Monday

Today is Monday the first of March. The first day of March, the first day of Autumn and the first real day of University for me. I had all three of my lectures today. Political studies from 10-11, Japanese from 11-1 and Social/Public Policy from 3-4.

I decided to walk to the University this morning, just because I wanted to. It was a pleasant walk, despite the wind. The Political Studies lecture was pretty intimidating to be honest. Mainly because there were just so many people in one of those huuuuuge lecture theatres. As with my other lectures today, it was mainly an introduction of the course and of the lecturers. They gave us recommendations of things we could check out to broaden our knowledge such as radio shows, TV shows and newspaper columns. They also told us when we could go to parliament and things like that which made me happy to be so conveniently located. The course consists of two assignments each worth 25% and and exam worth 50%.

My second lecture was Japanese. And let me tell you, one two hour lecture is very, very long. Because it's Japanese, I might be OK though. My Japanese class was much smaller, as expected and there were a few second year students who had done the introductory course last year. The first half was just an introduction and we were again informed of assignments and whatnot. Japanese has no exam and is broken up into a few larger assignments and some smaller tests. There are weekly vocab tests worth one per cent each, for example. In the second half of Japanese, we went to the Language Learning Centre which is just as the name implies. There are heaps of resources for learning different languages and computers are equipped with software that makes speaking and pronunciation practice possible. There's even a place where you can borrow and watch foreign films in the language of your choice!

I had lunch with Ryan because he's in my Japanese class and he had a lecture later that afternoon too. We had a look at the textbooks as well. The Japanese ones are fairly big and expensive, as are the Political Studies ones. For Public Policy there are only recommended texts and then a booklet of readings. So I'm not sure if I'll actually buy any yet.

My last lecture was Social Policy and it was actually very interesting. The lecture theatre was a bit smaller which means of course, there were less people. But it was very enjoyable-discussions and basic things like that.

It's still early days and I'm not one hundred per cent sure of what to expect for the rest of the semester, but hopefully it'll be enjoyable as well as a challenge. I've signed up for two tutorials and it seems my Mondays Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be fairly full on and Thursdays and Fridays will be relatively empty.

The main thing that strikes me as different about University is actually Just how many people there are! The campus is so big and just all over the show (but I stuck to the routes I knew today-may have meant a bit more walking but I didn't get lost!) I didn't realise until today that there were so many lecture theatres across the road! And there are people EVERYWHERE. But everyone is friendly and I see people I know every now and then.

But yeah, going really well so far. :)

Hope you guys are all fine and dandy!
Looking foward to seeing dad on Thursday!

Lots of Love, Erin