Halloween, Open Mike Night, and A little camping

Well this past week went by fast. This week was filled with plenty of fun things with all of the studying and working on papers throughout the week to fill the gaps.

On Monday night, we had a Halloween dress up party to see who could come up with the most interesting costumes. We had people dressing up from the different seasons, robin hood, the family of the incredibles, an even a clown fish!

I also then got to conquer one of my fears on Tuesday night with the help of my Church St. family: I got up on stage and played live music (including singing) for the first time in years. It was an interesting night to say the least and whenever I got up to the stage, all sorts of thoughts were running through my head. From the last words the last player said to me, "Just picture everyone naked"... to one my German roommates saying that he was going to press his thumbs for me. The first words I got out were, "Hey everyone, I'm going to sing you a song that I love, because I'm American, and I love pie!" I then commenced to playing songs including: "American Pie", "Time of your life", "Picture" , and more. It felt amazing though having people dancing around while I was singing and watching their reactions to the playing.

Let's see... after that I had a paper that I worked on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday that ended up being somewhere in the range of ~6500 words for my project management course. I think this course has probably been my favorite learning a lot of the ins and outs of entrepreneurship and how to work with managing projects. I then had the project management final on Friday and it was the EXACT same final that he had handed to us a week prior to study, so that was a relief that I studied the right thing! :)

I then have planned a last-minute trip with the Mountaineering Club from the University to camp at Glenrock Beach... I am not sure if I have mentioned it in a prior post, but it has probably been one of the most rewarding and involved clubs that I have worked with. There have been so many new things I have tried and completed that have helped build up plenty of self-confidence because I never knew I had it in me between the white-water kayaking, slack-lining, and rock-climbing. Speaking of which, I have planned out one of the next big trips in which we are heading to Australia's Blue Mountains. The highlight of the event is going to be the climb Sweet Dreams in which you climb well over the tree top levels and up to the top of a cliff from which you can see over all the Blue Mountains. Many photos will be taken and good stories will likely be made in this trip... Anyways back to the Glenrock trip. We started off at our place eating a LOT of fried rice because I went to ALDI hungry and ended up impulse buying a lot of food to cook. It ended up being pretty good if I do say so myself. We then left with a full stomach to Glenrock State Conservation Area. My roommate and I had found it the weekend before on a mountain bike ride and thought we had to show this to people. We couldn't think of any better way than to have people come out and go camping. So by the time we made it to the campsite, it was already dark and we had to have a bit of a bushwalk in the dark. It was nothing we couldn't handle though. We ended up not even setting up the tents and just slept under the stars in our sleeping bags. It was a clear night and probably only got down in the 50's, but it was definitely nice to have the sleeping bag. I woke up in the morning to the sky painted so many different colors and the sun was just starting to crest over the ocean. It was an amazing sight and I didn't have the camera at the time. We decided we would do it again though since it was only an hour walk from our place and it was such a fantastic night for not having to leave very far from Newcastle.

And then that brings me back to Sunday! We decided to walk back instead of going in the car and had a few dips in the beach as we walked a couple miles of beach line back to Newcastle beach. It was a good time and now I'm working at studying for my next final!

Cheers until my next post!

Wrapping up the past few weeks and spring break

I know it has been a while since the last post, so this one is going to be a BIG one...

School has been going fantastic. The classes are relatively small and the teachers really get to know you. They tell you on the first day of classes that you will be on a first name basis and some even look at you funny if you happen to call them "Professor ...". I'm taking two engineering classes, a chemistry class, and introduction to aboriginal studies. The engineering classes emphasize safety & risk, as well as project management. I have wanted to take a cultural studies class for a while so I jumped at the chance to take introduction to aboriginal studies. 

I moved into 28 Church St. what seems like days ago. Since then I have gotten to know my roommates and we have formed a sort of international family. We are all pretty well like-minded and have a heck of a time together. We just returned from our holiday break and I've never felt closer to them.

We decided that we were going to head up the east coast to Cairns, Queensland and make some stops along the way. We caught a bus and hit so many sites along the way that words can't even begin to describe the places I have seen. I'm talking about actually stepping into a postcard.

