to Crystal Creek, and who knows what else. Stay tuned!
Love to you all,
Matt

Classes, mainly

I'm all done with my first week of classes, and it has been a rather easy thus far. For the first week, we only have our lecture sessions, and we dont attend any of our practicals (labs) or and tutorials we might have. Tutorials are kind of q/a sessions where we go and work on things with the professor, so we can get any help if we need it.

So far, there has been a big difference in the way material is presented here, then in the states. There is a lot more of an expectancy to show up with some knowledge of the material you are going to learn. This is to my liking thus far, as it keeps class moving, and you dont dawdle on the simple logistics of things, and we can get down to business a little quicker. There is one thing about this system that frustrates me a little though. My coolest class, Exercise Prescriptions and Practices, is very, very, centered on you knowing the material before you show up to the "Synthesizing Sessions". It is kind of nice, since I feel like i get so much more out of the material, but at the same time, my coolest class is my hardest class, and also the class that i have the least amount of actual class time. Despite the benefits of this different style, it will take a little getting used to.
I am really excited about some of the practicals that we get to do for Exercise Presciption. We get to go in the heat chamber and exercise in heat and humidity and monitor different things on the people in the chamber. We get to do power and acceleration tests for lower body strength, VO2 max, aerobic capacity, and all kinds of cool stuff. There are lots of very nice facilities here that would not be available to me at Bethel. Such is the nature of attending a bigger (and state funded) school.
Sport and Exercise Nutrition has been really interesting so far, and professor Andrews is a very good lecturer. Although, it may just seem really interesting in comparison to physics, which I have right before hand.
Physics is kind of a drag right now, since I've already taken most of it in AP Physics in high school. Even so, i would of thought that college students could skip the lecture on scientific notation and converting metric units. (I kid you not). On the other hand, an HD in that class should be no sweat.
My last class is Biodiversity of Tropical Australia. So far, lectures have been incredibly informational, and interesting. The professor we have seems amazingly knowledgeable in his field, so lectures are great. This class is unique for me since I'm quite out of my area of "expertise". I'm finding myself asking Melanie all kinds of Biodiversity terms and things since this is more her arena then mine. Despite the initial catching-up, I think that this class is going to be awesome. We are going to take some really neat trips, including one to the Reef HQ museum in town, which is world renowned.

Enough about classes though, I want to talk about fun stuff. Last weekend we were down at the Strand again (huge long beach-y area with a walking path all along it). It has been pleasantly warm all week, and the water has been pretty cold, but refreshing. The waves aren't real big here, since Magnetic Island and the reef block most of them, but swimming in the ocean again is amazing.

I have also found the home page for the Townsville Roadrunners club. They meet on Saturdays and go for big group runs, then do some snacking and socializing after. There is a small membership fee, but i am thinking of joining since a lot of weeks, they do fun runs, road races, cross country events, and other stuff. More on that later though.

Until next time,
Matt