Classes and Campus Life

(Our first class to start off the week is Australian and Pacific Exploration. It is two back to back 50 minute sessions with only a ten min break in between and it is as exciting as it sounds... It is a class with a video lecture to the other campus (this past class one girl at the other campus was passed out sleeping in the front row) and our teacher talks so quietly that we in the same room as her can barely hear her (sound familiar). She stands at the podium and spits out info at us with no powerpoint or outline just maps for 2 hours!!! The tutorial of that class is much better we are assigned readings each week and in the tutorial we break up into groups and talk about what we read then discuss as a group. Our next class on Tuesday morning is Conservation of Marine Wildlife. This class is much more interesting and we have different specialists come in and lecture depending on what their field is. This past class the teacher got done in 40min and was like peace. There has not been a practical (lab) yet but it starts next week. On Wednesdays we have Coral Reef Geomorphology lecture and practical. The professor is really interesting and our first practical today got out early so we were excited. Thursdays we only have one class and it is Australian Vertebrate Fauna. This class is interesting too and our teacher is a speed demon too but there are way more slides. It is also a video lecture and about 10mins are wasted at the beginning trying to set up the video feed. Fridays are our busiest days with Conservation, Coral Reef, and Fauna lectures along with Conservation practical. We start at 8am and do not finish until like 4 or 5. And we are in lab so we dont even get lunch!

Campus life is interesting. We still don't understand how the colleges can be so self absorbed. For example, we went to the other dining hall and some random guy came up to a few of us and asked if we lived there in a very unfriendly tone and we said yes just because of the attitude he was giving. These girls that were there told him to get out of the line because he couldn't possibly know every "fresher" aka freshman and he left. But that is the type of thing that goes on and we don't understand why because we are allowed to eat at the other dining halls. Also the thing we have noticed is that they either love their gravy because every dinner pretty much is rice and some sort of meat and veggies in a sauce to put over the rice. We don't get many choices at all, and we have begun to miss UNE's selections! We also miss how UNE's cafe is actually open when you want food. Here breakfast is 7:30-9 lunch is 12-1:15 and diner is 6-7 and don't even think about going into the cafe if it's out of those time frames!

We see a lot of wildlife here on campus too! We have seen a bunch of wallabies near Morgan's dorm and walking to class as well. Also, we have seen flying foxes which look like huge bats. We have seen regular bats too, and we saw one today hanging upside-down in a tree! We also saw a "beaver rat" by Morgan's dorm too! Here is a link that shows the different mammals that we have on campus : http://cms.jcu.edu.au/discovernature/mammalscommon/index.htm !!