The other night while taking a bat count a tour group came to the cave, and I started chatting with a young woman who is doing her PhD here in Australia. I'm pretty sure she mentioned being from the US, at which point I suddenly realized that I hadn't picked up her American accent the whole time we'd been talking. After she left I thought about it and I guess even though I'm surrounded by people with Australian accents, and therefore that should be the "norm" to me, my mind still considers American accents the "norm" and Australian accents as novel. Funny how the mind works!
This then led me to thinking about what I'm going to do after my Fulbright is over and where I want to go to grad school. I've tossed around the idea of staying and studying here in Australia (I had considered this option even before I knew I had received the Fulbright), but at this point I'm not sure. I still don't know exactly what I want to study. Of course the general topic will be bat ecology/conservation, but there are so many possibilities within that general topic and I could really end up anywhere. I also don't know if I really want to commit to being away from home and my family for so long. If I do end up in the US I doubt it will be very close to home, but at least I wouldn't be half a world away. But then again, I do love it here and I think I could see myself living here. Who knows at this point? I guess I have a bit to figure things out...
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