First day of school

I guess the first thing I can say about the first few lessons of school was that it was absolutely terrifying. The desks are set up examination style, all facing the front and unadjoined. No one spoke to each other, just sat and waited for the teacher. When the teacher came in, they knew a lot of the students so there was general conversation, inside jokes and complete confusion from me. There's about 12-50 people in each of the classes and most classes require class paticipation as part of your grade, so when they started talking about American history and their governmental policies, I guess it's a bit intense when they look at you for an answer or opinion and you just respond with the most blank expression possible. But once the teacher's heard my accent they realised and didn't ask me anymore questions about American history.

Overall, now that we've had a week to settle into classes, I'm really loving them. The teachers are really nice and rather quirky, a lot of the students are more friendly now that they know I'm from Australia (it's like a super power here, you say your from Australia and then everyone wants to be your friend), and the work is quite easy to adjust to, although sometimes I still stare blankly at the lecturer.

Other than school, I think I should mention the weather... I should've researched a bit about the weather conditions here because it was interesting to find out that Wilmington has a hurricane season and good ol' hurricane Bill was sitting off the coast. Luckily hurricane Bill has passed without coming to shore but now there's rumours of a tropical storm said to hit Wilmington on the weekend, so it might be an interesting weekend. While hurricane Bill was hanging around last weekend, me and some of the other international students went down to the beach to check out the swell. We got about 5 minutes time in the water before we started to get trashed and when we got out, the beach patrol was announcing all swimmers out of the water, so it's been a pretty eventful week seeing all these new happenings.

Last thursday, my friend Chelsea took me out to the clubs. That's whats great about the clubbing area here is that although I'm underage, the clubs allow 18+ but mark your hands so that you can't purchase alcohol. It's really good because, by doing it this way, I don't get excluded from my friends and can still have a good night out.

Anyway, I think that's about it now that I've caught up on everything.

Cheers.

Orientation/bits and pieces

Sorry if this is a long blog, but a lot has happened over the past 2 weeks! So, since I arrived, they have given us a tour of campus which is absolutely gorgeous with green lawns that are trimmed and well managed, the buildings are amazing (although the interior is less extravagant than the exterior) and the sports facilities are awesome. The Recreation centre (Rec) is so high tech with a full gym, basketball courts, rock climbing wall and indoor running track! No kidding, there is an actual running track upstairs in the building. Overall, orientation was full of meetings and talks which were long, but it was mainly for the students from non-english speaking backgrounds so we had to be patient. During orientation we had an outdoor lunch which was interesting. They were serving sloppy joe's which I have been excited to try since I arrived... not so excited about them anymore. I don't know how it was made but that food is weird! So now I've tried and tested sloppy joe's and I don't think I'll try it again...

So far the experience has been amazing, homesickness hasn't set in which is good. The presenters during orientation described 4 stages of adjustment for international students: 1st is the honeymoon stage where everything is awesome, loving it, don't want to go home until... 2nd stage, the shock. The realisation that its not going to always be meeting people and attending social events, then 3rd stage is the negotiation where we will probably realise its not all great but it'll be ok. Finally 4th is the acceptable stage which is pretty explanatory.

One thing I have realised is that the weather is SO humid, but the university loves airconditioning so much that you need to wear a jumper inside. It's ridiculous! The teachers won't even adjust it so there are a lot of frozen people by the end of the lecture.

It is quite easy for me to settle into the culture because it's very similar to Australia, however, there are a few differences which have made it interesting. On campus is a dunkin' donuts store and when I ordered an ice coffee the lady asked if I wanted sugar and cream. Cream in an ice coffee sounds pretty gross so I asked for without cream. She gave me a plain black coffee...

Travel tip #2 Cream = Milk in America

It's more the little things like different names for things that is probably the hardest thing to deal with. And I was given warning before coming to call my thongs 'flip-flops', otherwise it could've been quite awkward.

