Settling In

I've now been living at the Macquarie University Village (MUV) for two weeks and a few days. My two suitcases (which were about 40 lbs each) are unpacked, and my room is finally feeling set-up. There are five bedrooms, and each has its own bathroom -its so nice! I ended up with 4 guys as house mates, 1 being Richie. The others 3 are really nice, 2 were friends already from Boston, and 1 from Brazil (he has an Aussie accent , because this is his third semester at the Uni). The condo also has a living room, dining room, and kitchen. Our first night, Richie & I had Australia's famous meat pies for dinner, and the next day we were introduced to their famous biscuits, or cookies, Tim Tams- dangerously delicious! Since we have our own kitchen, we go grocery shopping at this enormous mall located on the opposite end of campus; thus we plan our trips out there, as to not forget anything and have to trek back.

About 3/4 of MUV is study abroad students, so it is good to see & hang with the people I was in Cairns with. The village is located at one end of the campus, which means about a 10 to 15 minute walk, if I'm walking slowly or have gotten lost... to class :) It is definately different than at Elmhurst. The Uni has over 30,000 students, and it is must be an awesome school study abroad at considering over 8,000 of the students are international.

I am taking 4 units (classes), which is the full amount. Each has one or two lectures (1 hour each) and a tutorial (1 hour each). My lectures have anywhere from 75 to 250 students in them (again very different from my small classes of 8 to 25 students at Elmhurst,) and the tutorials are about 20 students. I don't have very many assessments (assignments), 1 to 2 papers, a midterm, and final for most units. I just survived my first week of lectures, and am loving listening to the teachers' (whom wish to be address by their first names) accents.

This is a view of part of the campus; it is in back of one of the main buildings the SAM (Students @ Macquarie) Center - which includes the food court & book store, etc. This is a great place to hang out between classes and soak up the sun!