Week 3 July 21st -27th

Monday July 21^st: I got up at 7am and got ready for class. I met Ryan and Liana at breakfast and then we walked to our classes. I had Accounting Theory from 8-10am. It was on normative theory and historical cost. After class I walked back to my dorm to get things to workout in. I swam 1000m, did an ab/pushup/ pullup routine, and 4000m on the row.  After dinner I showered and then went to the library for an hour and a half but I wasn’t feeling well so I went back to my room and slept for an hour. Then Carolina, Jazmin, and Ryan woke me up for supper. After supper we watched movies. I went to bed around 1am.

Tuesday July 22^nd: I got up around 7:45am and got ready for the day. All morning I worked on my corporate accounting paper. After lunch I worked on homework until 2:30 and then Ryan and I went to the gym. We both swam and then I rowed and did abs while Ryan lifted. By time we got done it was time for yogalates to start so we went to that. It was really funny to watch Ryan try and do the moves but he did do a good job for it being his first time. At one point we had to do child pose with our hands clenched behind our backs and I was laughing at Ryan not paying attention to how close I was to the floor and I smoked the floor with my head so then we laughed even harder. Afterwards we went to supper with the other kids. Then showered and got ready for bible study. Bible study was on patience and kindness out of the book. After small groups everyone hung out and talked.Emma then asked the head guy about their Red Frog program, which is kind of cool. What they do is go to huge drinking parties and help those students get home or basically sober up and if they have the chance they witness to them also; especially if the kid asks why they are volunteering their time to help them. We finally left after 3 hours and got back to the dorms around 11.

Wednesday July 23^rd:  After breakfast I went back to my room and worked on my ethics paper, reading many articles for it. Around 11am I went to the campus green and talked to people about IQConnect but most people were not interested. At 12:30 I went to the gym and swam 1000m, rowed 4000m, and did an ab routine, then walked around the track with a tire around my waist with Ryan. . We went to supper at 5pm and talked and laughed with the other kids. After supper we watched movies and went to bed around 11:30pm.

Thursday July 24^th: I got up at 6am and headed to the gym. I rowed 5000m and then did a ab/push up/ pull up routine. After I went to breakfast and met with the other kids. Then I hurried back to the dorms and took a shower. At 9am I skyped Becky about Isagenix and got signed up for the international business part of it. Then I worked on that all morning. Around 1:30pm I headed to the pool to swim 1000m. When I got back to my room I was tired so I showered and then took a nap for about an hour. Then I read my bible and headed to class. I had corporate accounting at 5.  Our treasury shares account is called share buy- back in Australia.  After class Ryan and I walked to IGA and he got Subway and I got some granola bars. We walked back and then watched a movie. Well tried but the internet wasn’t working. But that’s okay because I was feeling so miserable because I’m so congested.

Friday July 25^th: Today I got up at 5am and went to the gym. There I rowed 5000m and did an ab routine until 6:20am. Afterwards I took a shower and got things ready for outdoor pursuits class then went to breakfast. We had to be at the bus stop at 7:45am to be to Yeppon for outdoor pursuits. Today for class we learned how to surf. It was crazy; hard to balance on your board with all the waves crashing. I got up on my knees one time and the other times I got up I missed the wave so I didn’t really surf but I did fall a lot and drank way too much ocean water. My throat started to sting really bad because of it so I just went in but it was time to go anyways. So we packed up and got back to the city and then some of us stayed. We went and ate at yogalicous where I got a banana coconut smoothie which was awesome. After that we headed to the beach to tan and collect sea shells. We left around 3:50 and got back to the dorms at 4:45 and showered.Then we watched movies the rest of the night.

Saturday July 26^th: Today I got up at 7:45am and got ready. Ryan and I went to the pool at 8am. I swam a mile today. We then got on the school van to go to Stocklands. There we walked around and looked for water shoes for our outdoor pursuit’s class but we didn’t find anything. When we got back to the university we ate dinner. Then I put laundry in and vacuumed my room. Then I wrote my corporate accounting paper until 5:30pm. After supper I came back to my room to keep writing my paper.  But then the internet went out, so I couldn’t finish my paper. I wasn’t feeling the best anyways so I just went to bed.

