Introductions: Jared

[On location in Los Angeles International Airport]

G'day everyone! Let me briefly introduce myself for those of you reading this blog who might not know me. My name is Jared Lee, and I'm about to start my sixth year as a grad student in Meteorology at PSU. (Is this really my SIXTH year?!?) I've been involved in Penn State Christian Grads and State College Evangelical Free Church ever since I arrived in State College in fall 2005. I've served on the leadership team for PSCG for four years and playing piano/keyboard at SCEFC for four years as well.

Now that we're sitting in LAX and well on our way on our journey to the Land Down Under, I finally have some time to write an entry for this blog. So g'day! Life's been pretty busy for me this month, with a week-long trip to Colorado a couple weeks ago (for work and pleasure), moving out of my apartment last week, and going to a wedding in Indiana this past weekend. But now my attention can finally turn to things Australian!

In fall of my senior year of undergrad at Gustavus Adolphus College (July-November 2004), I also spent a semester studying abroad at Monash University in suburban Melbourne, Australia. In my time there I got involved with a really great group called Monash Christian Union. I just felt at home from the first time I visited CU, and I really grew in my faith quite a bit there. I made quite a few friendships in CU, and I still keep in touch with several of those friends. And now I'll get to see them again!! I've been talking about going back to Australia just about every summer since I got back, and I'm excited it's finally happening for real.

One thing that I hope to see come from this trip would be some sort of partnership between Campus Crusade (or Student Life, as it's called in Australia) and Christian Union, if possible, for the purposes of building or fostering some sort of ministry and community for graduate students, both at the University of Melbourne and Monash University. Perhaps my connections with the folks at Monash CU can help that come about.

But the ministry work isn't the only thing I'll be doing in Australia. I also have the opportunity to give three seminars on my PhD research: at Monash University (Fri 6 Aug), the University of Melbourne (Wed 11 Aug), and at the Bureau of Meteorology Research Centre (Thu 12 Aug). I already gave this same seminar at the PSU Applied Research Laboratory this past Friday morning. It went pretty well but there are still some minor tweaks I need to make before I present it in Australia. It would be pretty neat if a post-doc or job opportunity were to arise down the road a bit as a result of these talks and contacts I'll be making.

And then after the ministry portion of the trip is over, I'll be flying to Perth for a few days to go visit my friend Bob, who just moved from State College to Perth about four weeks ago to take a job as a forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology. I've never been to Western Australia before, and I'm looking forward to seeing that part of the country and also the Indian Ocean for the first time -- I've already been to the Atlantic, Pacific and Southern Oceans, so that'll leave only the Arctic Ocean to check off my "visited" list. :-)

Well, we paid for a day-pass of wireless internet access here for just one computer, so I should let Ash and Tracy use it for a bit. See y'all on the flip side of the Pacific!