[I'm still having trouble uploading all my picture - I wanted a website that would mass-upload them rather than having to select each file individually because I have so many pictures, so instead I've post a random selection of picture of my university campus. And yes, that's a real lake in the middle of the campus that stretches all around the suburbs. And no, people don't go swimming in it - there are bull sharks and those crazy jumping fish in there]


I'm now an official student at my univeristy - meaning I bought a sweatshirt with huge lettering. School pride, baby.

Thank you all so much for your encouraging words. I knew homesickness was going to be a factor in the first few weeks while being here, but can you blame me? I had to leave so many wonderful people behind. But no one said making this my home would happen overnight. Everyday you get a little more comfortable and the process is tough, but if I couldn't cope, I wouldn't have done it [got that Anonymous? Write it down if you need help remembering. And then check this out and learn a little something].

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There are some who hide behind the label of "Anonymous" when speaking their mind, and then there are those who will stand up at a podium and shout it. Both are extremes but I envy the latter. I've met a couple people recently who are anything but shy about expressing themselves. It's interesting to watch but puzzling. I've never been able to say what I wanted when I wanted to say it. The moments tend to pass me by leaving only the aftertaste of the "shoulda, woulda, coulda". Though these types of people may get in trouble for what comes out of their mouth, my take is that at least they've said their mind and will deal with what they need to. On the other end of the spectrum there are the people-pleasers who need to be agreeable and maintain the peace and avoid confrontation - people like me.

I've never been able to deal with confrontation. I dread it, unless it's talking to a family member, in which case I'll make myself heard around the neighbourhood if I need to. But usually I'm one to let things slide and don't get upset over little things. So I have trouble understanding why people create such drama and have meltdowns when small things go wrong - getting the wrong entree in a restaurant, person not calling you back, someone who was late, why so-and-so is not talking to such-and-such over this-and-that. It's all just fluff to fill up our lives so why pay so much mind to it?!

It's known to be more of a ''girl'' trait - this over-obsessing and over-analyzing of little situations. Then talking about it with ten other people. Then figuring out why it happened. Then would should have happened. It's all too exhausting...










Basically it all boils down to this girl I met here let's call her TTM (Talks/Thinks Too Much). TTM seems to have met the whole campus in the last two weeks, including all the other Indian people (all from Canada...is there anywhere we don't travel in packs!?) so which automatically means the some sort of drama is soon to follow. And follow it did. Now TTM is telling me about how this guy said this to her and how she thinks that. About how she met someone who got her mad so she told him off but wants to stay friendly with him anyways (after which the questions started "should I be friendly?" "Why?", "Why not?", "He shouldn't have said what he said to me, right...right? RIGHT!?!?".

Chicks....sheesh! Where are all the sensible, fun, smart girls?! Like the ones who read this blog and the ones I know back home? Don't they come to Australia? TTM is nice and she's cool to hang around but if I get dragged into another "dramatic" situation, I will jump into the lake in front of our school which is said to have bull sharks. Trust me, it'd be worth it. I came all this way to escape that whole 'brown' scene that is so prevalent back home, but somehow landed smack into it without knowing it.

But Aussie is fun still. Aside from being a beautiful place you start to find so many people from all over the world on the campus. My neighbour to the left is from South Africa, and the one to the right is from Korea. Though the lecture halls average about 100-150 people, the tutorial sessions are broken down to groups of 10-15 people so you get to talk a lot more with people you may have otherwise passed by. People are friendly with others, although there are small cliques - which you can never escape - you get to hang around all sorts of people.

Here's the bad part - anyone who's travelled very far for university (meaning no weekend trips home) could tell you that life here is found to be in a bubble. You live, eat, sleep, learn all within the same grounds so one day seems to stretch on forever. You forget that you're even in a different country and surrounded by so much because everything around you quickly (took two weeks for me!) becomes normal. Although I didn't expect that the novelty of being in Australia would last forever, I'm already looking for escape routes to get off campus more because my trip home in August just seems too far away.

Life is so much so bubble-fied (bubble-ized?...Bubbly?) that I have no idea what to blog about now. Don't get me wrong, I'm still very happy and enjoying my work, but the routine settled in quicker than I thought it would! And now I fear I've become a boring person with no life on the outside world. Maybe I'm just in a blog-rut? Nothing really of substance to say but I'm still typing away, possibly to make some contact with the outside world!

P.S. I know it seems I'm complaining about people here, but those are just the two weirdos I've found (VDG and TTM) - soooo many others are perfectly normal and super great, but the weirdos are always more interesting.

P.P.S. The picture on the left is the view from my room - overlooks the lake.



UPDATE: Okay, so I'm through feeling like I'm in a rut. Nobody other than myself can help me from feeling this way so I've decided to take some control and get more involved in campus life. I'm going to join the Student Council and some other clubs/organizations around school and meet people and have fun, dammit! I used to be pretty involved in undergrad, so why stop now, right?? And I set out to make the most of this experience and the "experience" won't come to me, so I'm going to "it". So THERE!