Life's too short... Travel the World!

Life's too short... Travel the World!: July 2012

Monday 23 July 2012

Three Weeks!

I've lived in Australia for three weeks! Well, not quite yet, but come Thursday assuming I don't die or get deported, the aforementioned will be true.

Just wanted to give everyone a heads up on how I'm doing - pretty awesome as it stands right now.

I made some immediate friends when I arrived here, and sort of became part of a group of friends - which is a really cool thing to happen in a week. After three weeks, I'm feeling a lot more comfortable with the friendships I've made, and it's allowing me to get more settled in and used to the country. I unfortunately have still yet to explore the city.

I've finished my first week of Uni here, and have just started my second one - I'm liking all my classes so far.

Pathology is a snooze fest, as I expected it to be, but that's just because we are going over some histopathology - in a bit we'll get into the fun stuff, like multi-organ system failure.

Immunology is really interesting. There are only 3 people in the class, I'm one of them. I've had 3 lectures on it so far, and I've got to say, if things keep up the way they do - Immunological medicine might be a new path for me. It's probably one of the most interesting sciences I've come across to to-date.

Psychology is damn-well interesting; even though I haven't been to a lecture yet. Don't get me wrong, I go to all my tutorials, I just missed the first lecture, and chose not to go to the second... You may ask why, considering I'm paying for them... Well let me tell you! Curtin has this online lecture automatic recording thing, which records every lecture, the video/audio of the prof, and a video of the screen - which you can access and watch at any time, from any computer - incredibly cool. The idea of having the personalized lecture for myself, and being able to stop and take notes when I need to is far superior than what I'm used to.

Performance studies is going to be interesting. The people are incredibly friendly (as usually all arts people are) and we have to create an original piece of site-specific theatre, much in the style of improv everywhere - which I think is going to be crazy-fun. I've got to write a few essays along the way, but you've got to roll with the punches.

I haven't been keeping up with my homework yet, because I'm still finding the groove, but I have been hanging out with people. Today I kicked a footy around - very poorly, but at least I can say that I've done it. I've joined a couple clubs "joined" being a loose word, as I haven't paid for membership yet, but will soon.

Still looking into travelling this summer around aus, maybe instead of working. I've attached a picture of some antics.

Also, I think I want dreadlocks; more on that later.

Friday 13 July 2012

A Week in Oz


It's officially been one week since I came to Australia - though technically it's been 8 days - and it has been a wild ride ever since.

From being insanely culture shocked the first day, to having nerf gun fights for about 3 hours one afternoon, to getting to know all my classes, I'd say I'm doing okay.

The campus is much bigger than my campus back home, which is a bit daunting. All the buildings are outside, and a lot of the campus is designed to force students to be outside; none of this Brock U fear the outdoors stuff. I have found all my courses, but I can't say that I'm registered in them just yet.

I'm apparently the first student in my program to go on an international exchange, so it was particularly difficult for me to get all my courses approved. I finally got them all approved from Brock, but I haven't heard word from Curtin yet as to whether or not I'm registered in my final course - which is daunting, as it starts on Monday. I might just go to a couple different lectures of courses I hope to be in, so that I don't miss anything. I'm also curious as to whether or not I can do more than 4 courses - but that's a question for another day; tomorrow. 

O-Week is now over, but not before the big O-week party that's happening tonight that I'm going to check out. I've made quite a few friends so far, but I'm not entirely happy with the amount. I would have liked to meet a lot more people, but I keep reminding myself that it's only been a week, and that there is plenty more time to meet some more people.

I'm growing increasingly more curious / worried as to what I am going to do this summer. Sure it would be awesome to grab a job in the city, make lots of cash and live in a flat, but that's not how life always turns out. The majority of the friends I've made right now (and I assume the ones I'm going to make) will leave the city during the summer to go back to their homes which is basically going to leave me with not much a social life. I'm hoping that I can meet some people who might be keen to backpack across the east coast, and that might be an option for me - check out new zealand, etc etc. Even if I don't do that this summer, I've always got the break after Semester 1 in 2013 (the Canadian Summer). I'm also thinking of taking my time coming back to Canada in that summer, maybe stopping over in France and checking out another Brock exchange program so that I could improve my french... but that's a year from now, and a lot of things can change, so I'm not going to put the wagon in front of the horse.

I'm looking forward to some volunteer opportunities that are coming up - and the option to get involved with clubs too. There is a thing called "Guild Day" on this coming Wednesday, which for Brock is a lot like the vendor fair - but bigger. So there's going to be a lot of people there representing all of their clubs, which I'm very excited for. I'm looking to get course credit for volunteering over here in a health care setting, so I'm hoping to join the St. John ambulance. I've also joined the discipline committee I think - but I'm not too sure what's going on there - I think it will be very similar to the RLS, but I will update it once I know what's going on.

Speaking of the RLS, I'm feeling more and more every day that I'd like to go back to it and do one more year... I'm not sure why - it's an insane amount of work - but I'm drawn to it for some reason. I feel like after my experience abroad, and especially my experience with summer camp, that I can do a much better job than I initially did. Plus, if I went back, I can't be in the same building as I was before - so no more stairs.   :D

So that's about it for this week. I've attached a picture of me at an international student's breakfast. A couple quick updates though...

I've started cooking... I can make eggs, and toast, and that's about it.
I bought a nerf gun... for defence...
Everything object here has a different name - even the things you would expect to be normal.
I'll be having nightmares about grocery shopping for a week - I spent at least 3 hours in that store. 

Friday 6 July 2012

From culture-shocked to comfortable

Today is my second day in Australia, and I'm feeling a lot more comfortable than I was on the begging of my first day.

