March 5

I’m convinced I should have been born here. Australians don’t say their R’s and I didn’t either until about age 8. Of course that was after years of traumatizing speech therapy. So after spending the next 4 months here I might need another round of speech school.

A lot has happened in the last few days. I started school and I’m pretty excited about my classes. I’ve had 3 of the 4 so far. My marketing class seems average. It’s a big lecture of about 300 but the teacher seems cool. He gave us riddles on the first day which was kinda dorky but whatever. A lot of the stuff he touched on was familiar to me so I hope that it won’t be too hard of a class. Grading here is extremely difficult. An 85+ is called high distinction. About 3% of people will ever get that. Then 75-84% is distinction which is also considered an A the states because of how hard it is to receive even that. 70-74% is a credit which they tell us is what every student strives for. Below that there’s pass and fail. While most abroad students only need to get a passing grade to get credit at their university, my grades transfer. So that means I actually have to work while I’m here. How unfortunate. But the good news is that the campus is absolutely beautiful and puts me in a good mood every time I walk there. The older part of the campus has buildings that look like castles. It’s exquisite. Mom, you would love the old architecture. They’re doing a lot of construction though on part of the campus which really takes away from its beauty and makes it like a huge construction site, but whatever, I still like it. It’s pretty spread out only because there are a lot of parks and open fields. I usually find one and sit there in between classes. Back to my other classes… My Indigenous Sport, Education and Culture class is really cool. It’s about 25 people and it’s almost all exchange students. The people are cool and I can tell we’re going to all be friends by the end of the semester. Especially because we get to go on fieldtrips!! I haven’t done that since the 5th grade but I can’t wait. My Sociology of Sport class is going to be really hard but very interesting. The teacher seems strict but really knows what she’s talking about. And it’s very hard to get used to this, but teacher’s here don’t go by Dr. or Professor. You are supposed to call them by their first name! I don’t even call my friend’s parents by their first names so it’s very odd for me. Speaking of odd, I also haven’t gotten used to asking where the toilets are. They don’t refer to them as restrooms or even bathrooms but I still feel so impolite when I ask for the toilets. So anyway, I have my final class tomorrow and I’ll keep you posted on how it is.

Like many days, I spent most of the day today at the beach. I’m loving this weather… although March 1st marked the official end of summer. That was a depressing day for me. But it is still warm during the day which is good. I learned how to body board today! I made an Aussie friend and he took me out and showed me how. I even rode the waves like a real surfer chick! Haha, it was great. But then I got a call from surf camp and they told me that they overbooked the trip and that I got booted off. I’m so upset because we were all looking forward to it so much, but we’ll have to go another weekend. Instead, Jenna and I are going to the Blue Mountains. Some foreign exchange students from Jenna’s school invited us so we hopped on board with them. Then 2 weekends after that we go to New Zealand!!! Have I mentioned how psyched I am about that!?!?

I have had a few anti-American experiences lately. Until now, I thought the Aussies were all so nice and laidback but I’ve been proved wrong. To go into details about each story would be very tedious right now but let’s just say they were not nice experiences.

On a livelier note, I had a very interesting night last night. We were at a pub and the DJ comes over the loudspeaker and announces a limbo contest and of course Jenna and I run up to enter. There were tons of people going through and the whole bar stopped to watch. After about 20 minutes, it was narrowed down to 3. (Both Jenna and I making up 2 of them). I have never limboed (is that a word?) so low in my life and the body pains today confirmed that for me. (that, and I’m out of shape). But I am sad to say that I got second place. I feel like I let everyone down and I am very sad about it. Mostly, because the person who won was this little, German, gumby of guy… that’s right, GUY!!! I couldn’t believe it! I like to pretend that he was at an advantage because he doesn’t have boobs but I guess I just have to give him credit for being a freak of nature.

Ok it’s time for bed, got a big day of wave jumping.. I mean class tomorrow. Talk to you all soon!