Hi everyone! I hope all is well in the States. This post doesn't
have any pictures and probably won't be very exciting. I got really, really
sick last week and had to go to an emergency care clinic. I had a pharyngal
virus in my throat and I've been on penicillin since last Thursday. I basically
feel like I've been in a coma and haven't seen anyone! I quarantined myself in
my room for three days, and only left when I went to my internship on Friday.
Unfortunately, I was at my sickest then, so Friday was a rough day. After
sleeping for three days, I've been getting better every day since Saturday. I
finish my penicillin tomorrow, so hopefully I won't be getting sick again after
this! Being sick anywhere isn't fun, but being sick on the other side of the
world when you've only been there for two weeks REALLY isn't fun.
I'm really excited for my internship,
however. Everyone seems really nice and laid back, pretty much just like
everyone in Australia. I made the mistake of wearing heels on my first day- no
one wears heels here. Needless to say, I will be investing in a pair of flats
before I go back. I don't really even remember too many details about going
there on Friday because I was so sick and I could only think about crawling
back into my bed.
Yesterday was our first day of classes at
ACU! I had Environmental Studies from 9-12, so we had to leave our apartment at
7:20. Traveling to and from school is the biggest pain because it takes so
long. Trains come at random times and the ACU shuttle schedule seems to be even
more random. There were only 11 people in this class, including the 5 of us
from Fairfield. I asked one of the Australian kids in the class if professors
ever let you out early, and he said no. The longest classes we ever have at
Fairfield are 2 and a half hours, and mine have always gotten out early, so I
was dying by the end of the three hours. We played with play-doh to build a
makeshift dam, though, so it wasn't too mentally draining. We're going on a
field trip to Moreton Island for a weekend in April, which should be fun!
Nicole, Kai, and I had a gap from 12-4,
during which we just hung out on campus. In Australia, most universities (or
"unis") don't have dorms, and everyone commutes. A lot of the
students hang out on campus during the day, so campus is usually pretty lively-
and also it's 80 degrees outside. Our second class was Religion in Australian
Culture from 4-6. To our surprise, this class is entirely online, so we never
meet our professor. We are also taking this class with people all over
Australia. The professor was on a live video stream on our ACU accounts and
there is a chat box where students can type to him and each other. The
"class" only meets every two weeks, with a short 400 word essay due
every class. It's very different for us; I'm not sure if I'm going to like it
or not!
Today was the second day of classes and
there was also something called UniFest. Basically, it was like Fairfield's
activities fair on acid. There was a DJ bumping club music, a mechanical bull,
and tents set up for different student organizations with free stuff. I had my
history class, Australia to 1900, from 3-6. There were a lot more people in
this class. I don't know anything about Australian history, so I'm hoping it
will be very interesting. Classes here really don't seem very hard... I hope
I'm not jinxing myself.
I've been meeting so many nice people
everywhere I go! They ask questions about America and how I'm adjusting to life
in Australia and are genuinely interested in how I'm doing here. Not that
people aren't nice in America, it's just very different here. People aren't
always in a rush to get from point A to point B and everyone is very laid back.
I also realized I haven't written anything
about my apartment building! I'm living in a place called Urbanest, a building
of apartments for international students. At first, we thought it would be
really cool to be in a building with people our age from all over the world. It
is really cool... but they aren't very friendly. A lot of them hang out on the
back outside area of the building and smoke cigarettes. A lot of cigarettes. We
have been making more friends with local people than the people in our
building. We also have to pay for everything. Laundry, which is included at
Fairfield, is $4 per wash and $4 per dry here. I've spent $24 on laundry in the
past week. We also only get a certain amount of data per month, and after that,
we have to pay for more.
The women who run my internship are away this
week, so I don't start until next week. It's Tuesday night now and is
officially my weekend! All of the other girls still have classes and
internships, so I'll be doing errands, catching up on sleep, and going to the
beach until this weekend. If you've made it to this point I am very impressed
and I thank you for reading because this has probably been really boring.
Hopefully my Australian adventures will have pictures to go along with them for
my next post!
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