I had moved into my residence, and spent the night there. My flat turns out to be the furthest one from the university, on the ground floor, and it seems like it was in the middle of nowhere; I wasn't the happiest, but I was fine. I got a good night's sleep, and got up the next morning to go to the housing introduction session; it was all stuff I've heard before except they seemed to tell me that the campus was not safe to walk home alone with, etc etc. Kinda scared...

Anyways, I finished the session and decided to walk over to the university to get my student card and my bus pass... talk about overwhelming - the campus is huge, and confusing. But as I was walking over, I found myself increasingly more culture shocked - feeling upset because things weren't how I imagined them to be. The little things were what were getting me the most.

The grass is much different, it's really short and stubby, doesn't even look like regular grass, the cars are all different - aside from driving on the other side of the road, and having the steering wheel on the other side - they are all toyotas and nissans - very few chryslers, etc.  But the absolute worst, was the birds. They have crows here, but they're not like regular crows. They make a horrible noise, and have chins that buldge out like frogs... their eyes are ghost white, and they look like they want to kill you... freaky.

So I wasn't feeling too well about Australia, but as I walked back to my flat, I met some of my roommates, who basically gave me the run-down on Curtin and Aus. I was feeling 10x more comfortable after that, and later on that night I went to a pizza social for the rez and made some new friends that I hung out with - good times!

Some stuff I still have to do this week:
  • Get my courses sorted out - Brock and Curtin are fighting again, have to be the middle man.
  • Go grocery shopping - (that's going to be a bloody nightmare deserving of its own post)
  •  Finish a bunch of little stuff.

I'm feeling a lot more comfortable, but my goal for this week, and next week (which is orientation) is to make as many friends as possible. Let's hope my plan succeeds!

Thursday 5 July 2012

Leaving on a jet plane!

What up bloggers?

I just had my flights, and I'd like to tell you a bit about them! I flew Delta all the way until Sydney, and then flew Virgin Aus to Perth - all in all it was an adventure in itself.

I started Tuesday morning at 6AM and drove to the Toronto airport with my mom and her sister. After saying goodbye - which was harder than I thought - I went through customs, dropped off my bags, and went to chill in the airport. I got on my first flight which took me to Atlanta, Georgia.

Before I had left, my mother told me that Atlanta was the largest airport in the world... I didn't believe her, but sure enough, she was dead right. They had 6 or something terminals, all connected by this underground walkway with a train. I arrived there at around 2PM and had to wait until 7PM for my next flight; I killed the time by watching movies and walking around. For fun, I decided to walk from one side of the airport to another... I cheated and used moving walkways the whole time, and it still took me 30 minutes to do so - it was ridiculous.

Anyways, boarded my next flight to LAX, and it was pretty cool. It was a 4 hour flight which was an hour late, so it wasn't that bad, but because of the time difference I got into LA at about 9PM.

I barely got to spend any time in the LA airport, but I did go to a McDonalds and ordered a cheeseburger and fries. I had a conversation with the guy working there that went something like this...

"Welcome to McDonalds, what would you like?"
"Can I get a cheeseburger with just ketchup, medium fries and a small drink?"
"Would you like 3 cheeseburgers?"
"What? no..."
"It's the same price as one"
"... uhhh.... sure... why not?"

So I eat my three cheeseburgers, wondering when the heart attack is going to go down, and immediately have to board my next plane to Sydney.

I met a pretty cool girl on the plane named Alyssa, my age, in the same program, and some insane man with his family sat in the middle of us. I spent the entire flight having food, passports, tissues, and small children being passed over my lap... fantastic. After 15 hours of that, I made it to Sydney, and chilled in the airport for a bit with Alyssa. We met some other people, and this insane lady who tried to convince us to go in a different line with her (when we were really in the right line)... don't know what happened to her.

She took off to Tasmania for her exchange, and I chilled around the Sydney airport trying not to fall asleep.

My last flight to Perth was 5 hours, and pure torture. I was so tired, but despite having two seats to myself, could not sleep. It was the most uncomfortable I've ever been on a plane, but the plane itself was very comfortable, the staff were nice, and the TVs in the seats had views from the front and bottom of the plane - which was insanely cool.

I'm not looking forward to doing it again, but that's a year from now, and I might book a more direct flight, or take my time going home stopping off in some places.

Sunday 1 July 2012

It's just a little bit crazy...

There are 48 hours until I am on a plane out of Toronto... I'm a little concerned.

My flight starts in Toronto, has stopovers in Atlanta, LA and Sydney, and lands in Perth 2 days later. It's gonna be a fun ride - I'm still deciding on what I can take over with me to keep me company on the plane - I'm thinking books.

My courses still are not completely figured out, and I start school in a couple of weeks - which is an extremely concerning fact for me. My host university is denying my courses, while my home university is slow at approving new ones to replace the ones my host uni denies. It's a lot of red tape to go through, but I sent out at least 10 emails last night, so hopefully people start to respond to them extremely soon.

I should mention that I finished my job at YU, and it was pretty awesome. Working with great people, inspiring kids to do science, and making some new best friends? Yeah, I can work with that. I'm kind of sad that it's over though, and I hope that I make friends as good as them in Australia. It's starting to hit me just how long I'll be gone for.

I've got a lot of stuff to do before I move out... Pack is the main thing, followed by courses, followed by sorting out little details like my phone. I keep making new to do lists, so I have at least 15 of them each with only a few things on them... Perhaps I should combine them.

So... For sure when I get there, I will be taking a Performance studies class, an Immunology class, and a Pathology class... It's going to be a fun semester! (And I don't say that sarcastically, it actually will be fun).

Anyways, I feel guilty sitting around and not doing anything. I feel I should finish packing, etc etc. So I'll post another update tomorrow when I'll be twice as freaked out as today!