The morning after...

First off, let me just clarify something,

I appear to be suffering from culture shock, which is fairly common with international and distance travelling students. Homesickness is one of the side-effects of the culture shock where the more you think of home, the worse it gets. Another explanation is that i'm a big softy and i just needed to get it off my chest. I still have the odd tear in my eye and the occasional sniffle, but i believe the worst is over. and by the time my classes start, I should be almost normal again (hooray)

Anyway, Tuesday saw a long crying session in the morning, but what better way to take your mind off things than with a "strange eats" competition. As the name suggests, its an eating contest, which also incorporates speed eating and I'm a Celebrity style grub. Luckily i came joint 1st after 4 rounds
Round 1: 30 secs to eat a large slice of raw tofu (Yuck) (6/10 completed)
Round 2: 30 secs to eat 10 small crickets (not real crickets, but they were really chewy) (4/10)
Round 3: 1 minute to eat what i suspect was a mix between sardine fillets and rotting sushi (not too bad actually) (2/10)
Round 4: First to finish a full plate of all 3 of the above plus 2 slices of value SPAM (pet hate) (neither finished, both declared winners, recieved small goody bag with some cheese crackers a tin of Spaghetti, some chips (crisps to you and me) and a laundry bag,

After 2 hours of getting the rotting taste out of my mouth, i spent 2 hours beside the pool with my new-found friends, taking in the sun, the water and playing Marco Polo for the first time.

Night-time saw the arrival of the long-anticipated open night of the sports centre, with live music, stalls for clubs and fraternities (unfortunately most of the fraternities accept certain people, of which i didn't qualify). Free Pizza, massages and the Haunted hike. which took the best part of an hour, which just went into the nearby hills, and told a few stories, (kinda left wondering "is that it?")

By now it was mid-night and i needed to be up early to attend the BIG orientation on Wednesday which started at 8AM!!!

after 6 restless hours (because i still haven't got my duvet and pillows sorted, set to change later today) i awoke to a bright room. Looking outside and it's pitch black, only the nearby lantern creating the false promise of 24 hour light, i had a final look through all my documents and all i needed to take with me.

Trust me to forget something. to buy the mandatory health insurance. I was going with a hope they'd be able to help me sort it out.

In true typical fashion, the orientation started late, and luckily i wasn't the only one who forgot their insurance. 3 minutes later and $255 lighter i was insured for the Autumn/ Fall season, must remember to register in time to be insured for the winter season.

By the time everyone had been properly registered, calmed down and had their fill of a make-shift english (bacon and scrambled eggs only)/ continental breakfast, it was about 10:30am, which left tyhe hosts 2 hours to cram in 3 hours of material. This meant there was none of the boring side chat, but they just got on with it. At the end there was a small lunch (hypothetically small, there was 300 mouths to feed) with what i believe is a micky-take on scotch broth, with added prawns and noodles, ham and cheese sarnies and salad.

Needless to say i took plenty of salad due to a semi-promise i made to my mu saying i wouldn't eat junk all the time, which is actually quite hard to do since everything is qute fatty. if salad in a cheeseburger counts, i'll do just fine.

Finally after we finished that, we had dessert, which to be fair has made my day. For those of you who really know me, you'll know it's my favourite. for those who don't know me too well, it was apple and cinnamon pie with vanilla ice cream (an orgasm in the mouth)

Now i've spent the past hour writing this and i'm due to pick up my passport, after it was taken at registration for copy making. Tonight we're due to dress like romans for a Toga party, should be fun.....