TASMANIA!

Saturday night I got back from an absolutely amazing trip to Tasmania. I've uploaded the photos here and the posts explaining all that we did along the way will be coming soon. Enjoy :)

Tell the world I'm coming home (March 18)

For the last 36 hours, I’ve had three lines of one song stuck in my head. Over and over and over on repeat.

I’m coming home

I’m coming home

Tell the world I’m coming home

But of all the songs that have been stuck in my head over the years, I don’t know that these lines will ever get old. And that’s because of the reason they're stuck there in the first place.

Friday morning I got some awesome news. After six months of applying to internships, stressing like crazy over what to do with my life and then spending six weeks going through the interview process for an internship that I really wanted, I finally got the news that I’d waited so long to hear.

I will be the new photography intern at The Bakersfield Californian.

Two days before I woke up to a voicemail from TBC’s photo editor my stress levels were peaking. I had written more cover letters, sent out more resumes and put together more versions of my portfolio than I want to think about. And as I went through the process and continued to look for more jobs, I kept coming back to one undeniable fact. As great as many of the jobs I was finding were, they weren’t where I wanted them to be. After four years of bouncing between Maryland, Houston and now Australia, I was ready to be home.

Once I decided to make getting back to California my priority, I began working on changing my vision for my future. On convincing myself that photography could become just a hobby, that I could see myself working in an office, and that I could figure out how to actually grow up (because let’s face it, for as long as I get to spend my days capturing moments with my camera, I will remain uninhibited, easily excitable and full of youth).

My computer hated me for two days as I opened tab after tab of potential advertising and marketing jobs that I could apply for. But luckily, I never had to.

I had a paper due on Friday at 4pm. My final paper of college. It was for my Australian Media class and was about psychological treatment for journalists after trauma coverage. I actually really enjoyed writing it, but I felt the need to stay up all night writing it since it was my final paper. 

So I stayed up working on it until 5am Friday morning, going to bed only after making sure that my roommate would wake me up at 11 so I’d have time to go over it a few times before turning it in. When I woke up to a tap on my leg at 11, I did the first thing I do every morning. I checked my phone.

It was then that I saw the missed call and voicemail from TBC’s photo editor. By the time I had checked his message and walked out to the living room to call him back, I was trembling. I knew the conversation was going to go one of two ways. Thankfully, it went as I had hoped.

After I got over my initial excitement, there were phone calls to be made. I knew my mom was in class (her final class at UCLA! Go Mom!) so I called home, dying to share the news with my favorite little man.

Over the last four years, there’s been one memory that consistently chokes me up and it’s a moment that I wasn’t actually there for, but one that was described to me after the fact. My freshman year my Mom, Rachel and Tommy flew out to College Park to help me move in. At the end of the weekend, saying goodbye was incredibly difficult, but Tommy didn’t seem to fully process what goodbye meant as I left them at Stamp to walk back to my dorm. Something must've clicked shortly after and when they pulled up next to me during my walk, there were tears running down his face. My mom later told me that he stared out the window in silence for the entire car ride with tears streaming down his face and when they bought him a stuffed animal at the airport, he named it Jackie.

Four years of keeping in touch via phone calls and brief visits home has been rough and it was so nice to finally get to tell that same sweet little boy that I was coming home. When I called home, Tommy answered and I could hear the smile in his voice as I broke the news. The moment was priceless.

Over the last day and a half, I’ve gotten to share my excitement with some of the amazing people who have helped me get to where I am today and it has been absolutely wonderful. Thank you all for your love and support. 

You've just got to laugh about it (March 16)

I’d like to take a moment to interrupt my delayed/prolonged/unnecessarily drawn out stories of Australia with a breaking news update.

Today started out like any other Wednesday. I woke up at 6am to the sun shining through the windows, got ready for school, hoped on the bus and was all set for another lovely Australian day. As I sat at my desk waiting for class to start, my phone went off. The message I read went something like this:

Approximately half a second after receiving that text, I was on the phone with my mom to ascertain exactly what had befallen my most cherished companion. Now let me first explain that my car is in Atlanta, along with all of the worldly possessions that didn’t make the cut to join me in Australia, being cared for by my wonderful Aunt Sheila, one of the kindest people I know.

