Well my wonderful break from school has ended, as classes started on Monday. And honestly, I was actually excited to go to class and compare AUT's education system to La Crosse's. I'm taking 4 classes, and I love my schedule of only having one class per day, and nothing on Fridays! The only rough part is that they're all 3 hours long, which makes me super antsy and I have a hard time focusing that long, but I really can't complain too much. It's similiar to home, in that the first year classes are usually lecture based and can have hundreds of studendts in a room, but since I'm taking mostly 3rd year "papers" as they call them, my classes have around 30 people in them.
On Monday, I had my Operations Management class from 2-5, and I was happy to find out I knew someone in the class already! At night, the girls and I went to the Midnight Youth concert at the University of Auckland’s (AU) campus bar, called Shadows. We have a bar on our campus too, which I thought was pretty crazy/cool, but it’s nothing compared to AU’s. The concert was great, and the guys actually remembered us from a couple weeks ago.
On Tuesday, I had a Maori Leadership class, which was recommended to the study abroad students, and is apparently a favorite among internationals because of the professor. So there were about 10 other AustraLearn people in my class, and it didn’t take me long to decide that I would love this class. We ended up taking a personality test in class, and out of the four personality types, I found out I was a “peaceful phlegmatic” which didn’t surprise me at all. Our professor, Jason King, looked at my answers and started asking me questions about my personality and what I would do in certain situations, and he was dead on for everything. Not much else happened on Tuesday considering I took a nap from 6-10pm which has definitely messed up my sleep system now.
Wednesday is my earliest class of the week…which starts at 11. Ha rough, I know. It was my International marketing paper, which will definitely keep me busy as our professor expects a lot from us. Afterwards, I came back and took a nap and woke up to really loud music in our courtyard because there was a carnival going on for orientation week. So I went downstairs and watched a mini magic show, where I was involuntarily chosen to put my finger in this little slicing contraption. No worries though, the magician was legit, and I still have all 10 digits. Afterwards, Mike and I went across the street for sushi and something else that I can’t remember the name of, but was delicious. I’m starting to really like sushi, which won’t be good when I get home and find it’s about 5 times more expensive than it is here. He also made me try miso soup, and told me I was a bad Asian for never having it before. Ha, but you all knew that already. Later, a bunch of us went to another concert at shadows and saw Katchafire. It’s a reggae band and they put on a fantastic show! We stayed there for awhile before heading to Margaritas to get our groove on!
Thursday, I didn’t have class until 2 which was great. I had intentions of getting up and going for a run outside until I realized there was practically a tropical storm proliferating (ok maybe a little exaggerated, but there was no way I was running in that). I walked down Queen Street for a little bit with Meghan before class, and bought some hemp to make a necklace with a shell/possibly a bone I found on the beach at Bay of Islands. Then I headed off to my Marketing Research class where I sat for 3 hrs wanting to run out and have a breakdown because I’m realizing that with every business class that I take, I’m enjoying it less and less. So as sad as it sounds, I might be changing my major when I get back, and will be in school an extra year or so…but hopefully I’ll find something that I can be passionate about and actually enjoy!
Fashion sidenote: After 4 days of class, and out of the 40,000 students at AUT, I have yet to see anyone sporting any AUT apparel which is just sad and unfortunate to me. As anyone who goes to LaX knows, sweats and UWL apparel is the outfit of choice for most. But here, the girls go to class in outfits that we would go downtown in (if not more dressy), girls don’t wear backpacks, and NO ONE is seen in sweats of any kind. Then again it is still pretty warm here, so I’ll have hope for the cooler months J
Anyways, we all were going to a study abroad party that the school was putting on for us, which of course was at a bar. They were giving out free drink vouchers and bringing out appetizers all night, which was awesome but kind of weird that they were encouraging us to drink so much…and a couple of our teachers and our study abroad advisor were there. I stayed for a little bit and met a couple new people, and then a few of us went to a comedy performance on campus which was hilarious!
Today, I had lots of errands to do…and so far I’ve been doing good things! However it started a little later than planned after I ran into Mandy downstairs and she wanted to go get sushi. (It was my 3rd and her 5th time this week having sushi) So her, Meredith, and I went across the street and ate and then went back to the apartment to watch an episode of the O.C. since Mandy has been watching Season 1 since we’ve been here. Afterwards, I caved and bought a phone, bought my textbooks, and then I came back to the apartment and finally called to get my internet working!! I don’t have any plans for the weekend, but if anything exciting happens, I’ll let you all know!! Much love and thanks for reading!!!
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