Monday, December 29, 2008

Plane Tickets and more!

I just bought the plane ticket to Sydney!! (finally...) I got it for just over $1000 round trip! That's a a far cry from over $1500 wen i checked the prices 2 months ago... and american airlines havent even changed their prices!! thank goodness for united (and quantas). they're nice. *glares at american airlines* so, phew im glad that's off my chest. i'll be leaving on the 2nd of febuary!! the plan is leave sfo, arrive in sydney, crash in hostel like 2 blocks away from hotel for 2 days. (eap orientation includes 3 nights of hotel) and we're arriving early to get adjust from the jetlag. the hostel is sooo cheap compared to hotel. hostel is $25 a night, australian. whereas the hotel is $186 a night!! O.O sooo yea.... i hope the hostel isn't scary but then again, i'm thinking it's gonna be like cki events where we stayed at YMCAs and stuff. or at FTC with the bunk beds. those were fun. but those were with ppl i knew. aahhh *nervous to sleep at hostel* at least im traveling with a guy. he better watch my back!! lol then after the eap orientation, we'll go back to the hostel for 2 more nights to just be touristy around sydney before we leave (a week from wen we first arrived) to get our butts over to our uni in canberra. we got early accomodation at the halls so we can stay in canberra and settle in before (most?) ppl get there. orientation is the day after and then school starts 11 days later. aahhh! we start so early compared to the other unis!! at least we get a long time to acclimate ourselves to the new city and the uni =)

Monday, December 15, 2008

holy moly i was freaking out last night because the bruce hall lady emailed me saying she got my credit card form that i faxed over even though i had already mailed it in (long story) and she said she just credited it like $6000 to it. and i was like SHIT! does the account even have that much money in it?! that's ALOT of money all at once! you see, with a credit card payment plan, you pay the acceptance fee AND pay for accomodation all at once. and you pay for a full semester in one lump sum, unlike here, where you pay every month or so. there IS another payment plan where u can pay fortnightly (keke they dont say 2 weeks ^^) but you can only do that with direct deposit with an australian bank account, which i dont have. SO, blah blah i was freaking out. so iimmediately called my dad cause it's his account and then i realized lol that its australian dollars. so..corrected version: A$6,000. phew! *sigh of relief* so that's about US$4300 ish? something like that. ah...australian currency =D makes my dollar go farther. ^^

hopefully i can maintain my 3.01 gpa lol and don't get below a 2.9 cause ANU can still reject me. please please CAL final gods, have mercy on me!

[eta. after finals, right before xmas! : phew! my gpa is good. i maintained my gpa!!]

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Recent News

My first blog! Let's do some catchup news first. I applied to study abroad for the second half of my 3rd year in Australia though UC Berkeley's Education Abroad Program (EAP). Thank you, thank you again to my two professors who wrote me letters of recommendation. You were right, I did get in! =) A week or so ago, I officially got accepted to The Australia National University, henceforth ANU, which is in Canberra, the nation's capital. Yes, that's right, neither Sydney nor Melbourne is the capital of Australia. Strange huh? but I suppose it's just like the US with Washington DC as its capital. Actually Canberra was modeled after DC's city plan! the roads are concentric and the city feels like a giant park with tons of trees and yet is very clean and neat. ANU is right next to downtown and it's inland, no where near the Pacific Ocean, although there is a huge lake called Lake Griffin right next to the school (its manmade). apparently ANU is the nation's top ranked school, surpassing even university of melbourne AND sydney. but of course, those two are so much more popular than ANU (this school was my 3rd and last choice....) i guess no one wants to go inland to the desert. Oh and their school year starts in February and it'll be summer for them and winter for us here. So I'm be attending their "fall semester" while its summer....hence they call it term 1 and term 2 instead of fall or spring semester least the confusion. So, that means i'll be doing my spring semester in australia while it'll be the beginning of their academic year.

More recent news: both me and sean (my bf) got Bruce Hall as a dormitory!! (or as they say, a college).

let's break it down, shall we?


Australian | American
school = grade school
college = dorm
hall = dorm
so how would Australians say something like: so, what college are you going to?
answer: so, what uni do you go to?

ahhh *enlightened*

other things i've already noticed:
they spell enrollment with only one L, like this: enrolment. isnt that so weird?? and they don't say schedule. they say timetable. like in harry potter! =D they dont's say apartment, they say flat instead. isn't that so britsh? ive learned how to say melbourne the right way now. you don't pronounce the r and the u is there to confuse you. so it sounds like more melburn cept with a britsh accent. lol i don't know. everyone already tells me to pick up the accent there, especially seeing that i'm a linguistics major. well...that doesn't have to do with anything! (but secretly, i do want to pick it up, that would be really cool)

at this point, i think you viewers are getting to know my writing...er...blogging style somewhat now. i apologize in advance that i dont usually capitalize my "I's" or anything in general actually, that i write lots and lots of run on sentences, or if i make any typos, if i'm not making any sense, and in general, you don't get my abbreviations or emoticons.

-BUT-

feel free to comment, actually, please comment!! i love comments and i will try to update as much as i can, with some pictures too, when i get the chance!

thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings. i'm super excited to study in canberra!! wish me luck! ^^v