Schedule

Well, after some administrative confusion, I finally have my final schedule:

I think if you click on it you can see it bigger. Anyway, I was finally able to register for the Materials Science course I was locked out of earlier, but I had to drop the Aboriginal course (it's 8 credits and I'm limited to 24 - everything else is 6) I was going to do to make room for it (a tough choice, but since I need Materials Science for my major...). To pick up the slack I enrolled in an Introduction to Innovation course, which seemed pretty interesting. Anyway, the final schedule is:

MONDAY
9am-11am Chemistry and Materials Science Tutorial
3pm-5pm Introduction to Innovation Tutorial
5pm-6pm Chemistry and Materials Science Lecture 1
6pm-8pm Chemistry and Materials Science Practicum

TUESDAY
11am-2pm Fluid Mechanics Lecture
3pm-6pm Mechanics of Solids Tutorial

WEDNESDAY
11am-2pm Introduction to Innovation Lecture
3pm-6pm Mechanics of Solids Lecture

THURSDAY
No class!

FRIDAY
1:30pm-3pm Fluid Mechanics Tutorial
4pm-5pm Chemistry and Materials Science Lecture 2


So any of you out there who think "Study Abroad" is just Aussie for "Vacation," think again...

Sailing the Harbour

Today I went sailing in Sydney Harbour on a 30-ft boat owned by the University (you can take it out with 4 or 5 friends on a weekend for $30 a head... I'll definitely be taking advantage of that again later). It was a chilly day with a few good gusts of wind. We went up under the bridge, then out to the edge of the ocean, and got some amazing views along the way. My camera ran out of batteries about halfway out though, so I wasn't able to capture everything.

The Impulse, with her Captain, David, who has been sailing in Sydney Harbour since he was 12

some reeeeeeeeaaallly expensive houses on the Harbour

keep going long enough, you hit New Zealand, then South America

After sailing, I went to an Aussie Move Marathon in one of the UTS Housing buildings - we watched The Castle, Three Dollars, and Cosi, all great Australian films.

Update

So Orientation is still going, I've had all kinds of seminars and tours, and I'm getting settled in here. Here's some pictures of various stuff...

inside the tower at UTS

the view from the door of my apartment

courtyard outside the apartment

the window of my room is the second one on the second floor, right next to that green street sign (reddish-brown building, right on the street; I'm not in the tower part of the apartment complex)

Victoria Park, where I go running in the mornings

the University of Sydney, or as I've heard some UTS people describe it, "what a University is supposed to look like" - not everyone's a fan of the tower

view of the Sydney skyline from the top of the hill (right next to University of Sydney) - the UTS tower is on the right

I'll get some pictures of the apartment up once everything's organized... it's an ongoing process...

I've signed up to go sailing in Sydney Harbour with some other UTS students tomorrow; that should be a lot of fun, and a great chance to see the Opera House and Bridge. I also signed up to do the City 2 Surf, a 14k road race (like the Peachtree, but longer) from Hyde Park (near UTS) to Bondi Beach. I joined the UTS team (which gets me a nice UTS running shirt, as well as a ticket to the UTS tent after the race for free food), and am trying to keep up the running every day until race day on August 9th (a little sooner than I'd like, but I'll be ready). That should be a lot of fun too, and a great way to see the city.

Anyway, I'll try to keep the updates coming. Classes start next week... vacation time's almost over...

40 years later...

*this post has little to do with my trip and is really more directed to any engineers in the audience, or those who are considering it, but all are welcome to read it. As a disclaimer, I am not trying to discredit any other disciplines, just to credit engineering...

40 years ago today, two human beings landed on the moon. That is truly incredible. Now we can look up at the night sky and say, "we have sent men there."
During our official welcome ceremony at UTS, the Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Ross Milbourne, mentioned the Apollo 11 landing as one of the most fantastic technological achievements of mankind, an example of the great things that can be accomplished with science. As an engineer, I cannot agree with him more. I grew up fascinated with the space program (yeah, I went to Space Camp...). And on this 40th anniversary of the moment that captivated the world, I am reminded again why I am an engineer.
I want to be a part of something that fantastic, something that will advance human technology beyond what we ever believed possible. Something that will someday inspire a whole new generation of engineers to go even farther than I can dream of.
I choose to be an engineer because I want to make the impossible possible. I am reminded of a speech given at Rice some 47 years ago...

"But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

We choose to do the hard things because if we only do the easy things we never challenge ourselves, and therefore never better ourselves. I choose to take on the impossible. I do not believe in impossible. Like Rice, I believe that "there is no 'what if' that can't become a 'what is.'"

That is why I am an engineer.

