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.