O Week

Hi everyone! I’ve been in Townsville for a little over a week now and everything is great so far. There wasn’t really anything planned for us last week so the other Americans and I spent a lot of time exploring the area. We went to the local shopping center a few times to pick up some things and set up bank accounts, we got a tour around Townsville with our study abroad program in a open air stretch Jeep, we went to the local town pool which is right on the river, walked around campus a bit, and have gone into town a few nights so far. The only bad thing about exploring is that the bus fair is getting a little much. But now that we have our student ID cards we can get 50% off all bus rides. All of the people I came with are really great and we have a lot of fun together.

This past weekend all of the first-years, or freshers, arrived at my college. Since we’re new to the college, the Americans are considered freshers too. It’s weird to be grouped with them since we’re all a lot older than them. A lot of the freshers are only 17! A little bit of hazing has gone on too haha. We have these gold, plastic roman helmets with our names on them that we have to wear around every where. And I really mean every where, around the college, over at the university, to the store, to dinner, we even wore them when we went out on Saturday night! The other night we had a scavenger hunt where a group of us were tied together and had to run around finding things while the student exec members and the RA’s sprayed us with water guns and hoses. And the yesterday morning we got woken up at 4:00 AM and had to walk around to the other colleges and try to wake them up. It’s all been pretty fun though, just gets a little much some times with the age difference.

Other than that we’ve had a bunch of other orientation things like meetings and lunches and ice breaker games. Last night my college went bowling together, but the catch was that it was drag bowling so you had to dress as the opposite gender. Everyone looked pretty funny, especially the guys. Tonight is toga night which is supposed to be a really big night here. My friend Anna and I went to a craft store yesterday with two Australian girls that we’ve met to get material to make our togas. There are a few other parties and info sessions throughout the week and then my college has a picnic at the beach on Sunday before classes start.

All of my classes are set now. I’ll be taking a marine biology class, a coral reef class, a class on Australian society, and a photography class. I’m actually excited for classes to start, I think I’m going to like the ones I’m enrolled in and it will be nice to have some kind of schedule.

I’m also excited for the upperclassmen to move in. Right now it’s only the freshers, exec members and RAs. But the other students move in tomorrow so hopefully I’ll get to meet some more people who are closer to my age.

Hope you’re all having fun back at home! Don’t get too cold J

Love,
Jennie