Week 2

Well, it's week two, and the last week has been much of the same in terms of dealing with the school system. I went to my first class Monday night, and I found out that the class actually met for two all-day sessions two weeks earlier. That meant that me and the three other students who didn't know about the meetings were a month behind the rest of the class. The professor, in typical Australian style, told us to read over the class schedule (syllabus) and let him know if we needed to met and catch up. It's a research class, and I had two of those in my degree program from home, so I think I'm going to be okay with the material. I just need to do a lot of catching up in terms of reading material. The good news from this is that the class will only 6 more times, and we'll be done! My second class, Current Issues in Communication Policy, met last night, and there were only three students there. This professor looked at the small number and told us that either we would met every other week or just for half the time each week. I like that idea:) My final class is what they call a reading course, and it is very similar to independent study. However, here they let students sign up without having a direction for the class. I still don't know who is leading it or what exactly I'll be reading. Well, enough boring details about class.

Last week I told you about a dinner-dance celebrating the 100th birthday of Rotary. The dinner was pretty nice. The program wasn't all that great but not too boring. The band was great and played American music almost exclusively. They have a lot of American pop culture here. It's kind of weird how much they are rapped up in our pop culture. I had a girl in my class tell me she was obsessed with the United States, but she wasn't too impressed with me being a George Bush supporter:) Back to the dinner-dance, Darrel told all the mature aged men that I loved to dance, so I had plenty of partners. Plenty of partners who asked me to dance by saying, "I heard you want to dance with me." I was a bit overdressed because Karren, Darrel's wife, told me it was very formal, so I bought a new dress to fit in. It was quite casual for a "formal" affair.

Karl is still unable to file for a VISA. We've tried several times to complete the form on-line, and it keeps telling us that the form is unavailable. The Australian government is strongly pushing the on-line forms, but yet it doesn't work. A typical theme here. We're going to the International Programs Office in a few minutes to work it out.

In good news, Karl's football team is growing a bit. He has consistently had 12-14 guys show up for practice this week (double attendance from previous weeks.) He's designing plays and writing a playbook. Karl's trying to teach me about all of it, but I'm still a slow learner. The exciting event in this week's practice was Karl kicking the president's son out of practice for not trying. He had every right to do so because the guy had been basically refusing to put forth more than a 25% effort even when singled out for at least an hour. Karl and I were a bit anxious about what the team thought about Karl's decision, but last night at practice the other players told Karl they agreed with him.

Well, I think it's time to fight the VISA wars, and get ready for my first Rotary presentation. Wish me luck!!!

Miss you all,
Britt