First Week of School!

Last week was the start of term, and I must say I was quite apprehensive going into it. I was told many things about the units here, not two of them being the same. I was told they were extremely difficult, I was told they were super easy, I was told there was no homework and I was told there was a ton of homework. The one thing that was a common factor was that there were only 1 or 2 tests and they were the majority of your grade. As it turns out some of my fears were confirmed, while others now seem ridiculous.

Monday 14 February

I just want to make note quick that Valentine's day is not a big deal here at all. I was extremely surprised there were no decorations, there wasn't even a special dessert at dinner. My teacher did say Happy Valentine's day but only remember because he heard it on the radio driving in. 

(Happy Valentine's Day!... Now get to class.)

I started off my Valentine's by getting up at 6 am. Yes 6 AM! I had to get ready and put on my suit, since it is business attire between 8 and 5:30. 

Traditional first day of school picture for mom! 

I went to breakfast and then went to Student Services because I checked my timetable, and everything had disappeared. I found out they weren't opening until 9 so I went back then, and got my it all worked out, and got all my classes 25 minutes before my first one was to start. I got to my first lecture (distribution decisions) at 10am and went until 12n then had a quick lunch and was back for my 12n- 2pm tutorial (distribution decisions).  My week pretty much continued in this fashion. 

Tuesday 15 February

Event management project lecture 8am-12pm

Wednesday 16 February

Strategic management lecture 10am-12n 

Went to talk to my counselor and dropped my tuesday class. Added a class (Intro to event management ) for Monday 8am-10am and Tuesday 2pm-4pm. 

Event promotion and sponsorship lecture 3pm-7pm

Thursday 17 February

No class. I slept in late and spent the day at the beach! 

Friday 18 February

Strategic Management Tutorial 1pm-3pm

I talked to the teacher after and switched this one to Wednesday morning 8am-10am. My weekends start Wednesday night! =]

So after all of the changes I made here is my timetable:

Monday: 8am-2pm

Tuesday: 2pm-4pm

Wednesday: 8am- 12n and 3pm-7pm

There are also a few things I want to share about my first experience with australian schooling. 

1.  They call high school, college. And college (where I am now) is called uni.  
2.  The classes here are all in blocks of 2 hours. However, the classes don't actually start until 15 past and end at the 45. So really they're an hour and a half. 
3. There are usually 2 parts to each class; a lecture and tutorial. The tutorial is usually small group work and case studies to better understand the material.
4. Their paper is skinnier and longer. It doesn't fit all the way in my folders, and its becoming an issue. 
5. Their grades are wacky! They don't use the standard A-F scale. Here is their grading scale:

      HD- High Distinction        85-100%     4.0

         D- Distinction               70-  84%     4.0

         C- Credit                      65-  74%     3.0

         P- Pass                       50- 64%      2.0

--------------------------------------------Passing Grades Above Line-------------------------------------------

      PC- Conceded Pass        45- 49%      0.0

        F-  Fail                          0-  44%      0.0

So remember if I say I got a D that is a GOOD THING! If I say I got and HD I expect a party when I get home, because this is nearly impossible, especially for foreign students!!!  I'm told if I get this then I should be able to teach the class. 

Yeeeew!

Friday 11 February
This was the beginning of the surf trip. We were told to meet at the front gate at 4:45 for the bus to pick us up. However the bus didn't show up until at least an hour later. We were all really mad because we didn't get a real dinner. However a few of us ran back and got in line right at 5:30 and so were able to bring stuff back to the bus stop. When the bus finally did show up it was a huge pink and black coach bus! We were told it would be about a 6 hour ride (once we got out of Manly) plus a stop for dinner. So we started off. Once we finally got on the Pacific Highway we played a get-to-know-you game, and then we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. After about 2 1/2 hours we stopped for dinner. It was just a basic side of the road truck stop. There was Maccers and a little cafe. We weren't allowed to bring any hot foods or milk based products i.e. milkshakes on the bus, so we basically had to scarf down our food. Then we got back on the bus and watched Blue Crush. Now let me just say this was a poor choice to show right before we're all about the learn to surf. I mean the movie is pretty much all about a girl getting over her fear of surfing after she smacked her head on rock and almost drowned. Anyways we watched that then had about 30 minutes left until we got to the camp.

