Sunday, August 17, 2008

3 weeks in one blog!

So, on July 26th I left for the Blue Mountains pre-orientation trip. It was amazing. While we waited for the bus to take us to the mountains I talked to this girl named Nicole, and the Lithuanian boy, Arvy, who I originally met at the airport. We sat together on the bus and talked on the way to the Wildlife park zoo, the first stop of the trip, and one of my favorite stops actually. The kangaroos roamed around freely within the park and we could pet them; I also got to pet a koala. I've also decided I love dingos very much. I saw all the poisonness snakes to watch out for and wondered about how the wildlife park workers feed them.
We saw lots of other beautiful things on the trip and I should have written about them 3 weeks ago when I came back from the trip. I do remember lots of very tiring climbing and walking. Very tiring because I am lazy and out of shape. However, they were good preparation for when I came back from the trip and realized how unconviently far my room is from campus/the mall/everywhere and everyone else I want to see. But more on that later. The hiking was worth it though; the views were amazing. I'd definitely recommend that anybody studying abroad at Macquarie go on this trip. We were able to choose from this trip or two surfing-related trips and when I tell people who went on surf trips about this trip they are very jealous.

Another of my favorite parts of the trip occured on the way back. Our tour guide stopped the bus randomly and we all got off and started hiking down a path towards and park when all of a sudden there are a dozen wild kangaroos in the distance. I figure we are going to stop walking and watch them from here, but we keep on hiking towards them, closer and closer, and they don't hop away! Our tour guide pulls up some grass and feeds it to one of the kangaroos before it hops away. Everyone is taking pictures with the kangaroos and it is awesome. Our tour guide later said that those particular kangaroos were used to human interaction (probably from all the tour buses pulling over in that area?) but it was still very, very neat.

I met this boy Richie on the last day of the Blue Mountains trip, and he has become my close friend here. I hung out with him everyday after the trip before classes started. Really, I practically live in his apartment. I am the Kimmy Gibbler of his apartment. Mostly we play Scrabble a lot on the epic homemade board we made (Scrabble costs about $100 to buy here, we made one instead out of an artist's canvas, paint, and balsa wood. It is so much better than normal Scrabble).

My classes started soon after coming back from the trip. I love my creative writing class. It is all Australians except for me. They are all either really nerdy or like cool Australian hipster kids. And there is a random old man. We read an Australian short story about this perverted guy and it was full of sexual Australian slang that I have now learned! Also, my teacher is very, very nice. I think she likes me because I am from the U.S. and probably not many students from the U.S. go to Macquarie to study creative writing. I like my sociology and culture study classes a lot so far too. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the whole 300+ student thing, but it's really not bad. The way classes work at Macquarie is that you have lectures and tutorials; lectures are the huge 300 person classes; tutorials are much smaller, smaller or equal to the typical Hampshire class I'd say, maybe 10-16 people. So you go to the lecture to take notes/gather information/view screenings, and tutorials usually consist of group work, student presentations, and a chance to ask questions on information covered in the lectures.

I just got a job writing English lessons for a 4th grade tutor/teacher. I make $30 for 2ish hours of work a week, on my own time, and I might possibly start writing for 7th grade too, for which I'd make another $30. I had the most painless job interview of my entire life. I sent the lady hiring a writing sample and my resume through email; she looked them over, said she thought I had the qualifications she was looking for, and then we met up for a "quick interview." She didn't ask me a single question! She had me fill out tax forms and told me about what I'd be writing, and i asked her questions. One of her students was still around and gave her a bag of mango slices and she seemed to not really like them but she was sort of eating them while we talked. Afterwards she gave me a ride home (which was exciting to me to be in the front seat of an Australian car!) and on the way told me about why she moved to Australia and such (her husband is in a band, apparently. Awesome!) But seriously, the most painless possible job interview EVER. Australians really are some of the nicest people I've ever encountered. For example, I was on the bus with a few friends the other day, and we were pondering how to get to Chinatown. An Australian man overheard us and pulled out a GPS to help. Then he drew us a VERY detailed map to his favorite restaurant in Chinatown. THEN, we got off the bus and he decided to lead us, out of his way, the ENTIRE WAY to the restaurant. Incredible. I feel like if a random man did that in the U.S. people would be creeped out, but here it's normal.