One night my friend's Chelsea and Matt took me to a Hookah bar. (Matt is also from CSU but did exchange a few years back at UNCW and now lives here with Chelsea) The Hookah bar was really cool, it seems to be a really trendy thing to do here cause there are many different hookah bars around. Anyway, Chelsea introduced me to a few of her American friends and I'm starting to make more friends now that classes have started.

I'll leave it here otherwise, I could go on forever.

Another post coming really soon about school...

Cheers.

Photos

Some photos.. not many but its a start.

From top left: "Rock the Rec" carnival, Sumo wrestling at "Rock the Rec", entrance to International House (my residence),

From bottom left: My bedroom!, all international students and volunteers, BEACH BLAST!

Just arrived!

I was hoping to write a little earlier but this has been the first chance to sit down and actually write. Right now, I'm sitting in my dorm room with my roommate Nina from Norway who's really nice. Everyone here is lovely although the first hours in America were a bit of a nightmare.

Like all plane trips, it went forever, my arse was completely numb but there wasn't any annoying passengers which made the first flight pretty smooth.

Saying goodbye to my family was easier than I thought, the excitement of the trip makes it better to leave and saying goodbye to my friends and boyfriend was hard... but managable (just).

Anyway, I didn't really get excited until we were flying over LA. That place is HUGE!! It was at dawn so it was the most amazing scene to see the sunrise while we were above the clouds. Going through customs was quite stress-free and when I got to my next departure gate the line was unbelievable. It went out the door, passed the taxi rank and met up with the next departure gate. There was an American man walking with his family to the end of the line and kept saying, "this line is unfathomable! Just un-fath-om-able." Once I got to security for my next flight there was another massive line but a security officer approached me and started asking for my passport and ticket, I thought I was in BIG trouble. But what she did was actually let me cut the que to test a new scanning machine where I stood in this circular room/container and these beams whirled around me, it was really cool. One thing I've noticed with American security is that they want you to take off half your clothes: your shoes, your jumper, your hat, your belt, any other shirt other than your last layer... it was really intense.

I think the coolest thing I've seen so far are the toilets! They flush themselves... what the?!?! It scared the crap out of me first time, but now it seems to be the norm for most public restrooms.

Anyway, after all this I was on my flight to Atlanta which was on a smaller plane and as we flew over Atlanta it was really beautiful. There was thick forestry everywhere with little street areas popping out every now and then. I was surprised that there weren't any logging areas there.

At Atlanta airport, it was crowded, hot and was a km walk just to the baggage area! That place is huge and my flight got delayed so I sat at the terminal for 7 hours just staring at the screen that slowing put back the time of departure over and over, we got moved terminals 5 times until we could finally board. By then, jetlag had hit really bad. So we get on this tiny little putt-putt plane and head to my final destination: Wilmington NC!!! I met Nina at Atlanta which was great so we already knew each other by the time we arrived on campus. My accommodation for the night was a dingy hotel where someone tried to get into my room by accident (scared me to death) and the shower had one setting of COLD and the reception smelled of cats.

My travel tip #1: Take advice from the university and stay where they recommend, don't find the cheapest hotel like I did.

It's been a really bumpy ride at the beginning but now that I have moved in it's amazing. Like I said before, Nina is really nice, everyone on campus are lovely and my RA is great. When we pulled up, the campus is massive. We've been told to buy bikes because it's too big just to walk. The buildings are beautiful brown brick with white pillars (very much like the movies) and the dormrooms are really well set up. I'll post some pictures later when I take some of the room and campus. There are two aussies in my dorm, one from Perth who's really cool and the other I met briefly seems nice too. So at the moment, everything is better than I thought it would be with exception to the flights and accommodation. Have a dorm meeting now so gotta run but will post again soon.

Cheers.

P.S. Just came back from dining hall and it is awesome!!! It's like a massive Sizzler... huge buffets everywhere with pizzas, burgers, salads, dessert, fruit. I think I found my favourite building on campus!