Sooooo, Spain?

Raining in Boston today... and apparently for the next 3 days? I want my Australian weather back. :( Although I hear its getting colder there ( its now their winter), but that means around 65-70 at the coldest. Its not fairrr.
Its definitely true about what they say about study abroad. Once you go, you are bit by "the bug" meaning that you just want to keep traveling and seeing places you have never seen before. Traveling has been on my mind a lot lately. I've only been back in the states for 7 weeks and I'm already trying to find ways to get back out. Don't get me wrong, I love being home with my family in Rhode Island and I especially love Boston in the summer, but now I know there is just so much out there that I have not seen yet and want to experience...and yet my bank account funds are veryyy limited.
So with that in mind I was thinking of Spain. Suffolk has a legit campus in Madrid where we can take Suffolk classes with Suffolk professors and I figure while in Spain I will get to visit several other countries around there. I know I have already been abroad once, but I really want to go again... except this time it will be a little closer to home, a little (or a lot) cheaper, and I will get to see many more places than I did in Australia.
I am thinking of going either this spring, or next fall, which is probably more realistic. I have quite a few elective courses left to take so I might just save those for Spain, along with another science lab. This means I will be taking 4 major requirement courses over the next year. It will be a lot of work, but with Spain in mind I think I will be able to get through it.
This will be the first year I have classes on Fridays. :/ Its all about the Sacrifice. haha.
So my Fall 09 classes (as of right now...) are Advertising 1, Public Relations, Design Lab, and sci 101 with a lab...
Sounds pretty intense to meeeee.

And todayyyy I start my new job at Joe's American Bar and Grille...working over 12 hours tonight... niceeeee. Gotta start saving for Spain. I only have a year ;)

so many prospects...

So i think that as a whole, we have all entered about 1000 prospective students into the computer system, within the past week. basically, all of the cards filled out at college fairs and whenever someone asks for info about Suffolk, we are the ones to put your info into our system. These are usually followed by mailings, packets, and letters. Just in case you were wondering, thats all us :)
other than that we have been giving 2 tours a day. This week started orientation for new freshman. I remember it like it was yesterday...being so excited to meet new people and see my new school. And now its 2 years later...crazyyyyyyy
I am currently living by myself at a friends apartment a few T stops away from Suffolk, near newbury street...he moved home for the summer, so now i get to live there. I get to stay in Boston, and live in an apartment rent free! its a win win for me! However, living alone does get pretty lonely. I have never even had my own room, so living alone, eating alone etc... is pretty different.
Luckily I have some great friends who live here in the city also. Just so happens a couple of them are also ambassadors :)
Chris, Rach and I have had family dinners like once a week.
I made an awesome chicken parm for Chris and I last night...and the week before i made stir fry! How quickly you learn to cook when you have to live alone and cook for yourself. Man do i miss my moms dinners now... (that i complained about for so long)
Looking for a second job...got hired at Joe's American Bar and Grille on the water...right near where my new apt. is going to be in the North End in Sep...and i also had an interview at a bar near TD bank North Garden...waiting to hear from them. Hey maybe I'd even meet some celts/bruins players there?!
Thats about all thats been going on around here so far this summer...
Still missing Australia every day, and my hope of going back there soon seems to get farther and away...Just trying to keep in touch with people there is hard enough with the time difference :/
eventually, i will get back there... for now, still getting back in the swing of things in the Bean... and trying to enjoy summer a little bit :)

Back in the Bean...

Back to work in admissions...there are 4 of us here. Basically we will be doing tours all summer and entering prospective students info into the computer system...
Rach and I are figuring out our apartment stuff for the fall, getting our money in, etc...We will be living in the North end, about a 10- 15 minute walk from school and moving in Sep. 1. Im pretty excited to have my own place, not have to sign people into the dorms, and to cook my own food.
Right now I am staying in Boston during the week and living home most weekends. I am also
Looking for another job at a restaurant or bar for nights/ possibly weekends, hopefully close to my new apartment in the North End.
Other than that, not too much going on. I still have a lot of people to catch up with since I went abroad, which I guess I will be doing this week.

