As far as school goes, the way they run things here is very different than in North Dakota. Here, you have a 2 hour lecture and 1 hour tutorial once a week for each class. I'm taking 4 classes (Governance and Spatial Planning, Intro to Indigenous Australia, History of Australian Pop Culture, and Human Geographies), so that leaves me with about 12 hours in a classroom each week. The lectures aren't too bad considering you get a 10 minute break in the middle to go grab a coffee or food. As far as assignments go, there aren't really that many. For each class, you generally have two really big essays or an essay and a presentation and a final test at the end of the semester. So with so many points riding on just a few things, if you mess up on one you're pretty much screwed. With the few assignments comes a lot of reading outside of class which is not my forte.
And of course the other big difference is the language. You guys are probably like "Alyssa, you're so stupid, they speak English there too!" Um yes and no. The words and phrases that they use to describe some things are completely foreign to me which makes school more difficult. Serious props to anyone who's studied in a country that speaks a completely different language. People in my classes joke that they can translate for me if need be. Some of the phrases are pretty cool though and I'm going to try and use them as much as possible while working on my Aussie accent before I come home.
On another note, here we get a mid semester break from classes, a week off at the end of September/beginning of October. Just yesterday I booked flights to Sydney and Cairns, where the Great Barrier Reef is located. && I'm working on some trips to Fraser Island (The largest sand island in the world and also where my Governance class is taking a field trip to next weekend!), Brisbane, Melbourne, Darwin, and hopefully New Zealand and Tasmania. No idea when I'll be able to fit all these excursions in with school and everything but I'll find time somewhere.
The other downside about Australia is how expensive living here is. I was definitely not expecting to pay as much for food as I have (I hate being an adult and need my mother to grocery shop for me desperately). Plus grocery shopping itself is stressful because they name their foods weird things and don't have normal brands here (But seriously where is my Skippy Peanut Butter or Tostito chips and queso?) They do have vegemite but I've yet to venture into that territory yet. A meal at a lower end restaurant will set you back a minimum of $20, even if you order a water. Oh and free refills? Nope, not usually. Want 6 bottles of Corona from a liquor store? A solid $25. Feel like just sticking to cans of soda? Yep they're like $3 a can. Oh and the best part is that Wifi isn't free or unlimited. At our apartments, it costs $36 a month for 15 gigabytes. To put that into perspective, 1 episode of Netflix uses about 1 gig (sadly this means I will be going on a forced Netflix cleanse.....)
The last week or so has just been filled with adjustments to classes, lots of walking along the many beautiful beaches, and mainly becoming more of a local. Unfortunately after three weeks here you're expected to walk past a kangaroo without taking 385900 pictures or looking at the many maps to find your classes. We did manage to play tourist for one more day by making a day trip to Tea Tree Bay in Noosa on Saturday to check out the waves and Noosa National Park and beach. I've seen more of the ocean in the last few weeks combined than in my entire life yet it continues to take my breath away. Oh and the sunsets. Lets just say you've never seen a true sunset until you've seen one from an Australia beach.
Countertops = benches
Flip flops = thongs (learned this after listening to a very confusing (at first) conversation between my roommates about their love/need for them)
Sketchy = dodgy
Grocery store carts = trolley
Pharmacist = Chemist
Bogan = kind of like rednecks or trailer trash is what I'm told
Also, they constantly tell you Cheers, which is kind of like thanks? I think...
So friends, until next time, Cheers!
No comments:
Post a Comment