Sunday July 27^th: Today I woke up at 8am and went to breakfast. After breakfast I skyped the family for an hour and a half, it was so great to talk to and see them. Miss them so much!! After skyping I went to the academic study center to work on my ethics paper. We took a break for dinner and then went back. Ryan and I worked on our papers from 1 to 3:30pm and I got mine all wrote, thankfully. Then we watched a movie until supper. After supper we got everyone to play sardines, but first they had to take a quiz. So I talked with Jazmin and Carolina until they were done. We started playing around 8:30pm. Ryan and I hid first and we hid in a cement culvert. Liana and Dylan found us pretty fast but the rest couldn’t find us. So after that a lot of people quit, but we kept playing until 10. We stopped at 10 because while hiding we felt ants crawling on us so we all went to shower. After that we wrote our blogs then watched a movie until church. Ryan and I watched my church online at 1am and then went to bed.

week 4 July 15th - 20th

Monday July 15^th: I got woken up by my neighbor banging around his dresser draws, but I was happy he woke me up this morning because I didn’t hear my alarm so I was running behind. I had Accounting Theory this morning from 8-10am. After class I went to the gym and swam a half mile and then tried the row machine for the first time. It was a great workout and then did abs after. Then Ryan and I went to Tanya’s office to talk about our scholarships and where to go to set up a bank account for it. We then ate and showered up, then took a bus to Stocklands. At Stocklands we set up a bank account with Commonwealth bank. When we got back I hung out with Amelia, Jazmin, and Carolina. At 4:30pm we all went to box fit, Dan and New York Ryan came with us. It was a hard workout but fun because the guys were pretty funny. We then went and ate and showered up. Then we headed to Ryan’s room to talk about our plans for our week break. After planning it out, we watched the Fox and The Hound. Such a great movie! After the movie I raced back to the dorms to put my laundry in the dryer before it closed at 10.

Tuesday July 16^th:  Today I headed to the library until 11. At 11 I met up with Emma and the rest of student life kids. We then prayed and went out to evangelize. I went with Chris and we talked to two guys. The guys were very eager to talk except we did keep going around in circles because they believe a different way and don’t believe in the bible. It was really hard to understand and hear them, but at the end Chris gave them a booklet on knowing God personally and they took it. Then we met up with the others and listened to their stories and prayed. I went back to my room and got ready for my workout and headed to the gym. There I swam a half mile and then changed to go inside to do the row machine but I forgot tennis shoes. So I had to go all the way back to my dorm and get those. Once I got back to the gym I did 10min on the row machine and some abs and got done just in time for yogalates until 5:30. Afterwards I went and showered and got ready. We then went to bible study; we had a good discussion in our small groups. We got back to the dorms around 10 and we decided to watch the movie Gods Not Dead! We watched it in Krisy’s room; she is an RA so her room is super nice and big. Emma and Kristy hadn’t seen it yet but they loved it. It is such a great biblical movie! We then talked and prayed and laughed for a while. I got back to my room around 1:15am.

Wednesday July 16^th:  I did homework all morning until 12:30. I then went to the gym and swam a half mile, then rowed for a half hour and did an ab routine. After that Ryan had me walk with him around the track while holding a tire around our waste. That was painful. I got back to my room at 2:30pm and ate what I had in my room and then started getting ready for the professorial lecture. Everyone who lived on campus was required to go. We left our dorm around 5pm and sat and listened to a guy talk about his life involving Uni, but I couldn’t hear him most of the time so it was really boring. When he got done at 7pm they then fed us. Our table was the last one to go through the line; Jazmin and I were so hungry. The meal was good though, they had lamb and fish and lots of veggies and potatoes and salad. They had chocolate cake, fresh fruit, and trifle for desert. After eating we got back to the dorms around 9pm. I then went to Ryan’s room to study, but we got nothing done because Carolina, Amelia, and Emma came in and were being goofy. So then we watched a movie. 

Thursday July 17^th: After breakfast I did homework all morning until 12. After dinner I went and swam a half mile, rowed for a half hour and did an ab routine. After the gym I got ready for class, and looked at some more information about the social media app I have that pays me, and read my bible. I then went to Corporate Accounting from 5-7. The tutorial was on journal entries for shares being issued and forfeited. They have a similar way of journalizing but their journal entry names are different so it is kind of confusing. The lecture was on basic things of accounting like assets, liabilities, equity, income, and expenses. After class I went to Jazmin’s room where Carolina and Ryan were too. They were so nice and got me food! Amelia then came over and we booked our trip to trinity beach for our week break. It is going to be so fun! It took a while to do that so when we were done it was 10pm.

