In case you hadn't already figured it out, this is Caroline.

The perfect picture of Caroline and her character. Constantly keeping us on our toes with witty comments (sometimes in the midst of serious conversations), she never ceases to crack us up. Caroline's doing Religious Studies and aims to get involved with Women's College through the play, the chior, the inter-college jazz group, singing for formal dinners, being part of Arts Festival by maybe teaching knitting, and she even contemplated breaking out the old clarinet skills so she could be part of the orchestra. Musical at heart, we sing our grievances away when she pulls out her guitar and I attempt to remember the lyrics as she just sighs and keeps going. I'm just thankful that we're in this together, because while I know that it would be a different, more immersive experience to be here alone, sometimes I wonder if I could handle the pressure and challenge of breaking into already established systems, cliques and organizations by myself. It's been tremendously helpful to have a friend around who I can talk to about the past and remember the things that remind us of home. It's also a huge blessing that she and I are striving to be Christians in this new and different environment that challenges us in many ways, from loving people to living fully to glorifying God in it all. I think if I were doing it all over again, I wouldn't do anything differently-- I certainly wouldn't choose a different companion.

Adam, the outdoorsman

We met Adam during Orientation, at the start of the walking tour from Uni to Darling Harbour. He's a talker; he was making friends with everyone. Somehow, though, Caroline and I were cool enough to nab his attention long enough for him to make us his friends. Which was infinitely cool, because he ended up going with Caroline and Eva and another new friend, Katie, to Tassie the next week before classes started.

Adam is the man-- so friendly and outgoing and eager to get out to do things. He rides his bike for about 2 hours a day, even though he has tendonitis in his wrist that makes his hand turn white from lack of blood flow. He's running the City to Surf competition this weekend, which is about 13 miles and includes a ridiculously steep hill. He totes around an REI backpack that has a water pouch in it. I get a particular kick out of it because it's so not Sydney style. But I guess that's why the three of us are friends! He's a communications major (film studies) at Northeastern in Boston and was working for ESPN before coming here. I've adopted him as big brother in Karl's absence-- SO glad I can call him a friend.

Katie, a "comp-sci major from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken"

Met Katie in the gym tour during Orientation. Enjoyed her company immediately because she seemed to not care so much what people thought of the things she likes to do. This struck me immediately when she mentioned that she's doing an Asian Film Studies class (which she later dropped) and that it interested her because she likes anime. She currently divides her time between hanging out with us, hanging out with a group of Italian guys we met, going to class, and talking with her boyfriend Paul back home.

Andrew, from Cornell

We met Andrew through the same tour that we met Adam, walking from Uni to Darling Harbour. We all became good friends when we found out that we were in Aboriginal Religions together (with Leslie too) and realized that we all like the more chill kind of hanging out rather than the crazy $30+/night club-hopping. The best times I've had with Andrew are the big Monday lunches all of us (last week was Caroline, Adam, Katie, Leslie, Andrew and myself) have between classes, the nights spent watching Scrubs, the night Adam, Caroline, Andrew and I played drinking games in Care's room, and the photo shoot. He's studing Animal Science up at Cornell and swears he hasn't yet been tempted to jump off the bridge into the gorge, despite the cold and the hard work.

I've got to find pictures of Ben, Tom, Dave, Leslie, Anne, and some of the other girls here at Women's before I can tell you about them. Ben and Tom, if you read this before I talk to you about it, shoot me a picture at jkurbjun@student.usyd.edu.au.

Some of my friends are also scattered around Australia. Eva's up in Brisbane and Dave, Simon and Pete are all in Melbourne, but I'll be going to visit in November. I managed to make a friend on the SCUBA trip who will be returning to Denmark sometime in the next few weeks:

Jacob "I think he could break me in half" Cramer

Like I said, I met Jacob on the Pro-Dive adventure. He is travelling with his buddy from the Danish army, Christian, and they are avid backgammon players. I think I mentioned before that they took their game into the reef to play a game underwater before going home. We hung out the night the trip ended and took Cairns by storm, having a go of it at a good number of bars and dance clubs around the town. Since then, he and Christian have been making their way down the coast to get back to Sydney to fly back home. From the emails it seems like they've had an amazing trip and I imagine it'll be tough to go home. Most recently, he included me in an email back home that was entirely in Danish. Can anyone translate it?