Here's to doing the impossible

Sydney

We landed in Sydney yesterday afternoon after the three hour flight south from Cairns. After a slight hitch with the housing (apparently Australearn had not told UTS that we would be arriving on a Saturday, so the Housing Office was closed and we had to call a few people in order to get them to send somebody to give us our keys, but it all worked out in the end), we put our luggage in our rooms and headed out for dinner before some shopping for things we needed (there is a mall right around the corner from our building). I am in an apartment complex called Gumal Ngurang (Aboriginal word for "friendly place") about a block away from campus; it's very convenient to everything.

the main building at UTS

Today, I got up and went for a run in a very nice park nearby; the weather was perfect (a bit chilly, but great). After that, I ran into some of the other Americans by accident, and eventually all of us had gathered so we got breakfast together before walking down to the harbor to see the Aroma Festival, a coffee and chocolate festival that some of our flatmates had told us about. It was full of people, with live musicians around every corner and all kinds of coffee and chocolate to sample (though it was $2 per taste, so we didn't really sample that much).

crowds at the Aroma Festival

From the festival site, we had a great view of the bridge and Opera House in the harbor... it was amazing.

After that we headed back to UTS to do some more shopping (this time for groceries and anything we forgot the first time around) and then back to the room to get some sleep before orientation tomorrow...

Great Barrier Reef

After an early morning (breakfast was 6:15) we walked down to the marina to board the Passions of Paradise, a 25 meter (that’s 82 feet) long catamaran, for the two hour trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a bit chilly, and the wind didn’t help, but the best place to be was still right out on the bow (or between the two bows, as it were).

Our first stop was Green Island, a very small sand island surrounded by reef (parts of it have green sand). On the boat I learned that we had the opportunity to not just snorkel but scuba dive as well -- I took the opportunity. We were given a quick lesson in how to use the equipment (put mouthpiece in mouth, breathe normally… nothing too complicated) and then split into groups of three or four with a leader from the crew of the boat guiding us around the reef. We dove for half an hour, and saw some amazing stuff -- giant brain coral the size of a car, sea cucumbers, all kinds of colorful fish, and a giant clam that was about as big as my torso. The guide invited us to put our hands in the clamshell and feel it close on them -- it didn’t close hard, don’t worry -- it was an odd feeling. Once the dive was over we headed back to the boat and then I went over to the island and snorkeled back to the boat through a different area of coral. Then it was time for lunch (shrimp, rice, some kind of beef ratatouille -- all excellent) and a short trip over to the next site, which was a more isolated bit of reef in deeper water with more fish. We snorkeled around there a bit more. Someone in the group saw a shark (don’t worry -- not Jaws, just a small white-tip about the size of a baseball bat, only a threat to little fish). Apparently last week’s group was very lucky, because they saw a whale with a newborn calf, which the guides commented was a very rare sight.

On the trip back to Cairns, the wind had picked up and the sea was becoming much more choppy. A bunch of us stood up in the bow riding the swells and getting soaked; it was a ton of fun. Even though we were out all day, I somehow managed to not get sunburned (at least not that I can tell yet).

Once we got back, it was time for our final briefing with Australearn, where they told us about plans to get us to our universities tomorrow. I fly out of here at 10:50 on QF 5955, arriving in Sydney at 1:45 that afternoon, where the other UTS students in this group (there’s about 13 of us) and I will meet up with our contact there for the bus ride to the university, where we’ll settle into our accommodations and get ready for the semester...

I held a koala today!

Well, the running didn’t happen this morning… I feel great after a full night’s sleep though.

We went to RainForestStation Nature Park today, up in the hills about a half hour away from the city. We got to feed and pet kangaroos, and see all kinds of other wildlife, like crocodiles and dingos. We also got to hold a snake and a koala (the koala really was just like a living teddy bear - very soft). It was amazing. After seeing the animals, we took a ride in an old Army “Duck,” an amphibious craft made in WWII with six wheels and a propeller, down a trail into the forest, where we saw all kinds of interesting plants. Then we went to see an Aboriginal dance show and got to throw boomerangs (mine came back and almost hit me in the shin… I guess I should’ve been ready for that…) and try to play a didgeridoo. I could get noises out of it, but nothing like what the Aborigine who demonstrated it got. Anyway, the day produced some great photo opportunities:

view from the drive up the mountain to the station

an Army "Duck"

DO NOT FEED THE CROCODILES

A wallaby (looks a lot like a kangaroo, just smaller)

A group shot of all the UTS students with the Aboriginal dancers

No photoshop here - This is actually me holing a koala!

