G'day Australia

I've been in Australia now for almost a month.

And...tonight is the first night that Kathryn and I are actually doing some homework. And, it's just some light reading. And, we could wait until this weekend to do it, b/c it's due next week...but we are trying to get ahead. What good students we are. =)

Yet, I'm avoiding it now by writing this. hah.
Ok, back to work!

Gotta love Australia.

Cheers mates,
Amy

Boardwalk in Newcastle.

Girls at the train station.

Ashley, Kathryn, and I.

Barahineban V-Day Lunch.

Bara decorated for Valentines.

People at the beach!

Feb 23: After a day at the beach on Friday, I needed to start getting packed for my surf trip that weekend at Crescent Head. The Mojosurf bus was picking up a group of about 30 AustraLearn students around 8:30pm. I geared up with a hat, sunscreen, some bathing suits, and flip flops, and headed to the bus station with 7 of my close friends here. When the bus arrived, Ian (a surfing instructor) explained that it would take about 4 hours to arrive at our destination and we would be taking a few stops along the way, including a stop at a bottle shop. These Aussies are really all about partying and having a good time! =) Anyways, after listening to some music and watching Family Guy on the bus, we arrived at the MojoSurf Shack. We unloaded our things and picked our rooms throughout the lodge. The lodge was in the middle of the woods, literally, but was kind of cute. The 6 of us girls got a room on the 2nd floor. Now, this wasn't a nice cabin by any means...but it was decent. The floors were made of a thick cardboard substance, and the bedsheets were nice and mismatched. =) After making our beds, we headed towards the beach. The beach was amazing; you could see about 1 billion stars in the sky and we even got a glipse of the milkyway. I wished on a shooting star, and just talked on the beach for about an hour before it was bedtime. Getting up at 7am the next morning, we headed for breakfast (consisting of toast and some cereal) and then geared up for the beach in our wetsuits. Walking about 2 miles along the beach towards the best waves, and after about 10 minutes of instruction, we were off hitting the ocean on our surfboards. It took a few efforts of me standing up the surfboard with the instructors help, before I was able to catch my own waves and start surfing on my own. The waves were rough, especially with a huge surfboard, and I got beat up by them pretty bad. It was worth it though, as the feeling of getting up on a surfboard and standing for about 30 seconds on it, is amazing! =) Surfing for 4 hours gets you pretty tired and HUNGRY, so everyone headed for lunch. We had some good sandwiches and pasta salad, and then headed to our rooms for siesta. I took one of the four hammocks on the deck and layed there with my IPOD and slept for 3 hours. After siesta, we headed towards the waves again and surfed for another couple of hours. The afternoon waves were bigger and tougher, but I caught a few waves and enjoyed myself! The instuctor even gave me a shorter board in the afternoon (the smaller board, the harder it is to surf) because he said I was learning well! =) It was then dinner time, and we had a big BBQ. I ate a steak, a hamburger, and a sausage! We then played a game (Mojo Jenga), and the group who lost had to do all the dishes. Of course, my team lost, and I ended up drying about 100 plates. We then headed to the campfire for a night of fun and games. I was super tired, so I went to bed around 12:30 to wake up the next day for a morning of surfing at 7am. The next morning, I stood up on a wave on the first try! After about 2 hours, I was really tired and relaxed on the beach in the sun. We headed back around 12, ate lunch, and packed up to go home! Overall, my surf trip was AWESOME! Additionally, I complied to the number 1 rule of surfing: Look cool and have fun! =)
Pictures:

Ash, Kathryn, and I are Crescent Head

The Girls and our Surfboards

Kathryn and I at the Surf Shack...in our rashies.

Me and Crummy

Ashley and I washing 1 million plates.

Here is my class schedule:

Monday:
Earth's Dynamic Systems (EDS) Lecture 11am-12pm
Foundation Studies in Health and P.E. (PUBH) Lecture 3pm-4pm

Tuesday:
Special Education (EDUC) Lecture 9am-11am
EDS Lecture 11am-12pm

Wednesday:
EDS Lecture 11am-12pm
EDS Film Screening 1pm-2pm
PUBH Tutorial 3pm-5pm
Aboriginal Studies (ABOR) Lecture 6pm-7pm

Thursday:
EDUC Tutorial 8am-9am
ABOR Tutorial 11am-1pm
EDS Lab 2pm-5pm

Friday:
NO CLASS!