We first stopped at Byron Bay and got to see some beaches, the Carlos Sandblow and the easternmost point of Australia! It was here that I also saw my first wild wallaby. We were just going on a bushwalk and happened to stumble upon him.

We next went to Brisbane where we stayed with one of our mate's friend. We got to tour the city over the next couple of days and see an amazing light show during our second night out.

We then went to Rainbow Beach and then to Frasier Island. Frasier Island is the largest sand island in the world actually has a crystal clear freshwater lake on the island. The sand was whiter than snow and didn't get hot at all like a normal beach would. We camped on the island for a couple of days, sleeping out in tents with the dingoes. Actually the second night a few of us camped outside the tents to go stargazing. I had never seen so many stars in my life. There was literally no light pollution so the sky was just lit up. After a while we had fallen asleep and I woke up to a dingo licking my hand. I told my friend not to panic otherwise it might startle the dog. It just acted like it was a hungry pup and wanted to play with its tail wagging and its playful mannerisms. Below is a picture of Lake Mackenzie and it was so blue!!!

From there we went to Whitsundays where we got to go sailing on a boat. I had never been before so I didn't know what to expect. Well it was pretty much like a wet roller coaster, snorkeling, and scuba diving trip all rolled into one. I actually got to swim with fish on the Great Barrier Reef! I didn't find Nemo or anything, but there were more types of fish than I had ever seen before. We even got to see the sunset from the boat a couple of times and it was breathe taking to say the least. Below is a shot of what one of the sunsets looked like from our "private" island for the night. We did many things from there including a morning dive off the boat and a Wheat-Bix challenge. What is a Wheat-Bix challenge you ask? Well a Wheat-Bix is pretty much like a brick of Wheaties and is a staple cereal in Australia. The Wheat-Bix challenge is trying to eat one of them in under a minute without any liquids. I finished first in 53 seconds after almost choking halfway through it.

From the sailing trip we went up to Mission Beach, where we saw everything from cyclone damage to bushfires along the way. We actually drove through the smokescreen that was caused from one of the bushfires. While staying on Mission Beach, we walked along the beach and found heaps of coconuts. So we decided to have a lunch that was made from coconuts. It was a lot harder splitting up one those bad boys than you would expect. We then had the best burger in Australia... two of them a piece actually. We actually had the cook make another one that my roommate Joshua and I split after having one each. We then had the cook make another one after deciding this was the best burger we had ever had in our lives and split it another one. Needless to say the cook was flattered when we went in the back and gave her a big thanks and a big hug. We even got a picture with the waitress for bringing us a piece of heaven!

From there we went to Cape Tribulations. THE oldest rainforest in the world. It has a lot of unique wildlife that still remains in the rainforest. It felt like it was my little piece of paradise. We stayed there only for a night but I could have stayed there for ages. It was a beautiful place and I'm sure that we could have at least made a week out of it seeing all of the places possible. We only had a couple of days so we had the condensed version and got to go to the zoo as well as on a boat to find some saltwater crocodiles, which we did find. I even got to go jungle surfing in the rainforest canopy with my friend Roseanna. Or as we were called during the trip "Spiderman" and "King Kong". This is a place where the oldest rainforest meets the oldest reef in the world. Talk about a once in a lifetime opportunity.

We then spent a couple of days in Cairns and I just got back earlier today to start on plenty of assignments that need to get done sooner than later! I thought I would go ahead share since it has been a while! 

Will be posting of adventures again soon!

Let's get it started

Well, I have been living at 28 Church St. for what seems like a couple of days. I have actually been here since July 13th. It is incredible how the time has flown over the past 6 or so weeks.

Well first off I am a senior chemical engineering student from the University of Arkansas. I am studying chemical engineering at the University of Newcastle right now and will be here for the remainder of the semester (long enough to see just a little bit more of the outback!!!). I am enrolled in four great classes that I have been enjoying, but even more so have been enjoying the mix of people I have met.

I live on 28 Church St. with quite a few other international students. There are a few Australians that live here as well. I will get into more into introducing them in a later post. I have to run off to class right now!!!

-Nathan Bearden