About Me and Where I'm Headed

Well, this is my first post of what should be a record of one of the best semesters of my life. Hopefully:) I guess I should start by telling you a bit about myself. My name is Jessica and I'm currently a junior at the best university in SC: Clemson University. I bleed orange and love my tigers. Anyway, I've been wanting to study abroad for the longest time; I was supposed to go to Cannes, France last summer, but I tore my ACL and MCL skiing and then I just wasn't up for it. After that, I decided to study abroad for an entire semester, but instead of testing out my limited French skills, I thought it would be best to head to an English speaking country. Since I'm a biological sciences major and love my animals, I figured that the best place to go was Australia (It doesn't hurt that it'll be nice, sunny and warm there during the spring either). So, after a few setbacks (like not getting my exchange spot at Bond Uni), I ended up settled on James Cook University. JCU is located in Townsville, in tropical northern Queensland, near the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforests of the Wet Tropics. It has one of the best marine biology programs in the WORLD, which is pretty amazing.

Over the past few months I've been going through the whole application process, which has been trying at times, but it's getting better now that I'm getting close to departure. (February 7th...only 3 weeks left!). I've got to get a few more signatures from some Clemson professors (who are surprisingly good at hide and seek) and then I'm all set:) I've been talking to some girls who are also going to Australia, which has been really fun. Only one other girl from Clemson is going: Julia S-H. She's a pretty awesome kid, and we've already planned a trip to Fiji on the way home in June. The two girls I've been talking to the most on facebook are Julie F. and Alex R. They're pretty cool kids too, and I can't wait to meet them during my 10 hour layover in LAX (expect a couple of people-watching blogs that day!).

I guess that's about it for now...not much to talk about until I start getting ready to go! 22 days and counting!

-Jess