My mom answers the phone, half laughing at what has to be the fastest response she’s ever gotten from me after a text message.

"Are you in class?" she asks.

"Nope, I've got 12 minutes until class starts," I say.

“So have you heard about your car?” she asks.

“Um, no...,” I say, almost too afraid to hear what is going to come next.

“Well, hopefully you’ll be able to laugh about this."

Now, just out of curiosity, how many people have actually laughed after finishing a conversation that starts out with that question?

But I digress.

So my mom goes on to explain how my car had been making some squeaking/squawking/grumbling/altogether unpleasant noises that had led my aunt to arrange to have it towed from her house to the dealership.

Sounds simple enough. 

Unfortunately, the tow truck driver didn’t properly attach my car to his truck and at some point in the process my beloved Xterra rolled off the back. The good news is that it was in my aunt’s neighborhood and nobody was injured in the process. The bad news is that my aunt lives on a bit of a hill so my car came to rest by running into a parked car.

Thankfully I won’t be home until the end of April and since the car was already being towed to the dealership the bodywork can be done there as well, but all around not exactly how I had hoped to start my day.

Class started soon after I hung up with Mom and the next thing I knew it was noon and my weekend had officially begun. My first stop once I was back in Broadbeach was the grocery store where I picked up salmon and rice and was all set to make an amazing lunch. I got home, preheated the oven, added some deliciousness to the salmon and popped it in the oven.

After it had cooked for about 10 minutes and as my roommate’s mom and I sat in the kitchen working on our laptops, we heard a popping noise. I was content to go on distracting myself with Facebook as I mentally drooled over my soon to be lunch. But my roommate’s mom looked concerned so I headed over to the oven to investigate the noise. And for no particular reason, cue The Monster Mash.

I looked inside and peaked under the light

When my eyes beheld an eerie sight.

For the pan with my salmon had cracked in four

Making it edible no more

My pan had smashed

It did the salmon mash

The salmon mash

It was a Pyrex smash

It did the mash

It went up in a flash

It did the mash

It did the salmon mash

From my balcony in Australia’s east

To the kitchen table where we like to feast

My tears poured forth and my sobs burst free

As I set out to find lunch plan B

I’m not quite sure how to continue this story after that brief interruption for a sad remix of The Monster Mash, but here we go.

So yes, the pan with my lovely lemon pepper salmon was down for the count. My initial plan was to find a cookie sheet, salvage the salmon and keep on cooking, but I was warned that glass could’ve gotten into the salmon so I gave up my dreams and went searching for a new lunch plan.

At this point, my hopes were sufficiently dashed. Nothing was going to beat the lunch I had envisioned and by now I was starving so I settled for oatmeal.

Got out the packets, poured some milk in a microwave safe bowl (didn’t want to risk breaking anything else) and put it in the microwave. After two minutes, the timer went off and I begrudgingly walked to the kitchen to collect my consolation prize. Only it couldn’t be that simple. Nope. It was Oatmeal City in the microwave. The bowl was scalding hot and covered in oatmeal along with the rest of the microwave. I cleaned up the mess, salvaged as much oatmeal as I could and called it a meal.

I considered counting that as strike three for the day and hiding in my room to avoid blowing anything else up, but that’s what I love about Australia. It’s impossible to get down about any one of these things. You’ve just got to laugh about it.

So I looked outside, saw that the sun was shining on a gorgeous day and headed to the beach. After a wonderful nap on the beach and some decent work on my tan, I returned to the room. I’ve found that nothing ends a day better than running along the beach at sunset accompanied by Spanish music so that was just how I ended today. It was wonderful.

I hope all of your days are just as wonderful and that you’re able to find the humor in any situation that is thrown your way. The best is yet to come :)

Love you all and miss you tons!

-JB

It's not wrong, it's just different: Driving down under (Feb. 11)

(To see more photos of the Chevron Island fishermen, click here.)

