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Vlydra

Bravely ran away, away!
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Hello my lovely watchers,
I completed my final exam of the semester yesterday, which means that after three and a half years I have finished my undergraduate degree! After my graduation in July I will be a qualified biologist! However there is no rest for me yet as I am going straight into my honours year. My project involves working with crocodiles - not the easiest animals to work with but definitely some of the coolest.
As you can imagine I have been extremely busy for most of the year so far and will continue to be busy well into 2013. That is why there has been even less art from me than usual. But I have been working on a few arty projects and I hope to share them with you in the near future.
I'm going to Darwin in a few weeks for a volunteer trip where I will be studying a population of sea turtles. If anyone's interested I'll write about it when I get back.
I saw Brave yesterday and really enjoyed it. Has anyone else seen it yet?
How are you guys going?
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Hi everyone!
How is life treating you? I've been crazy busy with uni this semester though I'm happy to report that my hard work is paying off :) I still have one piece of assessment left but it isn't due for another week, so I thought i'd write a quick journal update.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to go on a field trip with some classmates out onto Moreton Bay. For those of you who don't know, I study biology at uni and this field trip was for a unit on marine vertebrates. The purpose of the trip was to watch a group of researchers catch and tag dugongs and collect some samples (for my overseas watchers dugongs are closely related to manatees). I don't have a fancy camera but I still managed to take some decent shots - you can see them here on my Flickr: (www.flickr.com/photos/68712740…). We found a few dugongs but didn't see any elasmobranchs, turtles or cetaceans, save a lone dolphin near the ferry terminal. When I walked off the boat at the end of the day I was crusted with salt and very tender after the bumpy boat ride, but it was an amazing experience and something I would love to do again someday. Being a science student is challenging but it can also be really rewarding.

In other news I've been getting better marks for my papers than I expected. Sadly though I know from experience that my end of year exams will bring my marks down. I can write essays in exams but I always seem to forget important bits and pieces.

Even though I only have two more weeks left of uni I still have a busy summer holidays ahead of me. I'll be continuing with voluntary lab work at my university, plus I will be starting work in a nearby zoo in january. I also need to try and find a supervisor for my honours year. I'm not sure yet if I'll try getting a summer job - the last two years have been unsuccessful and I've pretty much given up on working while I'm a student.

Some more great news is that I am 10% lighter than I was at the beginning of the year! I haven't been doing anything fancy, just been going to the gym a lot and eating a bit better. I still have a fair bit left to lose though D:

As for posting stuff on DA, you can see I haven't done much for months. Aside from being busy with uni I have not been feeling creative lately. My brother also bought Borderlands so we've been playing that our free time. Hopefully in the hols I will feel a bit more relaxed and creative. I have so many ideas! You guys may also recall that I was writing a novella? That's on hold because, wait for it, uni work. Writing assignments doesn't motivate me to do more writing!

TL;DR I'm fine :) For those of you who did read all of the above, have a cookie and a cookie monster :iconcookie-plz: :iconcookiemonsterplz:!
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Ok, so I haven't actually turned into a zombie... yet. I'm just tired cause I've been busy :)
Yesterday I returned from a weeklong field trip on Fraser Island. It was my first time on the island and it was very beautiful even though we got rained on almost every day. Yay fieldwork! I also saw a fair bit of wildlife while I was there, including dingoes, snakes and eagles.
I've got a few more weeks of uni left before winter hols, so it will be a while before I post anything new. However, I haven't been idle in recent weeks. I have almost finished chapter 2 of my first ever novel. Fingers crossed I actually finish the damn thing! I will probably start posting chapters later on in the year and I'm aiming for a chapter every 2 weeks. I've decided not to post it on DA but I will update my journal here when new chapters are posted.
My artwork has really gone downhill lately, it's pathetic. Despite this I will try to draw some pictures for my novel and make some character references soon.
Hope you're all going well and life isn't being too hard on you.
~ Amelia
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Hi folks,

I'm sure you have heard on the news about the flooding in Queensland, Australia. Well the flood is now about to hit my home city of Brisbane. Things are so bad that this event is being compared to the devastating 1974 floods. While my house is ok areas around me will not be alright, and the supermarkets have all been cleaned out. Furthermore power will be cut to the CBD tomorrow morning and 100,000 houses will be without power, which will probably include my own. Therefore if I disappear for a while that's my excuse :)

Secondly, through akeli I discovered GetWatchers, and I thoroughly recommend that you check it out if you haven't already done so www.getwatchers.com/?refby=523…. It's a brilliant system: you look at other artwork from this site and you get pageviews in return. The website is easy to use and it's a great way to promote your work.

Thanks for reading :heart:
-Amelia

UPDATE: I still have power but it probably won't last for long :( No flooding here but everything is damp and mouldy, uch.

UPDATE 2: Still stuck at home. Power cut out for a few hours last night but thankfully we're back online. The city is still shut down though. Another note on GetWatchers: I joined 2 days ago and have had an extraordinary amount of pageviews + lots of useful critique on my work :heart:. I hope you consider joining the site if you haven't already done so!
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Featured

Proven by science! by Vlydra, journal

Field trip and general life update by Vlydra, journal

I ain't dead, just undead by Vlydra, journal

Floods and GetWatchers by Vlydra, journal