Since
school is really ramping up this week, I’ve had less time to do fun,
adventurous stuff. However, my classes
have been really cool so far! I feel
like they’re all going to be very, very interesting. (You’ll also probably notice my writing style
getting a little more formal; probably because I need to be formal more often
with my teachers and such.)
For
example, I had my first anatomy lab today!
It’s for my class called “Zoology of Vertebrates” which sounds amazingly
sciencey, and is the class I’ve been looking forward to since I started my
zoology degree. It involves learning and
experiencing the anatomy of all sorts of creatures through dissection, (my
favorite,) and it’s all done with fancy lab coats on. It’s not quite as exciting as exploring
Australia, but to me, this lab was just as much of an adventure.
I wish
I could have taken pictures of the lab it was held in! Next time I’ll take some time before or after
class to document this room. It’s filled
on every side with various animal skeletons.
Some were recognizable, like an upright kangaroo and a turtle with its
shell suspended from the ceiling. Others, however, were really strange, and
looked positively prehistoric! If I have
time after class next week, I’ll definitely ask one of my instructors about
these weird creatures on the shelves of our lab.
In the
actual class, we got to dissect two chordates today, (chordates being boneless
creatures that are usually fish or crustaceans.)
We examined an amphioxus under a microscope (I’ve never heard of it
either,) and got to cut open and see the inside of a sea squirt! I never even knew those things were alive,
much less that they were this fascinating.
I’ll save most of the geeking out for the people who are actually
interested in this kind of weird stuff, but the sea squirt was basically a
bulbous, fleshy sac inside a crusty outer carapace. It’s such a weird little thing! Next week we get to dissect sharks, which I
am 10000% looking forward to.
After
lab I had a huge chunk of free time today.
The homework load isn’t enough yet to fill up my free time, so it felt
kind of weird and empty. I ended up
laying on a bench on one of the lawns chatting with friends on my phone and
listening to all the weird Australian birdsongs. I even spotted a kookaburra in the tree right
next to me!
In the
evening I took the 3km walk down to Coogee, which I think I’m going to make a
daily habit. Some of my more athletic
friends left after me and jogged the steep path, (I’m nowhere near fit enough
for that yet,) catching up before I reached the beach. By the time we got there it was almost 7, so
the sun was setting behind the town, and the beach was shady and pleasantly cool. While the others supplemented their run with
sprints across the beach, (hell no) I cheered them on while feeding the local
seagulls with crumbs I had in my bag. I’ve
kind of earned a reputation at International House as That Girl Obsessed with
Animals, and honestly that’s probably the best thing to be known for. I really am pretty obsessed with the wildlife
here, as you probably know after reading my blog posts. (I’ll stop blithering endlessly about
kangaroos someday….maybe.)
I’m
going to bed soon, with a full day of classes in front of me, but I want to
share a reading I just did for my technology class tomorrow. We’re discussing Isaac Asimov’s Robot Dreams, which is a really cool and
thought-provoking short story and you should take some time to read it. All my classes are looking really promising
this semester—I can’t wait to get into them further!
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