Thursday night as we pondered where to go, we decided that this weekend was the weekend to take our first stab at renting a car so we could drive down to Byron Bay to watch the sunrise over the lighthouse.

We headed to Avis on Friday afternoon to collect our rental car and spend a few hours figuring out how to drive on the opposite side of the road. After getting the car our first stop was a nearby shopping mall where I picked up film for my Holga camera and then we headed down to the beach. The sun was starting to set and it was getting pretty windy so we packed up quickly and kept driving. One of my photo assignments for the weekend was ‘silhouettes’ so as we passed several fishermen along the wharf with the sun setting behind them, I just had to stop.

Learning to drive the car on the opposite side of the road wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be. I just found myself repeating “drive on the left, drive on the left,” whenever I got into a confusing situation (like a round-a-bout, of which there are way too many!).

Eventually we made our way back to the Meriton, found a spot in the parking garage and headed up to our apartment to prepare for our crack of dawn awakening. 

Week 4 of Classes (Feb. 7-11)

During our fourth week of classes I reached a few milestones in my collegiate career. On Monday I turned in my first actual assignment of the semester, a large report for my web design class. The project itself wasn’t too bad, but because the Australian grading system is the reverse of the US and their requirements and expectations seem to be different, I spent hours checking and rechecking to make sure I’d followed the directions.

On the Wednesday of the fourth week I gave my final presentation of college. If you’re anything like my dad, you’re probably wondering how that is possible. It all stems from the fact that I’m only taking three courses this semester and all of the percentages of the grade are laid out in each course syllabus. And of those three classes, my Australian Media course was the only one that required any sort of presentation. Granted it was only a five-minute presentation and we were limited to one slide so it really wasn’t all that grand of a presentation by most standards, but it was, nonetheless, my final one of college.

Other than that, the week flew by like all the rest and before we knew it we were once again trying to figure out where to go on our next weekend adventure.

Fraser Island Day 3: Gradual return to reality (Feb. 6)

(To see more of my Fraser Island photos, click here.)

I apologize for getting so far behind on this. For whatever reason trying to explain all of the amazing things that happened during our weekend on Fraser Island has just been so daunting that I’ve literally been putting it off for the past month. Absurd, I know. But here goes. The final day of the trip. Hopefully after this I’ll be able to get you all caught up in a more timely fashion.

Day three started out with its own special treat. As we began getting ready in the darkness, our German traveler noticed an outline of a bug on the floor. Only, of course, it couldn’t be any bug, it had to be an enormous cockroach. As soon as she pointed it out and we all began screaming and jumping around, it took off running toward the beds and under our stuff. Needless to say we all got ready quite quickly, grabbed our stuff and headed back for the truck.

We drove out to a small bay where we scarfed down breakfast (the most delicious egg sandwiches and pineapple juice I’d ever tasted) before collecting our little buckets of dead fish to feed the dolphins. After waiting in line with mostly small children under the age of 5, we finally got our turn to walk into the water to hand feed the dolphins. It was the coolest sensation as they just ate the fish right from my hand. When my roommate and I walked back to return our buckets, the lady asked us if we liked it. Seeing as how we were grinning like idiots and babbling on and on about how cool it was, she offered us a second bucket to go and feed them again. She certainly didn’t have to ask us twice. So we grabbed the buckets and headed back to feed them again. It was wonderful.

We then headed into the mountains, stopping to pick up lunch in the small town of Matilda before we made our way to a huge waterfall. We had to put on real shoes for the walk to the falls because of the risk of leaches. As gross at that sounds, the walk was actually beautiful. We were again surrounded by towering green trees and all sorts of beautiful flowers and birds. We ate our lunches overlooking a beautiful tree covered valley alongside a large waterfall and swimming pond. After awhile it started raining (raining in the rainforest, I found it quite ironic) so we hiked back to the truck, checked each other for leaches and then were on our way.

