Week Eleven

Me and a large male kangaroo

Crocodiles at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary



Wagga Wagga Botanic Gardens

 

 

Hello again everybody and welcome back to my blog! We've now reached Week Eleven (once again, I'm absolutely astonished at how quickly time flies) and my time here at Charles Sturt University is beginning to come to an end. After the completion of this week, I will have exactly five weeks left in Australia: three weeks of class, followed by two weeks of exams. I must admit, now that the weeks are piling up, I'm getting a bit anxious to get back to my family and friends. However, I am not letting that distract me from enjoying my remaining time here in Australia and my academic goals. Once again, there is not a lot to talk about in this week's post; so I think I'll just give a brief update on what I've been doing, what I plan to do, and maybe a few random musings on Aussie culture.

 

 

This past weekend, I had the privelege of attending the Wagga Wagga Ag Races, an all-day festive event at the local 'turf club'. A brief aside: I used single quotes around turf club in keeping with the Australian custom. I must admit, I feel unusually sophisticated when, whilst typing class essays, I write organise instead of organize. I sometimes get the urge to read my papers in an English or Australian accent. But getting back to the Ag Races, I found them very enjoyable and almost the quintessential Australian experience. I'd never been to a horserace before in my life, so needless to say I didn't know what to expect. There were a lot of people dressed very nicely (I was dressed in a semi-formal fashion, but still felt somewhat underdressed) and there were lots of women wearing hats and very flamboyant hair ornaments. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself immensely watching the horses run and meeting lots of new people. And no, I did not place bets on any of the horses. I'm not much of a gambler to begin with, and I know virtually nothing about horses so I decided not to throw away my money.

 

Other than the exciting and enjoyable time I had at the races on Saturday, not a whole lot new has been going on. The weather is getting progressively nicer each week, this week will be sunny and in the mid 70s (or the mid 20s as I've grown accustomed to saying, I'm getting better at the Fahrenheit-Celsius conversion) and the days are growing longer as well. I have just become aware that the day I arrive back in the US, November 1st, is also the last day of daylight savings; so my Circadian Rhythm will be thrown even more out of whack. Anyways, I have met no shortage of new people. Fortunately, as a foreign exchange student, I am able to make friends quite easily due to my 'exotic' nature in addition to the general friendliness of the Australian population.

So, as you can tell, the past few weeks have been rather uneventful with the exception of school assignments. I have only two assignments left for the entire semester, and they are both due on the same week in October. This upcoming weekend, I'm taking a trip to Canberra (the nation's capitol) and after that I plan on visiting Melbourne (Australia's second largest city after Sydney, the Los Angeles of Australia) over a three-day weekend. So, needless to say, there will be a lot more to blog about in the weeks ahead. By the time I've returned from my trip to Melbourne, I'll have just three weeks left in this country! Pretty crazy to think about. Regardless, I look forward to my upcoming travels and being able to share them with my readers in future posts. Cheers!