Friday July 18^th: Today I got up at 6am and got ready for the gym. Ryan and I walked over to the gym and did our separate workouts then went to breakfast. After breakfast we had outdoor pursuits class at 9am. This class is going to be so fun, especially because all the international kids are from the United States and we all get along pretty well. We start surfing next week for class. After class I went to the library. In between the library and dinner I had some free time so I read my bible.Then Ryan and I had ethics class from 1-4pm. We talked about the Bernard Madoff case today, which was a good case study topic. After class Ryan and I walked to IGA so he could get some snacks and then we ate at subway. When we got back everyone was getting ready to go out and party. So Ryan and I went to my room and worked on homework and watched mega mind. 

Saturday July 19^th: Today I woke up at 8:15 and then met everyone at breakfast. We then discussed what time to meet and where to meet for our hike. So I went back to my room and got things ready and we left around 10:30am for Mt. Archer. We started the hike around 10:45-11 and we finished around 2. We all started together but people kept stopping to take pictures or to eat, but Ryan and I just wanted to get to the top so we kept going. We got to the lookout spot around 1:30 and sat there to eat and wait for everyone to finish because we thought that was the ending point. But once Bonny and the other Australian guys came they said there was about 270m to go yet. So we grabbed our back packs and took off for the finish. The view was pretty sweet but the hike up Mt. Jim was definitely better. There we sat and waited for the others to finish for about an hour. Once we got back to the dorms, I showered which felt amazing. Then I put my laundry in to get all that stuff clean again and read my bible. After supper most of the kids went out to party so Ryan and I went to his room and ended up watching three movies. It was 11pm and some people were back so we stood in the hallway and talked with them for a while.

Sunday July 20^th: Today I did homework all morning. After dinner I went to Ryan’s room to work on homework but we ended up watching youtube videos.We watched the Noah and 180 videos by Ray Comfort. Amelia, Carolina, Ryan, Emma, and I went with Bonny and Celest to church at 6:30. They had communion this time except I didn’t participate in it because they didn’t say people need to repent. They used 1 Corinthians 11:17-26 but they didn’t hit the main point in verses 27 on, which concerned me. They also said everyone is one in Christ because he loves us and we love him. So I decided not to take in communion and listened very carefully to the sermon. The sermon was good but it was just on more loving not repentance at all. Just that the love of Jesus is in our hearts and we are saved. We are all a child of God and should share that with others. So I don’t know, love is good but they need to preach on repentance; it’s just not like our church. When we got back, we watched a movie. The movie got done around 11:30 and then I headed to bed. 

                                           The whole group who hiked Mt. Archer 12.6Km

                                           Ryan (NY), Jazmin (Texas), Me, Ryan (SD)

Week 2 July 7th -14th

Monday July 7^th: I woke up around 5am but it was super cold out. So I tried falling back asleep and ended up lying in bed until 7am.  I got ready for class and headed to breakfast and met Liana and Ryan there and then we walked to our classes together. I had accounting theory from 8am-10am. Our class had a guest speaker from CPA Australia. It was interesting to learn how they get into a business like that. A CPA degree in Australia has the kids do three years of schooling while they work at an accounting firm. They need to work at an accounting firm while in school so they get that experience; which is pretty smart I think. In class I also learned that the GAAP principles in America are called the International Accounting standards in Australia. After class I headed back to my room. There I texted the family and looked at vacation spots in Australia and read my bible. I just dilly dallied around until 3:3opm when I took off for a 3mile run. I then did an ab workout in my room. Then I headed to the gym for box fit. Love this class; it’s so intense and fun! After class I went to supper to meet up with the other kids. We sat there for two hours just talking and laughing. It was a good time. When I got back I showered and then we headed to the JCR to play pool. Around 9:30pm I headed back and got ready for bed because I wasn’t feeling very good.

