The Week That Has Been

In my previous post, I was expressing my nerves over being the guy who sits by himself at lunchtimes. Fortunately, that has never been the case. On the first four days, I have sat with two different Year 7 kids (one is a new Chinese kid, the other's been the for a while but is slightly antisocial) and on the fifth, I actually sat with a Year 11! Things are looking up.

It's kinda hard to make friends to hang out with when you don't share very many classes with very many people. There's this one guy who I think I'd get along with in English, but that's the only class we have together, so we've never really hung out. The Year 11 I had lunch with is in my Chemistry (and presumably Physics) class, so I'm guessing I'll be hanging out with him and his friends.

Class-wise, I don't think it's been too bad. I have, however, had to pick my Year 12 subjects this week, which is quite scary. It's been a mass of university and courses information and I am now inclined to change some classes if possible (I'm hoping the fact that I'm still very new can give me some tolerance).

Overall, it's been pretty decent. My classes are rather enjoyable (barring M***, of course) and the people I have talked to thus far have been quite friendly. I'm hoping I can get further into it in the weeks ahead.

PS I will be going away on an International Students Orientation 'camp' (it's not really camp) on Tuesday and will be returning on Thursday. Expect a disappearance withing that time frame.

Thou art my life noweth.

First Day of School? Not Scary at All

So the first one bites the dust: I will be the first in this community to return to school. I know this sounds bad at first, but I know almost no one in Melbourne and there is only so much daytime TV and internet that can entertain me on a daily basis, which means school isn't such a terrible prospect.

I am quite nervous, though. This is very unfamiliar territory and I wanna be able to adapt as well as possible. Hopefully, I won't be too weird for everyone and be able to find a bench of people to sit with at lunch. But then again, being the weird kid who sits by himself at lunch might open up new opportunities. Who knows.

Wish me luck!

"Melbourne's Mocking Me" - Explained

Warning: this post may contain a little too much information.

So this is what a 20 degree (Celsius) swing feels like. Heck, I was even in 0 degrees after a mere two days from transferring from the more than balmy Jakarta climate. More on that later.

My four days thus far have been eventful to say the least - it's gone from me saying that I quite liked the cold (don't blame me, I was delirious when I said that, as I had just stepped out of the airport) to my inability to sleep (with the exception of two separate occasions) for longer than 90 minutes to me throwing up just about everything that has gone down the gullet. Now, the only reasons for my having left the bedroom is to go to the toilet and to pay a very early visit to the doctor's.

It probably doesn't help that I was taken to Mount Buller on Saturday, which only meant one thing: snow. OK, one isn't quite enough. The second thing: literally freezing temperatures. In spite of my couple of pukes on the bus, I can take consolation in the fact that I at least had a good time while I was there.

I sure hope this blows over quickly - school starts next week! And I would very much appreciate it that I didn't spend my first day vomiting left, right and centre.

The Quest for an Aussie Accent, Week Zero