Getting Through and More Fun Facts

May 10 12:50pm

Last night and today have been kind of rough on me. As I went to bed last night, all I could think about were all my assignments that I have to do, including papers, group work, and an individual problem-based exercise. All this within the next week and a half to two weeks. And then I was thinking about what I was going to do with Brett while he’s here, so naturally I had to get out of bed and start looking at my calendar to start figuring some of this out. Now I have two biggish essays to pound out and do a group project this week. Also, on Friday I have a quiz in my psych class that I just now remembered so that is going on as well. It just feels so overwhelming. The papers are really weighing me down too because I do not really care about the topics that I was presented with in either of them. Well, my aboriginal paper is slightly interesting because it deals with politics and government policy, but I can’t stand the aboriginals so that puts a damper on the whole thing. I just want 5 June to come as quickly as possible, and then I’ll get two mini-vacations during revision week. Sunday, Brett and I are flying to Sydney for two days and then flying back to Brisi on Tuesday. Wednesday morning, we have to get the first train out of Toowong to get to the airport so we can fly to Melbourne for four days. Then we come back to Brisi where we’ll have a day or two before I have to start studying for my final, then there are three days after my final where I will have to get everything packed up and ready to go. Well, two days after my final but my final is around noon so two and a half days I guess. And Skyping the parents and grandparents today really made me wish I was home. However, the total days remaining for me is now down to 41, so I’m pretty sure that time will come before I know it and by then I may not want to leave since all the stresses of Australian school will be gone. But we’ll make the best of it because that’s all we can do with the situations God gives us in our lives. “No worries” really takes on a new meaning when looked at from that point of view. God is in control of what is going on in the world and in our lives, and we need to trust him and whatever he has planned for us. So at times like this when I may be worried about these assignments, I need to remember that we have an awesome God who puts challenges in front of us to get us to work with them. I now know that I need to turn my free time into study time, and that I will get through these next two weeks ok. And if it doesn’t go as planned, well, I guess it’s a good thing my grades don’t transfer back. J.

I think I’ll finish off this post with a little more Australian “Fun Facts” for y’all:

• We think the grooves in the sidewalk are to help blind people find their way, along with crosswalks dinging when it’s clear to go
• Queensland is 2x the size of Texas and 5x bigger than Japan
• Lungfish are unique to Queensland – can live on both land and in water
• Queensland was known as ‘man-jinn’ by locals...it means “shaped like a spike”
• Central streets are named after the Royal Family – female names run parallel to Queen Street and male names run perpendicular
• Brisbane’s last census showed 1.7% of Brisbanites came from indigenous origins, while 21.7% were born overseas
• There are 10 road bridges, 3 railroad bridges, and 2 pedestrian bridges crossing the Brisbane River
• Surveys show 75% of Australians believe in God but only 22% will be in church on Sunday
• Australia is the world’s largest exporter of beef and veal
• Wool is the major export and supplies about 70% of wool used in clothing industry
• About 300,000 aborigines lived in Australia in 1788 when the first 11 ships arrived, speaking over 400 languages
• Australians tried to breed out aborigines by taking babies from their mothers to be raised by white families – continued until the 1960’s
• Gave aborigines full citizenship and voting rights in 1967
• Aborigines unemployment rate is over 50% and they are 16x more likely to be in jail than the typical Australian
• Western Australia alone is the size of India
• Australia is the flattest and driest inhabited continent
• Opals are only found in Australia
• People first arrived between 50,000 and 120,000 years ago
• Bachelor parties are referred to as “Buck’s Nights”
• Motto for Anzac Day is “Lest we forget”
• A fire levelled Brisbane in 1864
• Translink (the public transport agency) has a budget is $956 million/year
• Only 200,000 people live in the NT
• Any time you get pulled over, you can be drug tested and breathalysed
• Bush tucker is a term used to ID Aboriginal food
• City Beach is Australia's only inner-city beach
• There have been 37 armed conflicts over water in the past 50 years
• There are only about 150 historians in Australia, and less than half study Australian history
• Story Bridge is named after John Douglas Story, a prominent member of the Queensland Public Service and is nearly half a mile long