Beginning of the End
1:40 AM, June 3rd - Last week of class
If I could be asleep tonight, I definitely would be. Unfortunately, the Australian chill also extends to lab partners, and specifically to deadlines. The good comes with the bad. I figured that I could at least do something productive while I waited for them.
7:15 PM, June 13th - 2 Exams down, 2 to go.
Spoiler, I didn’t stay up long enough to contribute anything more.
I’m not sure how many people would believe me if I said that such a late night is pretty uncommon for me now. Hey, four months is a pretty long time, things can change.
Looking back, I’m really enjoying the Australian education system. To put it simply, there is less pressure to get the grade, both on the professor and students parts. Take a look around the library late at night, or on the weekend and it is 95% international students. The campus is a ghost town after the sun falls. I hardly ever see any of my local friends studying for longer than two hours at a time. The culture has a good idea of work life balance, an idea that sometimes results in submitting lab reports just a few days late.
Course curriculums incorporated one or two weeks of review in addition to a one to two week reading day period. The lowest grade, High Distinction (HD) starts at an 85. Grades are not displayed with projected results (e.g. using all assignments graded, your mark in the class is an 85), but more concretely as points you have already earned. So its not unusual to hear someone say they have a 40% in a class. In fact, with a finals system worth 50% of your grade, a 40% is pretty good. The decrease in pressure lets you focus on learning the content of the course, rather than learning to pass the exam. A subtle but distinct difference.
My courses are pass/fail when they are taken back to the US, so all I need is about a 10% on most of my exams. That doesn’t stop me from trying to get a 100. Either way, that kernel of knowledge helps.
Four months out of a total of five. Classes are over, and just earlier I finished my second exam. With more studying to come and some final trips in the works, there aren’t very many days left. One month used to sound a lot longer. Some international students without final exams have already returned home, or are on their final voyages as we speak. The social life has changed from “we should hang out” to “I want to make sure I see you again before I leave!”. Grocery trips need to be a little more thoughtful, supplies are being rationed, and people are realizing just how many things you can accumulate in four months.
The first big thing that I did since the last post was to take a trip to the center of the continent, affectionately known as the “Red Centre”.
Just to give you a sense of scale, Alice Springs, the closest civilization to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park is 1,500 kilometers (940 miles) from anything resembling a small town. We were smack dab in the middle of the outback.
For this trip I was traveling with a slightly different group of friends, both coincidentally from the North East of the US. As remote as it is, when we were planning the trip we did of a lot of research into the benefits of renting a car vs booking a tour (also into cheap flights). Eventually we settled on a 3 day rock tour. Thanks to our obsession with cheap flights, it only took a few all nighters to make it there! Thousands of driven kilometers after we landed, we returned to the airport. The tour guide was amazing, and as a group of traveling youth, it was a great experience. Nights sleeping under the stars, with no light pollution, will spoil almost any stargazing I will ever do again. Sunrise and sunset at Uluru, the local culture and history, and stunning landscape made it an unforgettable trip. Imagine ranch country, maybe somewhere in Texas or similar states. Give it an Australian twist and boom, you’ve got it pictured.
I’ve kept at my many hobbies, and seen significant progress in each of them.
As the university’s volleyball team prepares for their national competition, Unigames, practices have been carrying on. By far the least experienced and skilled player on the court, I have been fortunate to learn and play alongside some amazing people. I never realized how complicated synchronized movements and positioning can be.
In addition to the regular top rope climbing I’ve been doing, I also have had the fortune of going bouldering at a gym off campus a few times. While climbing on a rope can be fun, its completely different from bouldering. A top rope climb is a marathon, where you can ascend four to five stories in a single climb, with a few particularly challenging sections here and there. Bouldering is more of a sprint with nothing but challenging sections. The climbs are shorter, about one story at its max. For my own record, and in the Australian grading system, my top rope climbs are hovering at about 16, while my bouldering is roughly at V4.
Finally, I’ve been surfing a bit too. I had the privilege of joining a 6 week surf program centered about wellness, social activities, and morning routines. To get to the beach in time, I have been waking up at 5am for a few days each week. Watching the sunrise, catching a coffee, and going for a surf before 9 is a magical feeling. Slowly but surely, I’m turning into a morning person.
And of course, there were a few adventures on the side.
