Friday, May 29, 2009

Update since easter break!

It's been a long time since i last posted, yes. i'm sorry. but my computer was broken even before i went traveling to new zealand. i had to get a new hard drive installed and it cost me $AU245, which includes service fee and the actual new 160GB hard drive. not bad, right? the geek squad at best buy charges more (in US currency at least).

so what have i been doing since vacation? bascially its been really busy. really really busy. between last week and then, i had5 assignments due, 3 of them were essays, of which 2 were 10 or more pages. yikes! yes, yes, thats how it works at universitites here in australia. they enslave you to your microsoft word =( i've still got 2 more projects due and im not even counting final exams!! XD i work so hard here, it doesnt feel like a vacation...

the good thing, at least is that the content of my essays are interesting because the classes im taking are particularily interesting. i mean, youd never find a sociolinguistic or political linguisitic class at berkeley. its so much more old school topics at cal, the basic 4: phonetics, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. you never get beyond those. it gets pretty boring. i was talking to my language planning and langauge politics professor (who likes to single me out because she's from socal and im from norcal) who commented on that, she said the lingusitcs dean here is concerned that the classes offered here covers too wide a spectrum. but its because of this that i chose this uni! the breadth of classes offered! actually interesting ones unlike the ones at cal!

its definitely fall in canberra. the walk down to union court from my dorm is lined with autumn trees and its heartstopping beautiful for a brief couple of weeks when the trees stretching down the walkway is golden yellow, yellow as youve never seen (maybe cept new england haha) and the leaves falling down are like glitter in the breeze. its truly amazing. i like to walk down the centre between the rows of trees to crunch underneath its gold leaves and to surround myself in yellow =] the leaves fall like snow, and they fall so thickly on the ground. you can even make leaf angels, but sean wouldnt let me. boooo =p here's a picture, but it cannot capture the feeling:


they have free comic book day in australia! i didnt know this was an international event! but unfortunately, we missed it. we totally forgot!! ahhh!! but its ok, next year i guess. but i wonder if the free stuff they give out is different...

according to other ppl who dont live at bruce hall, apparently we have the best dorm food, which is utterly laughable because i cannot stand the food here. i mean, id would much MUCH rather take crossroads over bruce food. that, my friends, is how bad it is here. i guess bruce lives up to the sterotypical cafeteria food. because the food is so bad, i fill myself up with fruit. i eat so much fruit here compared to at my apartment. youd think im eating healthier but since i dont eat the bruce everyday (thank god, theres places to eat on campus) i eat ramen instead haha and theres some pretty interesting types of ramen they sell at the asian supermarket....

the upcoming week is the last week of instruction. how time flies... ive got finals exams spread out almost 2 weeks apart so ill be exploring canberra a bit- i havent been to the national library or the war memorial. they're both on the other side of the lake. speaking of which, i finally went down to the lake. you can rent bikes and ride around the perimeter, you can rent canoes and even those boats that you power by paddling with your feet. when we got there, there were these two black swans. sean is wearing his bruce hall shirt hehe, ive got one too =)

sean has his finals during those two weeks when i got nothing so i cant travel then, i wish i could though. but we want to go to the great barrier reef after all our finals end. thats still a maybe, im still planning for that now that ive got the time.