This is our bus

Saturday 12 February
We finally arrived at the camp at 1 am. We split off into different groups for cabins. There were 12 people per cabin, with 6 sets of bunk beds. Once we got in the cabin we were told we would be woken up at 7 am for brekkie. I feel safe speaking for everyone that we were not happy when we heard that. So we went to bed, and were woken up soon after as promised. Brekkie consisted of bread and cereal... go figure, and also some fruit. After about 15 minutes we were all sunscreening up and given our wetsuits!
We walked down to beach, which wasn't that far, but then we had to walk waaaay down the beach, and back through the woods to the road to get the surf boards. Finally we got to the beach and started our lesson. This is what I learned during my lesson:
1. The fin goes into the water.
2. When laying down, your feet should touch the back end of the board. If you are too far forward you will nose dive. (I learned this from experience)
3. When pushing up your hands should be by your chest! If your hands are up farther you won't be stable and so will fall. (I learned this from experience as well)
4. You have to paddle hard and fast so you catch the wave, otherwise it will just wash by. (Unless its huge in which case it will clobber you.)
5. When standing up you have to make sure your back foot is completely flat and stable before standing up the rest of the way.
6. Take your time! There is no rush to stand up.
7. The hardest part of surfing is getting out far enough to catch a wave.
8. The waves will constantly dominate you! Over and over and over again!
9. Yeeeew! = Wow, way to catch that great wave mate!

I'm going surfing!

After our lesson we went in the water without boards to get used to the water and wetsuits. We umped waves and this was a ton of fun! After that we finally got our boards, and spread out so we wouldn't run into each other. The instructors helped by pushing you onto the wave, and I was up on my knees on the first wave! After practicing a while I had been close to getting up a few times, but my hand kept slipping and I kept getting the wind knocked out of me when I hit the board, and I kept being overtaken by waves. So when the other group showed up after a few hours I got out and just relaxed on the beach for a bit. I was really tired so I went back about 15 minutes early to relax in the hammocks before lunch.
Lunch was sandwiches, and a variety of salads. Right after lunch we were back on the beach for our second session. I was so tired and sick of being completely pounded by waves that I wasn't really looking forward to it. But one of the instructors basically dragged me out and then I had a blast! I stood up a few times on my own! (Pictures to come soon hopefully!) And I didn't get overtaken by one wave the entire session. Once the other group showed up I got out and relaxed for a little bit, and realized I was getting sunburnt on my face, so I made a unique headwrap out of my towel!

After resting I decided to go back in. First wave I was completely taken under, swung around, upside down and everything. I inhaled a ton of salt water, and so I was done for the day. After this session we went back and got showered and cleaned up for dinner. Dinner was a BBQ and so I had 2 sausages which were amazing and a steak and then an assortment of salads. That night we went down the beach and had a bonfire. I went back pretty early with some other girls because we were so beat and sore from the days sessions.

Sunday 13 February
We were awoken again at 7 am for our third and final session. We had breakfast and went down to the beach. I was way to sore that I didn't even go in the water. The surfboard had actually beaten me up the day before, I had 4 bruises on my inside thighs, 3 big ones on the outside of my left, 1 on my hip from carrying the board, and 1 right under my chin to my throat in a straight line down the center. So I just laid out for the morning and enjoyed the sun and sand. After a couple hours we went back to the camp to get ready to go. We had lunch and then loaded up the bus to go home.
We were going for about an hour, all watching Knocked Up and having a good time, when suddenly the bus driver pulls over into the parking lot of a gas station. I thought it was just a bathroom break. But after 20 minutes I realized something was wrong. Well our bus broke down. We were all told to get off the bus with our stuff because a new bus was coming, and she didn't want us to get too hot. Well 15 minutes later it started raining, so we got back on the bus. We waited for well over an hour, and then she takes off and goes about a mile to meet our new bus. We switch buses and finally everything is worked out, except that we are now 4 hours behind schedule. We watched a movie and an australian comedian on the way home, and stopped at the same Maccers as before. Finally we made it home at 10:30 pm! Everyone was exhausted and classes started the next day so we went straight to bed!
Altogether it was a super fun weekend! But we all decided we have horrible luck. No matter where we go we get stuck! First in Brisbane, then at at random gas station. We're going to be really prepared for all our other trips this semester!

