"No worries"

It's hard to believe that I've been here for a month now. I guess it's finally starting to feel like home. My first month has been filled with themed parties, making friends and a little bit of school work ;). I have been able to experience several different areas of Canberra itself, including Civic (the downtown area) during the day and of course at night where the real fun begins. The differences and new experiences still continue to amuse me.

Last weekend I went to a music, wine, food, etc festival called TumbaFest in the small town of Tumbarumba about 3 hours outside of Canberra. It was interesting to get to see a completely different side of Australia and enter the small town atmosphere. It reminded me of the weekends at the lake where everyone knows everyone and they're all just having a good time. We listened to live bands, tried wine from local wineries and enjoyed the warm weather while it still lasts. I have barely heard any country music since I've been here so it was a little bit of a shock to hear the crowd singing the words to "Sweet Home Alabama".

This weekend we'll be headed to Surf Camp outside of Sydney for a 2-night stay on the beach and hopefully a littler surfing action as well. It might be a miracle if the instructors can get an uncoordinated Kansas girl up on a surfboard. At the end of the month for our "midterm break" I'll be traveling to New Zealand to get a broader prospective of the Southern Hemisphere. A group of 8 international students has planned to rent campervans and road trip around the southern island of New Zealand. Even though New Zealand is supposed to have the best and the highest bungee jumping in the world, I don't think anything would convince me to strap a piece of rope to my ankles and jump off a cliff... No thank you.

Even though I am having the best adventure of my life, there are still things that I miss/crave from back home:
- Mexican food- apparently they are too far away from the country itself to have decent Mexican food.
- Home cooked meals- My cooking skills are very limited and eating pasta every day is getting very old... and full of carbs. Mom, can you send me some real food? :)
- Dr. Pepper- Only very select stores sell this delicious carbonated drink and it is a rare find. Amber, you might not survive here.
- Wireless internet- being plugged into a wall gets very annoying... and inhibits me from lying in bed with my computer- one of my favorite activities.
- My bed- speaking of lying in bed, I miss my comfy temperpedic mattress topper...

Now I will leave you with some Aussie phrases and American translations:
"I'm keen to".... "I'm down to"
"No worries"... "No problem"
"Cheers" ... "Thanks"
"How you going?" ... "What's going on?"
"Fairdinkum"... "for real"
"Skull it!" ... "Chug it!"

Still getting used to all the slang and lingo but starting to catch on. Maybe I'll come home with a revamped vocabulary ;)

First Week of Class

Well believe it or not I am here to study abroad, so after an exciting and exhausting o-week we started our classes last Monday. I am enrolled in 4 classes here and only attend classes Monday, Tuesday and Thursday each week.

Tourism Policy- seems to be an easy enough class. First day of class our lecturer decided to point out the "privilege" of having 3 american students in the class and directed all attention towards us at the back of the room... awkward.

Business Finance- Nothing can be as bad as finance at K-state so I'm just relieved to be taking it elsewhere. My teacher is very hard to understand and 3 straight hours of finance is never fun, soo we'll see how this one goes. Oh, and my class is 85% asian... English is not the dominant language in this class.

Intro to Marketing- Big lecture in a typical 1st year unit... no worries.

Organisational Performance- And yes I did spell that correctly. A lot of their words swap out the "z" for an "s". It still catches me off guard. I'm still not entirely sure what this class is even about, but it's my only class with an Australian professor.

The classes are pretty similar to ones at K-state. The only main difference is how they are scheduled. You only attend lecture once a week, usually for 2 hours, and then you have a tutorial or workshop for 1 hour once a week. It's hard to pay attention to one subject for that long, but it's nice to only be in class 3 days a week versus 5. Their course work is more independent and spread out. There is no busy work or stupid online quizzes, which I am very happy with. Instead you are given all your assignments at the beginning of the semester with due dates and instructions, most of them being long essays or projects. Most of my classes only have one exam, the final exam, worth about 50% of our grade... no pressure there. However, I only need to pass the classes (50% overall) to get the credit back at K-state so I'm trying not to stress too much.

My first week of classes here went pretty smoothly with no major problems. Now I'm just trying to get back into school mode after being on break for so long.

First Week!

Hello everyone!

I figured I would make a blog so that everyone can see what I'm up to in the sunny land of Australia. I've been here a little over a week now and it's been amazing so far! Everyone is so friendly and willing to help. The "no worries" attitude here is a refreshing change.

I'm living in a 5-bedroom apartment near campus with 5 other roommates. I share my bedroom with another American girl, Linsey, from Hawaii. Then I have 1 roommate from Australia and the other 3 are South Korean, with very limited English speaking skills. The apartments here are very nice and new, far better than the other residence halls on campus.

After being here only a few days I started to pick up on the major differences from America:
1) Not only do they drive on the left hand side, they also WALK on the left hand side of sidewalks and such, which is very hard to get used to.
2) You have to pay for grocery bags in Canberra according to a new law
3) Their food does not taste the same as ours, even if it's the same item. ex: kraft singles, 2-minute noodles, mayonnaise, etc
4) Do not use the term "rooting"... it has a very different meaning than we consider it.
5) There is not wifi in the majority of places and you have to pay for your internet
6) They have no idea what sororities are and have nothing comparable to them
7) They do not drink cheap alcohol here, everything is very expensive and better quality.

There are many more things that have been surprising, but the biggest thing to adapt to is the lingo...
Sketchy = dodgy
Fries= chips (unless they are from McDonalds or the same size as them)
McDonalds= Mackers
Sneakers= Runners
Cookies= bisquits
Friend = mate
Sweatshirt = jumper
Swimsuit = Togs/Swimmers
Flip flops = thongs

I'm learning lots of new words, but also teaching them new words.

We just finished our Orientation week which is a big week long party with themed parties and such. Then the exchange students took a trip to Sydney for 2 days and got to experience another part of Australia. We went up in the Sydney tower, saw the Sydney opera house and botanical gardens, the aquarium and several different markets. Sunday we got to go to the beach! Unfortunately we couldn't swim because the waves were too intense so they closed the beach to all swimming.

Today was the first day of classes so it feels weird trying to get back into school mode now. I am taking 4 classes here and only have class Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. They organize their classes differently and it's very common to have at least one day off of school a week.