One Week

The first week of school is well over, and although a status quo has not been established yet, I have formed some impressions.

What? Oh, right. Well, all I can say is, this is going to be a tough one. Lectures are a cruel, cruel way to learn, especially when tutorials are unhelpful and especially since we've been thrown into the deep end. After three years in the friendly atmosphere of my polytechnic, university, even in friendly ol' Oz, is a chilling experience.

The weather's somewhat nasty too. You could start off with freezing rain in the morning, and end off with UV-enriched sunshine by afternoon. We've had plenty of days with blazing hot sun which were still cold thanks to strong winds. It's hard to know how to dress. To make it worse, the sun here is nothing like at home - it burns. I swear you can feel the cancer forming.

On the subject of weather, today's forecasted temperature is 32°C. Yikes.

At least domestic affairs are more or less stable, and we've set up a grocery shopping routine. We've even got a surplus of plastic bags, and we no longer need to save everything like we used to. (I still keep disposable lunch boxes though. Those things are useful.) And the university was kind enough to set up a shuttle bus service to a nearby shopping mall (it has three supermarkets!). Yay for free transport.

Stuff here is pretty expensive, but there are plenty of discount stores around. Also, the products at the Asian groceries tend to be cheap. Fresh food is extremely cheap, though it expires quickly. We've had to throw out bread a few times because it turned sour.

And it helps a lot that we're living on campus. While the rent somewhat high, we pay a fixed fee for electricity and water supplies, and our internet connection, while expensive, is still a cheaper rate than from most providers. Being able to go home at any time to retrieve forgotten items is a huge plus.

It's kinda hard to get in touch with the news around here though, since we don't subscribe to a newspaper. So I guess it might be old news to everyone about Netscape closing down or Le Grand K losing weight, but I just read about it.

Also, the escaped criminal. While this is a bad thing short-term, I believe it is a good thing for the security of the country. Crises like this one keep people from getting complacent and missing obvious checks.

But what everyone will want to know is how he escaped in the first place, especially since he was apparently acting alone.

So, anyway... Class is in one hour. Got to go. I have a string of lectures until 2pm, and I need to pack some stuff to eat in between running to the next theatre, lest I faint.