So far, I really like all of my classes. I like my PUBH class the most, as I am learning about how to get children more involved in athletics in primary schools. Also, during our tutorials I get to play in the gym and learn all these new games! =) We also have a dance and gymnastics unit! I also really enjoy my special education course. As I want to get my Masters in Special Education after I graduate, I am getting a head start and learning a bunch of really helpful and interesting ideas and concepts. Also, my Aboriginal studies class is really interesting. I am learning about how the Aboriginals first learned to live in Australia, about how their education system works, and about their unique religion and beliefs. In my EDS class, I am learning about the solar system and how the Earth works. =) I learned that everyone is a star...aka we are all made of stardust!
As you can see on my schedule, I have lectures and tutorials (or a lab for my EDS class) for each class. During my lectures, which consist of anywhere between 75 and 200 people, we learn the basics. The instructor puts up a powerpoint and goes over all of the information that we need to know for the week. During the tutorials, the classes are more like the classes I take at IWU. They have about 20-30 people in each one, and we have class discussions that go over the information that we learn in our lectures more in depth. A huge difference from the US, is that we don't have any homework here. We have to read a lot, but the teachers do not check to see if we have read. We are more independent learners, and only have a few big assignments and an exam at the end of the semester. This is good for studying abroad, as it gives me more time during the week to explore campus and also more time on the weekends to travel. However, I don't think I would like it for regular school, because if you do bad on one of the assignments you will not get a good grade in the class (there is less leeway to mess up).

I'm off to Sydney this weekend, so look forward to my adventures there next week! =) I am going with 10 other people, and its Mardi Gras weekend/ the Gay/Lesbian Parade, so it should be an interesting and fun time!

It has now been about two weeks since I arrived at the University of Newcastle.

My first impression was that the campus was HUGE, but very beautiful. It is full of paths that are surrounded by trees and bushes. Our room is pretty awesome too; Kathryn and I have our own kitchen and bathroom. We have a bunch of shelves, and a really large desk. Yet, we needed to go to the store to buy sheets, food, and other supplies. After sleeping on sheetless beds for one night, we got up the next morning and had to figure out how to get to Jesmond (or Jeszo as the locals call it), the shopping center about 10 minutes away. We asked friends who went to the store the night before how to take the bus. The bus stop is about 2 minutes from our dorm so we walked there and waited about 20 minutes for the bus to come. We didn't have the bus schedule (luckily we do now) and we went sure what side of the street to stand on. A day of lucky guesses, we got to the shopping center quickly. Jesmond is like a normal mall, except instead of large department stores, there is the Big W (aka Walmart) on one end and a Woolworths (a supermarket) on the other end. We decided to go grocery shopping first. Kathryn and I walked up and down every aisle to make sure that we would not forget to buy anything. After about 2 hours, Kathryn and I were checking out. By that time, we did not have enough arms to carry all our bags, so we opted to go to the Big W the next day and try to manage to take the bus home, each carrying 10 bags full of food. We looked like the stereotypical stupid Americans walking back to our dorm at a turtle's pace with looks on our faces that our arms were going to fall off. To make it worse, the bags were braking and our food was spilling all over the ground. =/ Anyways, we decided to take a few extra helpers with us the next day. To make a long story short, we again looked like fools on the bus after shopping at the Big W, each carrying 3 huge buckets to put our clothes in, as our closets came with no drawer space. On Monday, Orientation week started. UoN (University of Newcastle) had many planned events for the international students, such as a commencement ceremony, bbq, and live bands at Bar on the Hill (the bar on campus). In the dorms (or colleges as they are called here) the RAs planned a themed party every night. We had a country party (we were Irish), a beach party, a toga party, a disco party, and a grafetti party. We also obtained our student cards, learned how to check our email, set up a bank account, bought new phones, and signed up for classes. I must thank about 20 million people in helping us with this process, as I would have been completely lost without them. A bunch of our new friends drove us around, answered a billion of our questions, and helped us get to where we needed to be. As a side note, everyone is EXTREMELY nice here. Unlike in the US, they are happy to drive you somewhere you need to be, without expecting anything in return. =) Throughout the week, I was able to go on a beach tour and also on Saturday I went on a Dolphin cruise and saw about 50 dolphins! =) Overall, Orientation week at UoN was a blast. I was able to get everything done, and had a lot of fun and meet a lot of really cool people in the process. =)