D - 5

Five more days now until Go Time and things are pretty much the same as there were three days ago. I've done a bit more packing and crossed off more things from my checklists, but watching the Olympics has occupied most of my time. For some reason, focusing my attention on sporting events with international participation hasn't been a good distraction from thinking about this trip. So, in an effort to vent my anticipation, I decided to go ahead and start a blog of my semester abroad... over a week before it began.

I haven't got much Australian-specific material at this point, so try and bear with me. Time management and communication are two issues that may pose a challenge for me, so I'm making a preemptive strike. I would like to update this blog as often as I can and Skype with people on a somewhat regular basis. Brisbane is in the UTC +10 time zone and CST is UTC -6 which makes Brisbane 16 hours ahead of Milwaukee/Madison. Assuming a "normal" awake/asleep pattern, it would be better for real-time communication to occur at night CST and in the morning in Brisbane. My Skype name is nh3456 and my e-mail is haas.neal@gmail.com if you want to contact me. I'm not sure what my living situation will be like until after I arrive, so it's hard to say what the internet connection situation will be like, or how busy my schedule will be. I'll keep you posted.

You can probably find a lot of info about Brisbane on the internet, but here is a quick overview:

3rd largest Aussie city @ ~2 million ppl (1. Sydney, 2. Melbourne)

The Brisbane River snakes right through the middle, making for an interesting commuter dynamic

Temp: Avg. high - 78 F Avg. low - 60 F

Rainfall: ~37 in./year (about the same as Milwaukee)

University of Queensland was ranked 41st in the world by UK's Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings (UW ranked 61st)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane for your convenience

I've signed up for all the classes that I will need to graduate for when I return in July, which is a big relief. It took a little while to get things sorted out, but it all fell into place nicely. Those classes are Electronic Circuits, Introduction to Control Systems, Popular Music: Elvis to Madonna, and Analysis of Scientific Data (Statistics). I'm excited to learn in a different classroom setting, especially one in a different country. Frankly, right now I'd be excited to be in a classroom anywhere! Monday can't come soon enough.