Mid-Sem Break Where You At?

September 17th, 2018

Hello everyone and HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my parents. I am so wishing I could be home to celebrate and give you big hugs. Only 65 more days until I will be able to!!

This past week hasn’t been very exciting so I am thinking this blog post will be pretty short. The semester is definitely getting harder, and Australian college is graded a lot harder than my college back home. For example, a 65 back home would be a D, but here it is a B…? This seems like it would be easy to get good grades because there is a larger range…. but, they grade ridiculously hard. I am just trying my best, so we will see what happens.

On Monday, we had our second formal dinner of the semester. My friends and I got ready together and headed down for canapes. This time they had wine, craft beer and of course everyone’s favorite, champagne. There were also many finger foods going around as we chatted with peers. We headed inside for dinner, music, and our guest speaker. The guest speaker this time was a young woman who had graduated from UNSW and spent two of her years in Goldstein (the dorms I am staying in). Her speech was very entertaining and fun. A direct quote is, “I think I lost more brain cells at Goldstein then I gained.” I think that pretty much sums up my educational experience here in Australia (sorry mom).

Wednesday was R U Okay day here on campus. It was basically a day focusing on mental health and managing with stress. The best day to deal with stress is to play with animals so….they brought a petting zoo to campus. We got to hold bunnies, chicks, rabbits, guinnea pigs, and goats. Also, there was free ice cream sundaes, coloring, and lots of live music. My friends and I spent a few hours outside enjoying everything that was going on. There were very inspirational guest speakers that all of us could relate to in some way, sharing their experiences. After dinner, we went to another event on campus called International Markets. It was a bunch of tents set up with lots of food. We just walked through because we had already eaten, but everything looked and smelled so good!

This weekend was a catch-up weekend. I spent hours trying to catch-up on homework and get ahead on some assignments. Sunday night however my friends Molly and Emily came into my room and just said “we are going out!” Of course, I came up with every excuse not to go because I was comfy in bed getting a lot done, but they insisted. They literally went to my closet and picked out an outfit, so I had no choice but to go. It definitely took a lot of convincing but it ended up being a great night and I am so happy they made me do it! We went to a bar downtown and got a few drinks with fries and just sat there and chatted for hours. We met some interesting people, but it was so fun I can’t wait to do it again.

Mid-Semester break starts this weekend, and I am going to Bali, Indonesia for 10 days. I can’t wait to relax and enjoy my time while soaking in another new culture.

Hope everyone has the best week!!

-Jor