This is Cresent Head beach. We surfed almost all the way down at the end. 

This is the other half of the beach. We had our bonfire down here. 

Address

Here is my address if anyone wants to send me a letter something! =] Or if you just want to google maps where I'm at!

Room 240
151 Darly Road
Manly, NSW Australia 2095

O week.

ICMS. We call it Hogwarts. 

Sunday 6 February
     I arrived in Sydney at about 1:15 pm. We had gotten up early in Brisbane and took about a 1 1/2 hour plane ride to the Sydney airport. It was really sad saying goodbye to our group leaders since they had been with us since we started out with the cyclone. We then got our luggage and went to the bus to go to school. However, one of the girls lost her passport (YIKES) and so we had wait while she went back to find it. I believe it had fallen out of her bag in the overhead bin. We then took the bus through Sydney to Manly where the school was. We didn't get to take the harbour bridge because there was so much traffic. We instead took the harbour tunnel, which actually goes under the bridge, in the water. It is not like the chunnel which it dug into the ground, it is submerged in the water and flows with the current so it won't burst from being moved around so much. I must say I got a little freaked out going through that. We arrived at my school, ICMS (International College of Management, Sydney), at about 2 pm. And right when we got here it started raining. Which was good because the week before had been the hottest its been in Sydney area in over 70 years! It got to about 42 celcius! To get Fahrenheit the general rule is to double it then at 30. So it was about 114 F! For over a week straight! Since we've gotten here it has been really nice, usually in the 80s. Its rained some days but not too much. After getting our bags inside, we were welcomed to the college then split into our floors. We were taken up by our RA and shown our rooms. Then we just settled in and checked in. I went down to get my bags and wasn't in my room when the RA finally showed up... She was not too happy when I returned and found her waiting.

This is a picture of my room. At the foot of the bed is wardrobe. 

This is the view from my window, Kelly House, the boys' dorm.

Monday 7 February

     We started off with breakfast which has been the same thing everyday since we got here, cereal and toast. Its getting old to be honest, and I'm really starting to crave pancakes and waffles. Breakfast is served everyday from 7:15 to 7:50, so not long at all. Then at 8:30 it was official enrollment, which was just getting our student ID. They had already allocated us into our classes, however I have had to switch a few of mine. After enrollment I had computer orientation, which was just showing us how to use their email system and all the different websites they use. I spent most of the time trying to get internet on my laptop instead. After that was lunch. And at 4:00 we had study abroad attire briefing, which was where we got our $500 gift card to the mall for our business wear. After dinner we had a residents meeting. We went over rules and guidelines and introduced ourselves to our floor. 

Tuesday 8 February

     I started out the day with breakfast; coco pops and bread (because I'm too lazy in the morning to walk to the other building to toast it). At 9:00 we had the professional performance program. This was just a briefing about what is and isn't acceptable to wear. Such as, men, you need to be wearing a full suit with jacket and tie. You would not be allowed into class if you were wearing white socks with your suit, or if you hair was not properly trimmed, Your shoes need to be matching and pants hit at the proper length. Ladies you too need to be wearing a full suit with jacket (no tie necessary but you can if you want). You can choose pants or a skirt, but they must match your jacket. Your hair must be off your face, it can be down as long as your side fringe (side bangs) are out of your face, or if your front fringe (full bangs over forehead) does not go below brows. Your shoes need to be plain, black pumps, no buckles or decorative bows etc., with no more than a 2 inch heel, and no ballet style flats. After we had lunch and then were off to the mall to get our professional wear. 

