Pre-Departure

When I was little, my mom used to read me a book every night before I went to bed. It was called “Hello Ocean.” The book was a poem about a little girl who spent the day admiring the beauty of the ocean. I was obsessed with the illustrations of the sparkling water and odd creatures who lived there. The ocean became my life. I ate up any information I could get my hands on about it. I collected countless books about marine life and spent many hours learning about the endless diversity the water held. I knew that in order to see this diversity in person, I had to go to the Great Barrier Reef. Australia became a key part of my dream. I was set on becoming a marine biologist, on one day getting to see the Reef, and the continent of Australia.

Over time, dreams change and as I grew up, I no longer had the drive to be a marine biologist. It can be challenging to keep that passion in a state that lacks water. I discovered that my calling was actually teaching but I never lost my love of science. Coming to college, I decided to major in elementary education with a minor in biology. All of my dreams of Australia and being a marine biologist were practically nonexistent any more, until I walked into a study abroad information session. I remember walking into the meeting, and my whole body filling up with a childlike excitement. It was the adventure that I craved and the place that I had long dreamed about. I could work on my biology minor while living out my dream of finally seeing the Great Barrier Reef and Australia. The dreams that I had as a child are finally coming to life. In less than two weeks, I will be standing on the continent that I have only dreamed about.

One objective for myself is to get over fears of taking risks and putting myself out there. I have always had the safety net of my family or friends from high school but going to Australia is like jumping when you can’t see the bottom. It is going to be scary being in a new place all by myself. I am hoping that taking the training wheels off and seeing how I react to being in a different social setting will help me get over some of my social anxiety. That by ripping the bandaid off, that I will grow stronger, braver, and that I won’t be more confident in myself when I return to the United States. I want to be confident and strong and I am hoping this adventure will help with that.

Another objective is for me to learn about a culture that I know next to nothing about. Australia, being so far away has kind of always been a mystery for me. I love to learn about different cultures and am looking forward to embracing this culture. I want to experience as much as I can. I plan on taking in a lot of the customs and not being afraid to put myself out there to learn more. Saying yes to social situations that would usually scare me and getting to see the life of the Australian people is a main goal of mine. I have been blessed to be exposed to a variety of cultures in the United States and have gotten to travel to see other cultures but this is an entirely new experience for me and I am excited to learn.

I am anticipating traveling a lot when I am not in class. I have always loved to travel and am hoping to do a lot of traveling around Australia and to the neighboring islands. It has always been my dream to go to the Great Barrier Reef and to hug a koala and I am planning on doing both. I plan on doing the whole tourist thing a bit but I also want to know the real Australia. The part of the country that most tourists don’t get to see. I am hoping that the extra time there and making friends with locals will help me get to understand the culture of Sydney.

I am also anticipating really liking living in a city setting. I have never lived in a city, I always grew up in small towns but I have been to larger cities and have always loved them. I am looking forward to being part of the culture of Sydney and being part of the exciting atmosphere. I know Sydney has a rich music and art scene and I am happy to get to be part of those scenes.

I know that there will be challenges. I am leaving behind a great group of friends and it will be hard to leave them for such a long time. I have a great family that has always been my support system and communication will be hard. I am anticipating homesickness to be pretty bad. I will be in an unfamiliar place and the new style of life will be an adjustment for sure. I am sure things will be lonely at first because I won’t have very many friends. It will be like starting freshman year all over again, which is really exciting but is also scary and could be a challenge if I don’t make friends quickly. I also anticipate there might be a pretty big culture shock. Getting used to the customs and different ways of doing things might take me a couple weeks to get used to and I anticipate that it will be frustrating at times.

Other than the biology I am learning in my studies, I hope to learn about the aboriginals. I think indigenous people are always fascinating. I know that there is some tension and I am hoping to learn more about the people and compare their situation to the situation of our own indigenous people. I also hope to learn more about the wildlife and unique habitat of Australia. I have always had a passion for biology and islands have particularly interesting biology so I hope to study this and see the unique atmosphere that the island provides. I intend to go to a lot of zoos and aquariums because that is where my passions lie.

Australia is home to a very diverse community. It has a lot of influence from Europe and Asia but it also has a rich Aboriginal history. From my research, I have learned that this produces a very unique culture of food, dance, and music. Like America, it is a melting pot of culture. It is fairly accepting of most people but there is a lot of racism towards the indigenous people of Australia. The LGBTQ community is very accepted which will be very interesting to see and to compare with the LGBTQ rights in the United States. There is a wide range of belief systems; however, the majority of the population is Christian with a large Catholic community. This will be very interesting for me as I am Catholic, it will be very exciting to see my own faith in a different culture and to compare it to Catholics in the United States. Australia has a strong mixed economy that is focused on service and mining. It is an island which results in higher island prices sometimes so it will be interesting to see the differences in prices compares to the United States. They also don’t typically give tips so that is something that I will have to get used to as the United States is a large tipping community.

I am blessed to be able to have this opportunity. How many people are going to get to live out a childhood dream? Two years ago I started going to a school that supports dreams like this. NAU has allowed me to be able to explore the world and become a better person because of it. I am lucky because I have a great support group of friends and family and I am getting the opportunity to live out my dream. I will get to see the Great Barrier reef that has fascinated me for so long. I will get to hug a Koala. I will get o to see evolution at work in one of the best places to study biology in the world. I get to explore the world and take classes for my minor at the same time.  I have been so blessed and while I know there will be challenges I am so excited for this adventure to begin.