Tuesday July 8^th:  When I got up at 8, I felt better, so I went to breakfast to meet with the other kids. Afterwards I headed over to the library and did a lot of research for my many papers I have to write in my classes. I took a break around 11:30 and went to the campus store to get a coffee. They make their coffee from organic coffee. It was pretty good. Around 3:30pm I went for a run around campus then an ab workout. Then I headed to the class yogalates. I like this class, it’s very relaxing! After class I went to meet up with the other kids at supper. Where I talked to Emma about going to bible study at 7:30pm and she wanted to go to. So I went back and got ready for that and we headed over. Bible study was fun; we were there until 9:45. Their missions team talked more in depth about their trip to Vanuatu. It was interesting to hear about all their touching stories and how they shared the gospel and how God reached out to them while they were there. They really have a heart for God. Afterwards they had supper, which is snack and coffee before bed for them. They were fun to talk to! They were so excited to have Americans there, because they wanted us to try something. It is called the Tim tam slam. They make a cup of coffee and then you take a Tim Tam and eat the opposite corners off and use the Tim Tam as a straw. Once the coffee comes through the Tim Tam you shove the Tim Tam in your mouth. It was really good because the coffee made the Tim Tam melt in your mouth. Tim Tam’s are a chocolate cookie with chocolate or orange cream in the middle. Super good!

Wednesday July 9^th:  Today I skyped dad, mom, and ali!! That was fun! It was good to see them even though they are so far away. Hope to do it some more. Then I headed off to the library to get some homework done, but first I sent off some postcards. I was at the library for about an hour and then Ryan asked me to play basketball. So I went over there and we played for about two hours. Then I went to boot camp at 5:30pm. It was pretty intense and a good workout. Then I headed to supper and sat with Emma and Kristy (an Aussie RA) and we talked and laughed for a long time. Emma then told me that they just got back from a campus crusade meeting and said that they witness to people from 11:30-1 on campus every day and invited me along with them. I was so excited when they asked and replied yes before they were even finished. At the dorms Ryan and Jazmin invited me to come over and hang out. So for the rest of the night we watched Pitch Perfect in Ryan’s room.

Thursday July 10^th: Today around 10am Jazmin, Ryan from New York, Gustavo, Dylan, and I headed over to the aboriginal culture. We got the guided tour for $13.  We started out by watching a movie their culture. Then walked through the museum, then listened to a lady talk and show us things from their culture and islands. Then we went to a cave where the guy played a horn for us which was pretty sweet. To finish the tour we got to throw a boomerang. After we got back I went for an hour run around campus and through town. In town I found a tunnel that went under their highway. It was sweet because it was graphitized too! After my run I got ready for class and did some homework. I had corporate accounting from 5-8 but it only lasted until 6:30. The professor got through the lecture pretty fast. They have different names for some of their accounts when they journalize them.

Friday July 11^th:  After breakfast I read my bible and got ready for the day, and then I went to the library and did homework until 12. At 12 Emma and I went and ate on the campus green and waited to meet with the other kids from campus of crusades. They came at 12:30 and then we went out to witness to people sitting around eating their dinner. The way they witness to people is cool. They have a stack of random pictures that they show to a person and then have that person pick 3 photos that describe their life now. But by that time I had to go to class so I didn’t get to hear the rest of it. I had Ethics class with Ryan from 1-4. It was a long class but there were some interesting topics. After class we went back to Ryan’s dorm and other kids were headed to the JCR, so we went with. There we played ping pong which was pretty fun. I then sat and talked with Jazmin for a long time. After a while we headed over to Hutton and watched Pitch Perfect with the other international students. When the movie got done some of us went star gazing. It was freezing out, so we headed to my room to warm up since my heater is on. Everyone was falling asleep so they went back to their rooms. 

Saturday July 12^th: Today I got up at 7am and did a cardio/ab workout in my room and then showered and read my bible. Afterwards I went to breakfast to see what the other kids were up to today. Mostly everyone was just doing homework. So Jazmin and I walked to IGA. There I got some snacks and we walked around looking at prices and the other small shops that were there. On our way back to the dorms we stopped at sunshine Kebabs and got a wrap. They were really good! When we got back we went and laid out back to tan but the ants were so bad that we ended up going to the pool and laying out there. We laid out until 4pm. Jazmin wanted to do some running that day so I went with her to show her the trails I run on. We ran around 2.5 miles and then did some abs. Afterwards we took showers and headed to supper. After supper Jazmin and Carolina came over to my room. We then looked at places we should go for our week break and talked for a long time. They were over for about 3hours. We had fun and then they went to their rooms. I then watched Megamind on amazon.

