Week 2

Week 2 has come and gone. Week 2 here was amazing! I started classes. They are
1. Australian Pop Culture: It is kind of boring.
2. Love, Sex, and Relationships: It is very interesting and at the same time, graphic.
3. Drugs and Behavior: It is so much harder than I expected because it is more like a Pharmacology class, as it discusses how, for example, neurotransmitters are effected by drugs in the brain and what not. We have to chose a topic to write a paper on worth 35% of our grade and I think I am going to write about 'Inherited Alcoholism.'
4. Terrorism: This class is extremely detailed. Over 75% of our grade will be based on a specific terrorist organization. Of course I didn't get assigned to Hamas or Hezbollah, the two groups I know the most about.. I have to research the Tamil Liberation Fighters based in Sri Lanka. The more I think about it though the more I think maybe it's better off that I learn about a different group in order to see different perspectives of terrorism.

Besides classes I have done alot of social activities this week. Bond Uni sponsors a ton of drinking-oriented social activities. "Drink The Pub Dry" was on Tuesday. We went to the club "21" and were expected to literally drink the pub dry. It use to be that the school would get together a group of students and randomly show up at a pub and drink it dry because the pub wouldn't be expecting a mass influx of drinkers on a random Tuesday night.

I went to Burleigh Beach one day. It was calmer waves than Coolangata so it is a good spot for beginners. The water is still pretty cold, although the outer temperature is definitely heating up. It feels great! I wish I was more tan but the sun goes down early and it's hard to lay out past 2ish because it does get real windy on the beach.

Thursday I went to Q1 which is the 77th floor of the tallest building in the area. It is specifically in the city Surfer's Paradise, which is a pretty cool name, true because of the waves, and has a ton of nightclubs, although I am almost sick of them already.. The building itself is the #1 tallest residential building in the world. One of my friends talked to the CEO and we ended up being invited to the 78th floor to a private function hosted by the Queensland professional basketball team, which was pretty cool. We didn't stay long because everyone seemed old and all the players were actually short and either had girlfriends or we weren't interested.

Friday afternoon was club sign-on day. I signed up for 3 clubs: ACES which is short for Australian Culture Exploration Society (or something), BASIC - Beer Appreciation and Social Intercourse Club, and the Exploration Club which focused on outdoor sporting adventures. The school even had 5 kegs of beer for the event which is crazy because not only did it start at 11 AM but the school also sponsored something right afterwards....

Bond sponsored its tri-annual pub crawl for the students. There are 2 groups of 500 students who were bused to 6 different pubs/nightclubs. It was a crazy insane experience. I have never seen so many drunk people in my life. Unfortunately the zipper on my jeans broke and my jeans were very loose. Not only is this a travesty in and of itself but then my brand new phone fell out of my pocket, along with my brand new camera. The cell phone was subsequently broken and lost and now the camera won't turn on. I know I can't blame it completely on the broken pants as I had been drinking.. but it still really sucks. I will have a new phone tomorrow so it's all good I guess... Besides all this it was a crazy insane night of fun.

Saturday I took it easy and laid out in the sun at the pool. I then watched my first ever FOOTIE, or rugby, game with a few Australians from my building. The game featured the New Zealand All-Blacks and the Australian Wallaby's. Unfortunately the Aussies lost in a very close game.

I have alot planned for week 3 including a trip to Byron Bay, the most eastern point of land in Australia; a trip to the rain forest (I hope), and I plan to go to my first horse race at the track.