Uni O Week

This week is Uni O Week. It's pretty much the same as Orientation at Fredonia: lots of information and not much fun stuff. As an international student, sadly, I'm required to go to all of it. However on Friday all of the international students will be able to separate from the rest of the group and go on a field trip to Dreamtime Cultural Center. I'm not really sure what that is yet but o well.
I've registered for all of my classes except Outdoor Pursuits which we (international students only) register for on Thursday after a meeting. I'm looking forward to learning to scuba dive and sail while getting the chance to brush up on my canoeing and kayaking skills. The instructor seems really nice as well. He is teaching my Embedded Professional Learning 1 course as well. Similar to Fredonia, I can't be a traditional student...not even a traditional international student. EPL 1 is a field experience course which includes 9 day visits this term and more next term. Since it's a full year class and I'll only be at CQU for one term I get to squeeze the rest of the visits into this term. I'm looking forward to learning where I'm placed in a nearby school and at what year. The other problem (which can be fixed hopefully) is that since I'm not a usual first year student and am taking a second year education class as well I can't go to the school on the usual EPL 1 day. Therefore I'll have to change both the day and the rest of the schedule for the class. My other classes are The Arts (first semester education class which I have with 3 of my friends) and Science Curriculum and Pedagogy (second year education class which I don't know anyone in). These four classes will hopefully only meet for 3 days a week but they don't meet for much time each week either. The Science class meets 2.5 hours a week for 10 weeks while Arts is 2 hours for all 12 weeks. None of the classes have written finals and I probably will be allowed to leave early on finals week. The only possible problem would be if I had to finish my EPL 1 placement during that week.
Australia protects it's children in different ways than the USA. Everyone who volunteers or works with children needs a blue card which includes a background check. Today my Orientation group went to apply for them and I should receive one within 2 months.
Other Interesting Things:
-Most of the hall has moved in now and I've become friends with many of them. I've gotten used to having guys around and was talking to Josh early today who alerted me that the guys all semiprotective of the girls in their hall. Apparently they will beat up anyone who hurts us. Good fact to know.
-Security here is much much looser than in the states. Although we have RAs their duties seem much less intensive than the duties at Fredonia and they receive double rooms with air con (a prized possession). Each night about 10 the duty team of 2 RA's walk around to lock all of the front doors to the halls and make sure noone is drinking in the hall. Every key at college opens all of the front doors so anyone who lives on college can enter a building at anytime. This is vastly different than the sign in policy that Fredonia has and the door keys. The other change is the front gates to the college close on the weekends and at night so noone who doesn't live on college is allowed in. During the day anyone can wander around the buildings (they are private property so only members really are allowed on college) but the doors are kept open.
-Today I met Student Life which appears to be the Christian group on campus. They were doing surveys to try to get new members. I'm looking forward to getting involved. Also I now have a ride to church on Sundays so I will be able to make it there safely without walking.
-Late Night Activities: Just as in Fredonia late night activities are hard to find if drinking is not involved. My friends and I have ended up sitting in the hall for extended periods of time however we are going to have to find something better to do eventually. Drinking is very common both on college and downtown since the drinking age is 18. Many underagers also drink often but the RAs don't seem to mind too much. Rules are much looser here but I enjoy it cause I haven't been woken up by drunks yet. It also helps that only 40 people live in my building total and few people walk by (unlike Ike last year where all the drunks got dropped off then walked outside my window late at night).
-Today we got into a big discussion about what raisins were. Our raisins they call sultana while they call golden raisins raisins. (Wikipedia has the two switched from what my friends said so I'll have to double check later.) However noone in our discussion group actually knew what kind of dried fruit an Australian raisin was and my friends had to look online later. They also picked on me for my saying of banana etc. but I must say that it doesn't bother me. It appears that not only do they have weird names here but they don't pronounce their 'r' s. Carl becomes Call while Sarah was talking about doing her dalks...i.e. darks. Took me a while to learn but I'm starting to better understand their accents.
Well I'm off to find something better to do with my night than sit on top of my desk (it's really just a table) where I've been for a few hours now. It also helps that my friend just rang me and invited me over since I walked out of her room scared of her jumping up and down about an hour ago. Enjoy!