Sunday July 13^th: I slept in until 8am and then texted and went to breakfast. Dad had sent me an email about a social media website John was telling him about so when I got back I checked that out. It was really cool so I talked to John about it over skype and then signed up for it! That took up my whole morning and then I meant up with the other students for dinner. While we were sitting at dinner Carolina got a call to come hiking. We quickly went back to our rooms and got ready. Then the Australian kids took us with them to Mt. Jim to hike. When we pulled up we saw a sign that said warning hike at your own risk, very dangerous. The hike was so awesome though, we had to climb a lot of rocks to get to the top. The view was amazing!! Once we got back down we went back to the dorms and showered up and went to supper. After supper we got ready for church. The sermon at church was very good. It was on Love, forgiveness, and holding grudges. When we got out, everyone talked about how powerful the message was and how good it was. When we got back to the dorms Ryan and Jazmin came to my room and we talked for hours. They left at 11:45pm.

                               International students all from America at the start of the hike

                                                                   View from the top!

Week 1 June 30th- July 6th

Monday June 30^th: I actually slept through the whole night; although I did wake up at 4:45am to go to a fitness class at the university gym. The class was super sweat; basically just a mixture of different squats lunges, arms, and abs. It was pretty intense! After that I went back to the dorms and got ready for the day and checked my email. I had gotten an email from Tanya, which was great because now I could get my class schedule since today was the first day of classes. Well I took off to her office and found it after frantically walking forever around campus. She gave me my timetable for my classes and sure enough I had accounting theory at 8am to 10am, so I missed that class by an hour. Tanya said I still should pop in even if I showed up an hour late. So I sped walked to that class and walked in and there were only four kids there and the professor. The professor was kind and welcomed me to the class. He then proceeded on his lecture which was definitely different than our lectures. He actually sat down and talked with the students as he lectured, but even though it was different it was still really boring and I about fell asleep. After class I met with Tori, the international student advisor. She helped me set some things up on myCQU portal account and just informed me about things on there and about the campus which helped a lot, considering I have been in the dark for most of the weekend. After that I went to my room and set my portal up and got things ready for my classes. Then I went to another fitness class called box fit. It was a sweet boxing class. The class did a lot of different punches with a mix of running, push-ups, lunges, squats, and planks in between.  After that I went to my room to keep messing around with my classes and some other things I needed to get ready for the next day.

Tuesday July 1^st: Man where did June go! I can’t believe its July already. Today I got to experience bus travel. The bus driver was very nice and only charged me half price of the normal price and talked to me the whole ride; asking about South Dakota and the pheasant farm.  I then got off at Stockland where their mall is. Their mall is definitely different than ours. Not only do they have different clothing stores, a food court, and vendors in the middle, but also grocery stores, department stores, insurance agencies, fitness gym, and little coffee shops in it. So they basically have everything you need to shop for in one place, so it’s kind of nice. When I got back to the University I went to the book shop to buy my books, which was an awful bill to pay. Then I went back to my dorm and wrote out my class assignments for the semester. Then I studied accounting theory until 4pm when I went to Yogalates at the gym. I actually knew some girls at this class, because they were international students from the US. The class went well; it was a typical yoga class. Afterwards, we girls went to eat at the cafeteria and sat with Jazmin and Carolina. We sat there for two hours just talking and laughing, we had a good time. We then walked back to our dorms. When I got back I read my bible and then worked on some more homework for the night.

Wednesday July 2^nd:  I got up at 7am and put some laundry in the wash. Then headed to breakfast, which was very good. I then read my assignments and sent some emails for the whole morning. Around 1pm we played a game of beach volleyball outside the dorm rooms. The game lasted for about two hours and then we headed over to the pool to cool off. At 5:30pm I went to Boot Camp fitness class. This class was intense! We started by doing a warm up lap around their grass track. Then we had three circuits of lunges, squats, push-ups, mountain climbers, sprints, and lemon squeezes with sets of 25, 3o, and 35. Most people didn’t get through the third circuit because of time. Then we moved onto another circuit with a partner. One partner had to run hill runs while the other one pushed a tire to a cone then carried it to the next one, then flipped it to the next cone, then carried it to the next and then we would switch and we had to do that for 12 hill runs. To end the Boot Camp we had to do 25 burpees and stretch. That was a killer! After that I took a long hot shower and hung out in my room for the night. We also had a hall meeting at 8:30pm which was nothing special, just a typical hall meeting going over rules.

