So this past week or so has been the longest week of my entire life! I settled into my apartment fairly quickly and finally tidied up a bit as well to get myself into the mood for classes. Last week was our Orientation Week where we set up accounts, got our student ID cards, etc. They also had a few meetings for us to go to which were kind of repetitive, but they had enough social activities to make up for it. There is a tavern on campus where we had a Rumble in the Jungle party and a Tight'n'Bright party (and that's where crazy spandex comes in handy!) They also played a movie (Knocked Up to be exact) outside by the lake one night where I froze my toes off! Although it's fairly warm during the day, it's still winter down here so the mornings and evenings get pretty chilly...and therefore, I finally caught the cold that everyone else is getting over. :/ Oh well...I think the worst of it has hit me, so hopefully I'll be getting better in the next couple days. The school had a barbeque by the pool one afternoon where I got a bit of a sunburn. The Australian sun is much more intense than back home! The o-zone basically doesn't exist down here. I then added to that burn a little bit one day when the school took us to the beach! I've made it to the beach three times in the past week and I hope to make that a regular part of my routine! I've also been meeting people from all over the world. I've met a few Australians and will hopefully be meeting more now that classes have started and I've talked to a couple people from Germany and I have a neighbor from Sweden! I keep running into a lot of other people from the States as well. But it's been great meeting people from so many different places!
Classes started yesterday and the setup seems pretty interesting. I have a photography lecture on Mondays and then we can basically attend any of the smaller tutorials at any of the times they are offered. So that gives me some freedom as to when I want to go for advice or anything else. Today I had two psychology lectures one right after the other. And each of those were two hours...and in the same room. I guess I'm lucky then that lectures are only once a week! Later in the afternoon I had the tutorial for one of the psych classes and there are only five of us in there! So it's a very intimate environment. We're assessed very differently here as well. Instead of having three or four tests throughout the semester with some smaller assignments to turn in, we may have some assignments but only a midterm and a final. For one of my classes, the midterm is worth 40% of my grade while the final is worth 50%. That's 90% of my total grade based on two tests! I haven't had a class like that before so I'm hoping I'll make it out okay!
I'm excited for this upcoming weekend because I'm going on the surf trip I signed up for while in Cairns! We're supposed to leave on Friday evening and have three surf lessons and get to check out some of the surrounding area while we're there for the weekend. I'm excited to learn how to surf! Even though a lot of you know that I'm kind of weird about water sometimes, I'm trying to tell myself that learning is totally worth it and that I most likely won't drown or anything. haha. I'll be sure to give everyone a play-by-play as to how my lessons go. :) We get to check out the clubs we can sign up for on Friday as well, so I'm really excited for that. I'm hoping to row while I'm here and I also want to check out some of the other stuff I can do!
I hope everyone is enjoying their week so far! I'm on Skype now so everyone should try to get a hold of me through that because it's free! My Skype name is apotter10, so download it and make sure you have some kind of microphone, and then find me! Just remember that I'm 14 hours ahead of everyone on the east coast so you'll most likely catch me during your early mornings and most of your evening hours. So until next time, Skype me and we can talk! :)
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