Hay

Back To Reality...

After traveling for 3 days with no sleep, with a 13 hour layover in San Fran, I landed back in Boston Monday morning at 7 am. Saying goodbye to Australia was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. It is hard to leave paradise, especially after being the best 4 months of my life. I met some amazing people and had some great experiences. I cannot believe how fast it all went by. I never had culture shock while abroad, but now that I am back, I am sure I will have reverse culture shock. I have only been home 2 days and I have already been comparing everything to Australia...I already know I am definately going back there, just a matter of when. Maybe for grad school? Maybe just to travel...

So now I am on summer break... off till September :) Now time to get back to real life. Working all summer to try to make back all the money I've spent while abroad and hopefully save up enough to go back soon...

I'll be working in Admissions all summer, so I'll be blogging

Hay

"Freee Fallllinnnnn..."

So obviously, I went Bungy jumping!! It was insane. There is not much else to say about it other than that. Jim (my boyfriend), and a few friends from here decided to go to Surfer's Paradise and jump off a 140 ft (14 stories) platform, free falling until the cord couldn't give anymore. :) It was the biggest rush I have ever had, even more than Sky Diving... Imagine that feeling when your stomach drops on a roller coaster...now imagine 100 times that, thinking you are going to hit the ground. I actually hit water under me, but you get the idea. INSANE. I would do it again in a heartbeat... Forcing yourself to dive off a platform when the guy behind you tells you to, is the scariest feeling ever.

Jim was here this week. Come and gone. It feels a lot harder now than it did before he got here. I am starting to miss home and my friends in London, Greece, Prague... We are all pretty spread out. Only a month left here. This is rediculous. I cannot believe how fast my time here is flying by. It is unreal. Pretty soon this whole trip abroad is going to seem like a dream. :(

I got my underwater pics back from the reef, so here are a select few.

(Shark!)

What's the past tense of scuba dive?

Scuba dove? Dived? Anyways, I went Scuba Diving on the Great barrier reef this past weekend. We were on a boat for 4 nights, sans showers, soaking up the sun, swimming, snorkeling, and diving. It was such an amazing experience. Being able to breathe underwater is definitely unreal. The islands we went to were called the Whitsunday Islands. The water was turquoise, and you could see straight down to the bottom. The sand was white and so fine that it squeaked when you walked on it. Snorkeling on the reef was so cool. The reef was only about a foot away from my face, allowing me to take really cool close up pictures. I saw all types of coral and fish I have never seen before, along with sharks!! They weren't huge, but still sharks none the less. These are pictures of the islands we were on, and the sunrise we saw on the boat early in the morning...
The last night on the boat was brutal, we were under a cyclone warning and we had to get back to shore. Everyone on the boat except for about 4 people got extremely sea sick because of how rough the seas were. We got back to the beach and stayed at a hostel for the night. We then met up with everyone from the boat at night and our diving instructor. Only 5 of the 23 people on the boat were from the States, so it was fun getting to know people from all over the world including Sweden, Norway, Holland, Japan, Germany, and England. Most of them were just traveling the world, by themselves from 3 weeks to a year. I feel like people outside of the States travel way more than people form the US. I am going to make it a goal to travel more. It gets pricey, but it is totally worth it. There are so many cool places to see. If I can't do it soon (because of having no money when i get back from OZ) I will do it after school is over, or until I have saved up enough.

In my pop culture class today we watched an Australian TV show called "summer heights high" If your interested, check it out because it is absolutely hilarious!! We were all dying in class. Its kind of like the office. It is one guy who plays a few different characters. Just a side note I was thinking about.
In other news, my boyfriend touches down here at 7 am Thursday morning! I am meeting him at the airport and I get to show him all around the Gold Coast. So excited. :)
Time for class :)
I'll post my underwater pictures as soon as I get them developed!!
Hay

Sky Diving, Surfing, Swimming, Swinging...