Thursday July 3^rd: I woke up at 7:30am and went to breakfast and then came back and worked on some homework and sent some emails. I also browsed on the internet to look at some vacation spots to possibly go to while I am here. Today for my workout I went to the pool. I swam laps and aqua jogged. Afterwards I did an ab workout. Then for a long time I texted my friend Lexie from back home. I then got ready for my class at 5pm. Corporate Accounting is the class I had in a huge classroom with only 8 other students. The Australian rules of accounting are a little different than American. They do not like the American way of doing things, they call us difficult and that we like doing things our own ways. After class I met up with the other international students and we just talked and hung out. We ended up finding a TV, but the only thing on was the documentary of Whitney Houston’s death.  Found out that Whitney Houston’s middle name is Elizabeth too. Crazy! So that’s what we watched and went to bed after.

Friday July 4^th: Happy Fourth of July everyone. I started my day off by getting up at 5am to go to box fit. We stayed inside this morning; it wasn’t too bad of a workout. Afterwards I went back and showered and got ready for the day and then read my bible and texted the family. Then I went to breakfast and sat with the other students and talked about the day. Afterwards Ryan and I walked to our ethics class from 1pm to 4pm. It was super long and kind of boring; I about fell asleep. My business classes’ sure like to pick on the U.S. way of doing business. Ha. After class we went back to the dorms and then some of the other girls invited me to do box fit with them at 5:30pm. So I said why not, I like that class anyways! So we went to that. This time we were outside and it was much harder. Lot more punches and a lot more running. So it was fun! The trainer was super nice; she was wearing an LSU sweatshirt because that’s where her brother plays football. That was awesome! Next we went and ate and talked about the night. Everyone was super excited for gender bender night at the JCR from 7-10pm. So we rushed through eating and quickly went to get ready. Everyone looked pretty silly but dressed pretty legit! The girls dressed as guys and the guys dressed as girls. It was pretty comical!

Saturday, July 5^th: I woke up around 7am and texted the family and snap chatted friends before getting up and doing an ab workout. Then I headed to breakfast to meet up with all the other kids to see what they were thinking of doing for the day. We ended up leaving around 10am to go to the beach. When the bus dropped us off we first went and ate at a little café called Yogalicious café. It was super good. I got a coconut banana smoothie! Then we took off to the beach. It was super cool to be at the ocean for the first time in my life. The sand was super soft even though they call it the hard sand beach. Not very many people like this beach but it was still awesome. The water was super cold, it felt like an ice bath to me, but it was fun to swim and jump over the waves. We were at the beach for about 2 hours, but our towels got soaked by the tide and some of them wanted ice cream. So we packed up our things and changed into dry clothes to head up town. Some people got ice cream and we walked around to check out the small shops around town. We got back to the university around 3:45pm and it was super nice out. So I took off for a run around campus. I found some pretty sweet trails to run on! I then showered up and headed to supper to sit and talk with the rest of the group to plan out our night. When we got back to our dorms Jazmin and I talked for about an hour and a half which was fun. She is so nice! We then ended up going to the JCR. It was a lot of fun. We played ping pong, the card game idiot, and pool.

Sunday July 6^th:  I slept in until 7:50am this morning. I would have slept longer but my neighbor’s phone was going off very loudly and woke me up. So I just went to breakfast to meet up and hang out with the other students. Afterwards, I went back to my room to do homework and laundry until dinner. After dinner I took a Sunday nap, but it only lasted 20min and I couldn’t fall back asleep. So I went online to look at attractions in Australia to visit. Then some of the kids came and invited me to play beach volleyball. We played volleyball until supper. After supper I showered up and got ready for church. We went to a Baptist church at 6:30pm. It was good, they sang praise and worship songs. Then they had their missions team talk about their trip they just got back from. So there was no powerful sermon like Jon would give but it was still a good time. We got back to our dorms around 8:30. I then did some things on my computer and around my room and then went to bed.

                                                       The Northern Kids at gender bender night.

 

Some of the group at gender bender night.