Hey I'm almost 21...

...But that's not what this post is about. Because I still haven't found the time to sit down and type out my experiences in Sydney or the absolutely gorgeous Kiama, I figure I'll still put something up. So instead I figured I'll talk about my life a bit more, because as we all know I love talking about me :)

University of Wollongong is way different than AU. It still gets me. Actually, I even got a bit lost walking around the uni last week trying to find my classrooms - sometimes I decide I'll go a different way and then I end up discovering a whole new part of the campus. I actually found this really pretty duck pond area. The campus itself is huge compared to AU, but it's not as big as Penn State or IUP I suppose - mostly because there is no on-campus housing really. And while I adore AU and the quad, the uni here is so much prettier! There are ponds and trees and bushes. I'm going to end up taking pictures probably right before I leave because that's when there will be less people on campus to give me funny looks. It's also a huge commuter campus - in the mornings when I have my 830 class, there will be about 3 shuttles that come within 5 or 10 minutes of each other, just to deal with all the people that are getting off the trains. My neighbor Ben, before he got a room in I-house, had to wake up at something like 5 am just to get to class at 830 or 930 (I don't remember which). But lots of people do the whole commuter thing! I know some people back home have long commutes because of the metro and rush hour, but for these people it's really just a matter of location. I don't know how they do it. Also, there are more older people here than at AU, and not even taking graduate level classes. There are at least 5 older people in each of my classes, which are just 200 level classes. It's strange to think about, seeing as how back home it was really just kids my age. Sometimes they have interesting things to say, and most of the time they enrich the conversation, but I think it's also obvious the difference in the way we communicate - the older people tend to draw out things they say and elaborate a lot (although there are younger kids that do that too - can you tell I'm just annoyed by people in general who aren't concise/take too long to say something?).

I hang out with a decent mix of Americans/Australians. My roommate is American and our friend Steph is also American, but for the most part all the guys we hang out with are Australian. I'm not sure exactly why this is - the Australian girls here are mostly first years and banded together with other Australians in the first week or so, but I suppose we did the same thing (me, Caitlin, and Steph). If the situations were reversed, I would try to make friends with the Americans, but at the same time, knowing that they were all going to be leaving at the end of the semester would be kind of off-putting. Regardless, I'm getting to know some cool people from the States as well as some awesome Aussies. Would you believe I have a friend here who is legit Australian? Like America, Australia has a lot of immigrants, but this kid's family has been here since the convicts were first sent over (yup, he's a descendent of convicts!) I'm also listening to some new music - some American music that was never really big over there, and some Australian music too (listen to My People, This Boy's in Love, or Talk Like That, by the Presets - I can't get enough of this band!). Night time when we don't go out, we'll watch movies, listen to music, or generally bum around on YouTube. It's actually pretty fun - Caitlin and I always have our door open (we don't have air conditioning so it's good for air flow) so people just pop in and hang out for a bit.

Today I went on a field trip for my Aboriginal Studies class and we hiked up a mountain, which made me realize that as much as I like hiking, the draw is gone a bit seeing as how I am always staring at the ground and never really looking up to enjoy the view. I took some pictures when we stopped, but I also bashed my head into a tree because I was looking where I was walking and not looking up. It was pretty funny, actually, in hindsight.

That's all for right now - I'm about to start some pre-birthday celebrating, courtesy of my roommate (she's very excited about it). I think the best of the celebrating we're going to be doing is going to a place that has 3$ tacos! It won't taste as great as Mexican food from home, but it'll have to do.

(Here is a surprise video for reading the post! This video is from Kiama - you can hear me sighing at the beauty at a few parts I think and you also see Steph's head)