Just another day...
I just had the most amazing day of my life. I went to Byron Bay, about an hours drive from Bond Uni. I didn't go to sleep on Friday night because the bus picked us up at around 3am. We got picked up and brought to Byron Skydive, where we anxiously, nervously, and excitedly waited to do the craziest thing imaginable; Jump out of a plane 14,000 feet above Australia, falling 200 feet per second in the free fall before a parachute opens. Was I scared? Not at all...at least not until I had to sign my life away just "in case" as they said. We watched the first group get prepped and hop into the small plane, where they would be pushed out in the case they decided to change their minds at the last second.

We watched them go up and about 20 minutes later, we watched them go down. The landings looked so smooth, easing my nerves a bit. But then, it was our turn. Oh man I cannot tell you, I was feeling about 300 different emotions and reasons to forget about the 388 dollars I spent and not jump. But no one was going to let me off that easy.

We got into our jumpsuits and in about 5 minutes learned how to fall, and that's basically all they taught us.
We were paired up with our jump masters (mine who told me he has jumped over 5,000 times, which made me feel a little bit better. I hopped in the plane first and was seated in the back

(which means i was jumping last) Our plane took off and all was fine, until we were over the ocean seeing for the first time what 14000 feet really looks like. Soon is was all clouds and time to jump. I watched as 5 people got pushed over the side of the plane, and the faces they made just as they saw down below them, nothing but sky, and of course the screams I heard as they jumped. I had to watch them all. Then it was my turn. I thought, "is it too late to say no?" But before I could even finish my thought I was free falling, without a chute. Nothing but sky surrounded me. I have never felt anything like it in my life. In what seemed like forever, the parachute opened and it was a smooth ride from there. my instructor pointed out things we saw on the way down, as we did twists and turns and were getting closer to the ground. He had me practice landing while still in the sky, and soon we were landing smoothly on grass, which was nothing. I surprisingly felt so safe the whole way down and even landing. Words cannot describe how amazing the jump was. I would do it again in a heartbeat and I think everyone should do it at least once in their lives. I was unbelievable. Seriously. Do it.
After jumping I had a rush like no other, I felt like I could go run a marathon, until about 45 minutes later when I sat down, and passed out from the adrenaline fading and my lack of sleep catching up. As you can obviously tell...
We waited for the other groups and watched videos of the jumps.

We then headed to the beach, where we had surf lessons, and I have to admit, I am getting a little better. I actually got up on my board about 4 or 5 times (2 being by myself without the instructor pushing my board and telling me when to stand) I'm telling you, its wayyyy harder than it looks, harder than skydiving, and scarier because the fins on the board could whack you in the head after you get flung off of it. ( Which I did many, many times, along with nosediving)

We then hung out at a fresh water lake for a bit and found these young Aussie kids climbing this tree and swinging off a rope. The tree looked pretty high, but the guys in my group were trying it, and I'm never the type to let a guy think he can do something I can't, so I started climbing this tree, feeling invincible after jumping out of a plane. The rope seemed way higher than it looked, as I climbed the shaky boards and nails sticking out of it, real safe. Anyways I was shaking, but managed to get the the top and jump into the water, which also wasn't as deep as it seemed. (I know, such a bad move...) Just another thing to add to my crazy list of the day.
Following the intense rope jumping session we headed to dinner at a place called "Cheeky Monkeys" down in the city of Byron Bay, which had a very cool hippie, peace, love kind of feel. We ended the night at a club called "La La Land" where the bus brought us back to Bond by about 2am this morning. Talk about exhaustedddddd. :)

Next up is Scuba Diving at Whitsundays, where Ill be Sailing on a boat for 3 nights and checking out the Great Barrier Reef. I love Australia.