FWOC

Helloooooo. It's Wednesday, February 18th. Do you know what that means? It means I'm officially done with my FIRST WEEK OF CLASSES!!!!! Concerned adults - I did do a summer course. Sorta. I had a very busy three days and boy am I exhausted. My classes, while not directly relating to my major, are pretty interesting. One class is called Australia Through Visitors' Eyes. Enrolling in this course, I believed it would have something to do with tourists and Australian history and whatnot. Today I found out I was mistaken. The course is literally about people who have visited Australia and what they did while there. To name a few - Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, and various prime ministers (former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi asked to take a Koala home with her. Her request was denied.) So that will be interesting... I think. Over the past week, I've talked a lot about the different political climates in the US vs Australia, and it's been really interesting hearing international perspectives straight from people who grew up in other countries. I'm trying to pull as much as I can from the academic side of abroad. It's also nice to have some structure during my days. Don't get me wrong, a month and a half of free time was pretty great, but some guidelines definitely aren't going to hurt. It feels really strange to be a student at a new school. UNSW looks like a movie set. It feels like a weird alternate universe, as if I got to go back in time and relive the first two weeks of freshman year again. Today while on campus I ran into a million people I've met here, and it really felt like I was back in Charlottesville and talking to friends I made at Boylan. Except if Charlottesville was tropical and modern and Boylan was Coogee Pav and I was 21 and not 18. So overall my rating of first week is probably an 8/10. No real complaints, I just need to get used to using my brain again and thinking. Which may be hard, considering all I've had to do for the past month is play. 

Tomorrow, I leave for my weekend trip to the Great Barrier Reef. I'll be living on a boat for three days, snorkeling and visiting cool places in the North. I have absolutely no idea what to expect. I'm a little nervous but mostly super excited, because this is a completely new experience that I've truly never had before. The forecast says 100% rain, so I will update how my voyage goes. It is rain or shine, so we're going to make the best of any situation we're in. I foresee card games, really beautiful views, and hopefully a lot of new friends, since we're a group of five and there are thirty people on the boat. Sorry I've been lazy and haven't been uploading pictures. One day if I ever have free time I'll go through the posts and add pictures from that week on there. Text me if you really care.