     The school had an agreement with 2 stores. The first was for 20% off a line of clothes within the store, and the second was for 20% everything in a store called Cue. Both were extremely expensive! I looked at a few shirts at the first store, and every single one was over $100! At cue, I was trying to find a pair of grey dress pants to match my blazer and the only pair I found were $215. It was ridiculous. Seriously 20% off a ton of money is still a TON of money! So after looking around at those for a while I decided to wander around the mall to see if I could find anything, after 1.5 hours I hadn't bought a thing! I finally met up with a few of the girls from my group at Target (YAY they have them here) and we all found a bunch of stuff at Target only to find out the gift card doesn't work there. So we left without anything and went to a few other stores. We finally hit the motherload with a store called Forecast. They had such cute clothes, I got 4 shirts and 2 pairs of shorts. Then we went to a shoe  store, and I got a pair of really fun heels, and my friend got a pair of heels for the cocktail party that was that night. Finally we decided to go back to Target and just spend our own money. I got 2 pairs of dress pants, grey and black. At the end of the shopping trip we met up with all the other study abroad students to get back on the bus. We went back and started getting ready for the College Welcome Ceremony and Cocktail Reception.

     At 5:00 the Welcome Ceremony started in the Chapel (the one on campus where Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban got married). The ceremony started with a flag procession, which showed all the countries that students of ICMS come from. The Executive Dean then welcomed all the new students with a speech, along with the Student Representative Counsel president Phil and other members of the staff. After this the cocktail party started in front of the school. There were so many different appetizers and tons of people all just mingling. It was so much fun!

In front of ICMS at the welcome cocktail party

Wednesday 9 February

     This was finally a lazy day. I didn't have anything mandatory until 5:30 which was dinner. It was a "meet and greet" with fellow residents. It was also a "BBQ" (remember this means grilled. After there was the Australian Party and Wildlife Show. This was so cool. We got to see a funnel web spider which is the most poisonous spider in Australia. The venom from 1 bite can kill over 35 adults. We also got to see a bunch of reptiles including a baby alligator, which I held about 5 times! He was so cute. His name was Jack and he would pose for pictures. Its weird holding him though because first you have to hold him around the throat so he isn't able to turn around and bite you, and also hold him around his tail so he can't squirm too much. Then you think he would be hard and rough, but he was surprisingly really squishy, like one of the stress balls with a different texture. We also got to see a humungous snake, which I stayed far away from. I decided I already touched one snake, I don't need to touch another; especially one like 5 times as large as me. 

Baby Jack! 

Thursday 10 February

     This day the only mandatory this was surf safety. We went down The Manly Life Saving Club and we learned about rip tides, how to spot and what to do and what not to do. So here's the deal,

1. A rip tide is where the water that came in with a wave is going back out into the ocean

2. You can spot one by seeing where there are not cresting waves, i.e. white caps

3. Do not try to swim against the current. This is how people drown. They get too exhausted from swimming so hard against it. So what should you do?

4. If caught in a rip tide the best thing to do is let it take you, there is nothing in a rip that will bring you down, you will just go out and then be washed back in by the waves. Just relax, put you arm up and someone will come help you.

5. Finally, you can usually avoid this if you swim in between the red and yellow flags. This is where the lifeguards have deemed safe to swim for the day and they will be patrolling the area. 

     After learning all of this I was excited to get into the swimming part of the day. However the instructor ruined it my starting off with making us run. Most of you know me pretty well, and you know I don't run. EVER! So it was horrible. It got even worse when I saw all the blue bottle jellyfish all over the beach. After running around we were supposed to get in the water and body surf. I wasn't having any of that! There were jellyfish in there so I just stood near the shore while the instructors tried unsuccessfully to get me to go out. My friend stayed with me and was stung on her ankles as one washed by. After that I finally got a surd board and went in the water. I almost hit a jelly but managed not to, and I boogy boarded back in to shore.

Red and Yellow means its safe to swim, but I won't because of jellies. 

     After that I went to the bank to put my travelers checks in. They had never had travelers checks before! Can you believe that? It took forever for them to figure out what to do, which I was fine with, what I wasn't fine with was the guy being rude to me about it. Like I was the dumb one for bringing travelers checks, sorry but he was the dumb one for not knowing how to do his job! 

Friday 11 February

     This was commencement day. For breakfast I had coco pops and bread, again. Then at 9:00 we had a USA student briefing where we just asked question if we had any and worked out any timetable (that's what they call their class schedule) problems. 

