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!