Day 3 and 4

Off to Gatton today!!! The University of Queensland Gatton campus is the School of Veterinary, Animal and Agricultural sciences. Its about an hour away from the house on the motorway. The drive is quite cool too. I saw the country side I have been dying to see. Saw some Brahmans and Herefords on my drive there. The geography is not exactly what I expected it to be either... oddly enough. It is quite hilly and sorta mountainous but not cold at all. I was told that just past Gatton it flattens out to farmland though.

Gatton is the definition of an Ag School!! You can't even major in anything else but agriculturally related fields!! The mural is on the side of a building I thought it was pretty cool. They have an awesome campus. I bought lunch at the equivalent of a Club Red type store. Haven't had much interesting food yet but we had a cool talk about foods to try on the drive to Gatton today. Kangaroo will be an easy one to try.... maybe even Opossum I know crazy but it is actually pretty normal here at restaurants. They have 2 types of Opossums, bushy tailed and ring tailed. Ring tailed are like ours and they eat the bushy tail type.

I haven't gotten to actually work with any animals yet because they you have to do a lot of Induction stuff and I had to take a online reading course on Australian Animal Ethics so I am still waiting on approval for all of that but I did get to tour the Centre for Advanced Animal Science (CAAS) today.

CAAS is the campus farm but it is very researched based and they do all kinds of studies on lots of different animals. They were working out the particulars for a Monkey research project while I was there. No small companion animals here they have their own spot in the small animal research facilities.

The Small Animal Facilities are AMAZING!!! These animals are seriously living in a castle!! The cats aren't kept in cages all day they are in super nice cages at night and then put in a play room with enrichment toys and a door to go outside with. The dog's set up is the same but in kennel style. They didn't have any dogs in when I visited so no good pictures. They also have the most amazing and cool surgery teaching facilities I have ever seen! Unlike here where you have to do undergrad and then go to vet school....vet school is an undergrad option in Australia!!! This is the small animal surgery teaching room and in the back those are 5th year students doing a surgery on a cat I think. There is a surgery light camera so the supervising DMV can have a class in the teaching room watching as well if he would like!!!

I got to poke my head into one of the teaching labs for Freshmen students...OMG. It was huge!!! Like 100 students in one lab. It was a science lab and there is a flat screen monitor for every 2 microscopes so the students can see what everyone is doing. They also have an octopus microscope so the professors and show many students at one time special things under a microscope!!! It is such an awesome facility absolutely amazing!!!

After I toured the facilities I just wandered around campus a bit. They have an Avanue of Palms kinda like the trees on Old Main Lawn at the U of A it was pretty cool. At the end of it is a flagpole that back when the school first was established they had an "A" week and a "B" week and the each week determined what classes you went to and on one of the weeks they flew a flag and if someone showed up late to a class and used the excuse they forgot what week it was the professor would point at the flag. My obsession on this campus is The Foundation Building, the house like builidng. How Australian is that!!! I mean seriously I am in love with this building!!! I want my house to look like this!! It is a GORGEOUS building!!! It is the founding building for the school like our Old Main. After my little walk I got a ride back home and fell asleep quick around 5ish. I hadn't had jet lag because of all the sleep I had gotten but it hit me hard but it was good to sleep and not have to get up at a certain time since the weekend is here and my first week in Australia is already over I can't believe how quick it went!! They are sending me up north to Charters Towers and Chillagoe next week and I am pumped. It is apparently true Outback country there and I get to work some cattle so I can't wait!! I can only imagine how quick that week will go!

Day 4
Lazy Saturday!! Slept in and been reading all day. Real pretty today but kinda cloudy. I think Ala (the professor I am working with) is taking be out and about tomorrow as long as she isn't busy so off to watch movies on the computer not that internet is back up!!