First Day of School

Today (Tuesday) I had my first two classes: Australian Drama and Aspects of Literary Theory. This meant that I would be getting myself to and from campus ALONE for the first time (cue dramatic music). It actually turned out fine; I got upt early, made the train and shuttle in a timely fashion, and even managed to get coffee before class. I call that a success already.

Once on campus, I managed to find my first classroom (actually a blackbox theater) pretty easily and began talking with an Australian student in my class named Meg. She is a transfer from QUT (another uni in Brisbane) and had studied theater before, but is currently a Nutrition major. Shes 23 and majors and university are pretty different here than they are in the states, so it sounded like she’s transferred around a bit. She was very nice and we bonded over the fact that we don’t have any labs this semester (yay!) and we’re both new to this school.

When class began, our professor, Delyse, showed us a slide with different Australian animals and asked us to identify with one. She then had us find others who identified with the same animal and introduce ourselves. We had to find others of our “species” by acting like the animal, so I was a koala and easily found a group of students who were also pretending to sleep and eat their day away. This is how I met Kaleish (or Keish, pronounced like “quiche”); she immediately introduced herself and wrapped herself around my legs, in true koala fashion. I think we are going to be good friends; she is very friendly and later in the class she offered to drive me to the play we are required to see this Thursday, without my even asking.

For the rest of the class we went over the syllabus and watched clips from Australian movies. I’ve learned a lot about the culture, slang, and stereotypes already, as everyone was willing to define them for the new American student. I kind of feel like a bit of a novelty here, actually, even if no one really knows where New Hampshire is.

After three hours of class (10 to 1), Meg and I ate our packed lunches and went on a bargain hunt for the required plays for our dama class. After scouring the internet and calling a secondhand book shop, we broke down and bought them from… the uni book store (cue more dramatic music). We paid $100 AUD for five plays (sorry M & D), but at least they look pretty interesting.

At 4pm I had my second class of the day. The professor of my Lit class (Simon) is actually married to my Drama professor, but seems to hate live theater, so I’m not sure what that means. He is a very interesting person with a dry sense of humor, so I think I’m going to have an enjoyable time in this class. We will be reading Dracula and Frankenstein and analyzing them using different literary theories. It kind of feels like my senior english class, but better because now I’m more mature and better read, so the analysis will be less superficial (if you’re reading this Mr. Man, I’m sorry). The professor also let me borrow his copy of Dracula so that I could find copies of the other essays in it that don’t come in my kindle edition, which saves me about fifty bucks. Thanks, Simon!

Normally, we would have tutorial right after lecture on Tuesdays for Lit (meaning I won’t leave campus until 7pm), but since its the first week we are exempt. I had to wait a bit for the shuttle to the train, but managed to make it to my apartment by 7pm (so 8pm next week). On the shuttle, I started talking to some girls who were having a conversation about Supernatural (I was eaves dropping, one hundred percent). They were very nice and liked my accent (again, I am a novelty here). I got along with one of the girls (another Meghan) a little better, and she gave me her contact info so we can meet up on campus again. Look, mom, I’m making friends!

My final adventure this evening was trying vegemite, which is basically just yeast extract. Fun fact, it originated because Australia was making SO MUCH BEER they didn’t know what to do with the left overs. I like this country. Anyway, I made some toast, slathered it in butter, and added the tiniest amount of vegemite to the mix. I didn’t think it was that bad, it just has a salty/bitter after taste. However, 2 out of my 3 flatmates would disagree with me; more for me and Kelley, I suppose.

Tomorrow I will start my internship at Nudgee Beach and I am so excited. The girls and I have also made plans to go the the Sunshine Coast this weekend (its way nicer than the Gold Coast, we hear) which is near the Australian Zoo (Steve Irwin’s Zoo) and the beach. On Friday, I have also made plans to take my dreaded biochemistry final and burn all reminders of that class (everyone pray that I get at least a 70 on this final; I will need it). This week will be busy, but tremendously fun.

Until tomorrow, mates!

Luisa