Our final stop on the way home was in another quaint little town where we got snacks and window-shopped before starting the drive back to Brisbane. Everyone was totally wiped out so the drive was quite peaceful as we listened to music and soaked in the sun pouring in through the windows. We dropped the other three girls off in Brisbane and then continued on to Surfer’s Paradise. We had planned on stopping in Surfer’s Paradise to see Russell’s apartment so we’d be able to find it when we returned for the Super Bowl party, but as we were almost back the truck started shuddering and making all types of clunking noises (it was a manual transmission). So since it was clearly struggling and Russ was worried about being able to make it to Broadbeach and back after dropping us off, we instead headed in to Surfer’s Paradise and caught a bus. Ordinarily, this would’ve been a non-issue since the public transportation system is quite convenient. However, after three days of roughing it in the wilderness, we were looking far from presentable. So we hopped the first bus we could find (less we bump into someone we knew while wandering Surfer’s in our unkempt state) and eventually made our way home.

It was then that we were hit with the toughest choice we’d had to make all weekend. What to do first upon our return to civilization: shower or collapse into bed? I was so disgustingly dirty that the thought of climbing into my fresh, tidily-made bed (yep, the cleaning service had come while we were gone!) was too much to bear so I showered before lapsing into the greatest sleep/nap/coma ever.

Fraser Island Day 2: Is this real life? (Feb. 5)

(To see more of my Fraser Island photos, click here.)

After a sleepless night consumed by endless dreams of being swarmed by bugs and nearly suffocating from the heat, we were ready for day two. We skipped showering out of fear of the spiders running around the bathroom and headed out to the truck for a trip into the rain forest. It may only have been day two, but one of the first skills we had developed was the ability to pack up the truck quickly and scream and jump enough to get just about all the bugs out of the back before quickly slamming the doors. So we were ready to go in no time.

Our first stop in the rain forest was alongside a 2,000-year-old tree, which, as Russ put it, was roughly as old as Jesus. Yes, it was enormous. From there we walked into the rain forest where we stopped to check out the world’s most dangerous spider (it seemed to be napping for the day so instead we just took a quick peak inside its hole), walked through an old aborigine town surrounded by towering trees and admired the endless greenery. As we walked we could hear birds laughing and singing through the trees, a sound we were told signaled a change. In this case it was the constant changing from sun to showers.

As we drove through the forest we watched it change from mostly low trees closer to the ocean to a huge canopy of a rain forest as we headed inland. Our second stop was at the largest perched dune lake in the world, a completely isolated spot surrounded by green mountains and white sand beaches. Russ caught a baby sea turtle that we all got a chance to hold and then he broke off eucalyptus leaves so we could all breathe in their intoxicating scent.

Our third stop was supposed to be a special lake hidden in the forest, but the rough terrain of the driving path had forced the road we were looking for to close. I can’t imagine what the closed path must have been like given how rugged the road we were allowed to drive on was. We were literally driving through a muddy rutted out path between towering trees that went up and dropped down constantly. Riding in the back of the truck we were all bracing ourselves against the roof to try to minimize how much we were thrown about.

From there we headed back up the beach where we drove by the Maheno shipwreck and on to Indian Head. After climbing up the rocks, we had a 360-degree view of the island, beautiful beaches and the endless ocean. During the winter they head up there to whale watch in the clear water below.

On our way back down the beach toward the ferry, we stopped at the cleanest creek in the world to go for a swim. One million liters of water (enough to hydrate all of LA everyday!) bubble out of the ground and flow down to the ocean via the creek each day. We walked up the creek a decent distance before plunging into the ice-cold water and floating our way down to the ocean. Our second stop on our way back to the ferry was at another special creek; this one full of Petri oil, which we were told would help our sunburns and unkempt hair.

Eventually we boarded the ferry and returned to Rainbow Beach where we stayed at the Dingo Backpackers lodge, a thoroughly intriguing experience. All five of us girls stayed in one room with six bunk beds and a bathroom whose only light flickered incessantly. While there we all took our first showers of the trip and had a communal BBQ with the other backpackers. At dinner I learned that, for our French and German speaking companions, my English was the easiest to understand, a point that may seem trivial, but given the amount of grief I receive at home for my “accent,” I considered to be quite a victory.

After dinner Russ busted out his Play Station and we played an international golf video game for a few hours before eventually heading to bed.