     Commencement day started at 10:00 and ran until 2:00. There was a big blow up water slide, and a mechanical bull, and there was all sorts of information about Manly and Sydney areas. This was also where we signed up for stuff on campus. I signed up for SRC, which helps to put on the events on campus and Rotaract which is part of Rotary international, and it a volunteer/humanitarianism group. After all that I got ready to go on the weekend surf trip! I'll write about that in my next post! 

Culture and Adventure Week Improvised, Brisbane Style.

     After the longest day ever! We ended up at the Brisbane City YHA hostel. We had to wait until 2pm to check in, so a bunch of us went in the pool, then to the transit station for lunch. After we got settled in and cleaned up we went to dinner at the Transcontinental Hotel. I had the chicken Schnitzel, and man was it delicious.

This is the outside of the hostel.

This is my room at the hostel.

     Wednesday February 2, we went to Lone Pines Koala Sanctuary for the day and I got to hold a koala (i.koala.net/0202113396.htm ), feed kangaroos (see video bar), and see all kinds of other Australian animals. When we got to the sanctuary the first thing we did was have lunch. It was a barbeque. (I've learned that here barbeque just means grill.) It was really good, there was steak and chicken with salad and the absolute best cantalope I have ever had! After that I went straight over to the kangaroo area where I got to feed them! Then we went to the reptile show, where I touched a snake. Surprisingly they are not slimly like most people think, but smooth.  Then we went to the koala holding area! It was so cute! When the handler took her away she grabbed onto my hair (not pulling it thankfully) like she didn't want to leave!  After that we wandered around seeing all the different animals. I saw a cuckaburra, platypus, tasmanian devil, and a wallaby among many other things. And the last thing we did was go to the sheep dog, and sheep shearing show! The dogs were so cute, they made me miss my Niki dog.

Kangaroo

Wallaby

Tasmanian Devil

    On Thursday we went to Riverlife, first we had lunch and saw aboriginal dancing. I got to listen and see a guy play a didgeridoo. Then, we went kayaking on the Brisbane river. And just so you know there are sharks and crocs in there! We did a team building thing where we got all our kayaks in a circle and held on to each of the persons next to us. Then two at a time (across from each other) we had to run around on the fronts of the kayaks while in the water, and try to get the to the other side of the circle first. I'm quite proud to say I didn't fall in the water once.  That night we had dinner at a Thai restaurant. It was really good. I really liked the green curry beef and the peanut chicken. 

The ICMS AustraLearn group with the aboriginal dancers.

Welcome to Australia. There's a cyclone coming.

Hey everyone,

 So I made it to Australia okay. The flight was soooo long. I started out at Minneapolis, flew to Denver where I had a 2 hour layover. I found my gate which was literally 1000 feet away from my arrival gate then got some food. Then I flew to LA. When we were disembarking I starting chatting with the girl next to me. Turns out she was at the United States Air Force Academy in Denver visiting her brother. I told her I know a couple guys who go there, and she said her brothers roommates were from Minnesota, turns out its the same people! So she called them up and we all chatted for a few minutes, laughing over the coincidence. After that I got my luggage and went outside to the bus to change terminals. SCARIEST RIDE OF MY LIFE! I thought I was going to die about 5 times in less that 5 minutes. When I finally got to the right terminal I couldn't figure out where to go. I ended up wandering back and forth with my enormous bags for about 10 minutes, until I found a worker who was free. He then proceeded to direct me into the doors 2 feet away... Finally I got checked in for my flight to Australia!!! I went up through security, and found my gate (20 feet away from security on the right.) After I went to find some food when I ran into 3 girls also on the AustraLearn trip, and so we decided to get Chili's and relax since we still had 5 hours until our flight. After eating way overpriced airport food, we went to our gate where we met more people from AustraLearn! We chatted for a few hours, and even got some advice on what to say and not say in Australia from a real aussie. Finally we loaded up for out 14 hour  flight to Brisbane. About an hour into the flight we had dinner. The menu made it sound amazing! Let me just say, they are very crafty with their word choice. The options were beef short ribs or mahi mahi. Well I hate fish so guess what the 2 guys next to me got... the fish! It smelt awful! (The smell actually work me up from 3 rows ahead of me!) After dinner I watched Despicable Me then fell asleep. I had a window seat luckily so I had something to sleep against.