First day of classes!

The last two days of O-Week were mainly surf safety and team building. On Thursday I participated in surf safety in the middle of what most of us would consider quite a severe thunderstorm. Maybe it’s just me…but shouldn’t a surf safety class include not going into a large body of water in the middle of a thunderstorm? Hmm… We walked down to Manly Beach and by the time we’d gotten there, we looked like we had already been swimming with our clothes on-we were completely soaked. It was such a cold rain, so we were all pretty grumpy. We listened to a beach safety talk…For instance you should always swim where the waves are. The calm areas are where the rips are and they will pull you away from the shore.

When they announced we were getting in the water we thought they were joking. It was still raining, but the thunder was more distant. Donning our red wet shirts, we walked down to the harbor carrying foam surfboards. Manly Beach itself was closed as the sewer plant had overflowed and the water was polluted. The harbor was completely calm, and we did relay races by country, practicing running into the water, jumping belly-first onto our boards and paddling around. Let’s just say that the Australians beat everyone from the States, but that we definitely killed the Scandinavians. It was pretty hard to get balanced and stay on the boards, but it was easy once I got the hang of it. Most people fell off, but I never did :)

There was an optional wine and cheese event at sunset. It was supposed to be outside, but it was of course raining, so we held it on one of the balconies in front of the school. Everyone dressed up and there was gorgeous back lighting for all of my photographs.

Friday morning, some of us did a scavenger hunt (a ‘scavie’) around Manly. We divided into groups of four and had to find the most random things in the town: a Thai restaurant with a take-away menu, the post office, getting a photograph with 10 strangers all at once, etc, etc. The hardest one was getting a parking ticket at exactly 11:44. The way you were to do it was all stand on the spot in front of the parking ramp so that your weight would register as being as heavy as a car. However, my group didn’t get it to work, so one of the guys had the idea of going to the police station and asking them to issue us a fake parking ticket. I couldn’t believe it-but it worked! They totally gave us one, and my team ended up winning the scavie, and got 10 free tickets to the cinema in Manly, which run about $15AU apiece, so it was a really good prize!

That afternoon, I had teambuilding. We divided up (by making animal noises…strange Aussies…I was a cow) and began competing. It was the cows against the sheep. We did random events including tug of war, a blowup obstacle course that was completely filled with water and mud inside, big-ball-volleyball (using a huge red ball that was probably 6 feet in diameter), and another which I can’t even begin to explain. It was loads of fun, and the cows won every event! It was great.

Friday night we discovered exactly how outrageous prices could be in Manly. We went to a place called Henry Africa’s (a really swanky lounge) and all of the girls decided to get cosmos…which ended up being $17 AU each!!! Absolutely ridiculous. That kind of killed the evening, to say the least.

Saturday morning we had a tour of Sydney. In the rain. Everyone is so sick of the rain! We were on a bus, but it would have been great if we’d actually been able to get pictures of things. We saw the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, and went through Kings’ Cross and Chinatown. That night, we got news that we could all claim some money for the hassle of our lost baggage. Good news! We decided to go early Sunday morning.

We went to get ice cream to celebrate. Copenhagen ice cream is AMAZING, just as you said it would be Tom. I think I’m fully addicted.

Our taxi came at 8:15 that morning to take us to the airport. After enough complaining and bartering, we all got $350! It felt great to have some unexpected extra money that I’ve decided to save to travel with. Well…except the money I spent to buy a muffin and coffee. Speaking of coffee, I’ve been forced to quit caffeine cold-turkey. Going from a pot of coffee a day to absolutely not a drop wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The headaches have ended :)

After brunch on Sunday (my new favorite meal!) we went down into Manly to buy some school supplies. We went to church that night at St. Matt’s, at the 18:30 service which is a contemporary service for young adults. It was quite good. The chaplin for our college plays the bass in the band, and I was talking to two blokes during the “G-day time” and it turns out they both listen every week to the services at Mars Hill where I go to church every Sunday. What a small world!

This morning we had an all-student assembly for all the new students at 8am. It was probably the most boring thing that we’ve done yet. We had a woman named Shane something-or-other as one of our speakers who was apparently a huge swimmer back in the seventies, winning all sorts of Olympic medals.

Alright, it’s time for me to go get some lunch and go to my first class. I’ve got marketing and ecotourism today, rooms division management tomorrow, ecotourism on Wednesday, operations management, marketing and rooms division management on Thursday and then operations management on Friday. Whew. Should be fun!

I’ll keep you posted!

Cheers,
MJ

Fun facts:
Happy days=good times
No worries=you’re welcome
Sunnies=sunglasses
Unnie=university
Trekkies=tennis shoes
Trackies=sweatpants