"Ohhh, We're Half Way There.."

Per the Bon Jovi lyric used in the title, I am officially half way through my time in Sydney! I have been here for 67 days, and have 67 left! It feels good to know that I have made it this far. I picture it like climbing up a hill. It was a struggle at times to get to this point, to the top... but now I feel like the rest of my time will be a more enjoyable climb down the hill as I head closer and closer to going home.

The weather has been goofy since I have been back from the Outback. It is similar to Florida in that it rains/pours for 10 minutes then the next minute its blue skies and sunny. It has been a constant cycle of cold and rainy and clear and sunny for the last couple of days. I wish it would stay clear and sunny.. but I heard that May is the wettest month in Sydney, so I am gearing up for more rain. It is sad to see summer go, but I like the fall too. As I was typing this post I looked up out of my window and saw a rainbow! It looks a lot bigger in real life than in this picture, and is really pretty :) I guess that's the one good thing about rain.

Today I had a meeting with my boss Tim. We met to talk about what direction we were going to go in with my internship. As I previously mentioned the original project he had me work on turned out to be a dead end so we had to drop it. It was not my fault, and I still learned a few helpful things in the process.

Tim decided that it would be best use of my time if I did sort of an independent study on an intro Epidemiology course. Since it is too late for me to actually take the class I am going to listen to a few of the lectures online, complete some of the tutorial exercises, and have private tutorial sessions with Tim and a couple other professors. I will get to work at my own pace, and it won't be for a grade or anything but will simply give me a great head start to grad school. I am not interested in pursuing Epidemiology as a career, but no matter which school I go to I will have to take at least 1 Epidemiology course in order to complete a Masters of Public Health degree, so this will definitely help me succeed later on. It is slightly disappointing because I will no long technically be a research assistant, but Tim did say he would write me a recommendation for grad school, so I suppose that it all works out! I have gotten some relevant experience and contacts in the field so far, and I shouldn't complain since it has not been a lot of work. I will let you know how the course goes once I get started with it.

Just to reiterate the crazy weather, in the course of me writing this blog, it has been sunny, rained, there was a rainbow, briefly sunny, and now raining, again. I hope the weather makes up its mind sometime soon! I should have listened to Dad and packed those rain boots after all!

Love,
Becky