(ok so really it's a picture of a picture of me holding a koala, they didn't give us digital copies... but still, it's real)

Once we got back to the hotel, Andy (one of our guides, and a native Australian) took us out to a park nearby and taught (or tried to teach) us how to play cricket and rugby (or “footie,” as he called it). Cricket was a lot of fun, though it was hard to make the transition away from baseball -- each time I hit the ball I’d start running towards where first base would be instead of straight out to the other stump. Rugby was very confusing… I still don’t really understand how it all works.

Anyway, after dinner it was back to the hotel for some good sleep to get ready to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef tomorrow…

Cairns

After a long day (or two… I’m not really sure) of traveling, we’ve finally made it to our first destination, Cairns.

The long trans-Pacific flight was alright, as far as long flights go. I met a bunch of other Australearn students -- there’s about 20 of us in all, from all over the country (Seattle to Jersey and everything in between) and all kinds of majors. I ended up sitting next to two other Australearn students, Architecture majors from California, who were headed to a year abroad at UTS; we chatted for a while before they went to sleep and I tried to follow suit. I dozed for a few hours, but ended up watching movies and tv for the rest of the flight (each seat had a small screen mounted on the back of the headrest in front of it, which made the long trip more bearable with an endless stream of on-demand movies, tv shows, radio stations, and CDs). I wasn’t able to read, as the “reading light” was extraordinarily bright and I didn’t want to disturb the entire sleeping cabin.

We eventually landed in Brisbane, where we picked up our luggage and went through customs, only to immediately check it again for the flight to Cairns. By now it was a bustling 7 am in Brisbane, and my internal clock was very confused, but I literally had miles to go before I slept…

On the plane, I ended up sitting next to a very nice Australian man (born and raised in Cairns) who made a living running a crocodile farm that supplies crocodile skin for Gucci purses. He was on his way back to Cairns after visiting family in LA, and was getting ready to go on an expedition to capture wild crocodiles for the farm -- one of two farms he ran, raising about 30,000 crocodiles in all. Needless to say, Australia is awesome. During the flight, he pointed out to us the Great Barrier Reef, which was visible from the plane:

This flight had so much to see out the window that (again) I got little reading done. As it turns out, I needlessly stuffed three thick books (Les Miserables, Can’t Buy Me Love, and This Is Your Brain On Music) into my carry-on…

Once we landed in Cairns, we met up with our Australearn contact, Andy (with the requisite thick Australian accent), and headed to our hotel. We then explored some of the town, going down to the waterfront, where, while the beach is mostly mud, there is a very nice pool and a boardwalk that one of the other guys and I were thinking about running tomorrow. We’ll see how that pans out, depending on how early the Australearn people intend to get going tomorrow morning. So far the plan is:

TONIGHT: get dinner, go to sleep (sounds good to me)

TOMORROW: go to rainforest and “hug a koala and/or python” (I think he’s serious)

FRIDAY: go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef

I’ll try to put up new posts about these things as they happen, but the internet is proving hard to find, so I may not be able to post until I get to Sydney.

Right now I need to go to dinner… or at least that’s what I’m going to call meal number seven of this long period of being awake…

Made it to the West Coast

I'm in LAX after a 4 hour cross country flight; there's Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons playing over the speakers, I've just had a nice (well, by airport standards) dinner (or lunch... I don't know... it's 7:30pm to me but only 4:30 local time - whatever meal that is), and it feels good to stretch my legs after a long flight.

Now I get to wait seven more hours to get on the fourteen hour flight to Australia...

One Day More...

For those of you that may not know, I am studying abroad next semester in Sydney, Australia at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). I'll be taking two engineering classes (Fluid Dynamics and Mechanics of Solids - sounds fun, right?) and one just for fun (Representing Aboriginal People, History and Place); I'll be in school until the end of November, then I'm taking two weeks to travel around and see as much of Australia and New Zealand as I can before I fly home on December 13th.

Tomorrow I will fly from Atlanta to LA to meet up with my group flight (booked through Australearn, a kind of study abroad clearinghouse... they make everything easier), then take the 14 hour, 7170 mile flight to Brisbane, Australia, where we will get on a smaller flight to Cairns for a three-day orientation session run by Australearn. After that, it's another plane to Sydney, where I get settled into my apartment and get ready for classes.

Total Flying Time: 23 hours 31 minutes
Distance: 11,433 miles

I'm going to try to keep this blog pretty up to date, but don't be surprised if I don't post anything for a few weeks... I'm probably just really busy with classes (ha ha).

If you want to contact me while I'm over there, the best way is probably email (andrew2290 at gmail dot com); if you have skype send me an email with your skype info and I'll add it. Once I have a mailing address I'll post that. I won't have my cell phone while I'm over there, so don't try to call me unless you want to fill my voicemail with messages I won't get for five months...

Anyway, I'm going to get back to packing now... I'll post when I can.