Classes Start, Life Goes on

"I never let my schooling Get in the way of my Education."- Mark Twain

One of the Lovely Lawns on UNSW's Ultra Green Campus

Hello Loyal Readers,
Greetings from Down Under. Sorry for not posting for some time; the past 3 weeks have been a bit more low-key, as classes have begun. I’ve had to scale back my beach schedule from 6 to 4 days a week... Tragic, I know.

Although my stated goal was simply to come here to have a good time, meet some cool people, and live on the beach, I have actually been taking some interesting and challenging classes: Environmental Sustainability and Development, Logic, Aboriginal Australia, and Marine Envrionment.

My favorite class thus far has been Environmental Sustainability and Development. The class, which is counting for a Tufts Poli-Sci credit, touches upon a wide array of subjects including the effect of government debt and international institutions on environmental degradation, population growth, and climate change among other topics. Logic (Tufts Math, hopefully) has been interesting but also way more involved than I would have wanted for a study abroad class. I can see it giving me some pretty big headaches soon enough. Marine Environment (Tufts Science) is extremely easy, with 40% of the grade based on the completion of questionnaires to be completed on the 3 field trips of the Semester. Aboriginal Australia (Tufts World Civilizations) is far and away the most boring and useless class, but it beats taking World Civ classes at Tufts.
A big focus of mine here is to complete Tufts requirements, so I can take exactly what I want at Tufts and make the most of Senior Year (I hate the sound of that).

The following is a link to a video we watched in Marine Environment. The topic is the reproduction of flatworms, known as Penis Fencing... And it is absolutely as funny as it sounds:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/shapeoflife/video/tv_high.html?ep_hunt_explo2_mov_hi

As those of you who know me well could guess, I would never let my schooling get in the way of my education (Shout-out to Mark Twain). In this case, my education has consisted of going out most nights and consistently hitting the beach. I have spent the vast majority of my beach time at Coogee Beach; however, this weekend I finally made the iconic walk to Bondi Beach (more info on that in the next post).
Just another day on Coogee Beach.

As for going out, I have been hitting various parts of Sydney and its suburbs including Coogee, Bondi, Darlinghurst, Kings Cross, and the Rocks. My favorite part about going out has been that most places play House music pretty consistently, much to the chagrin of some of the Americans on the program. On Tuesday nights, I typically go to the Gaff or to the legendary Scruffy Murphy’s. Thursdays often start at the Roundhouse, which is UNSW’s campus bar. A great aspect of being here has been the casual approach to alcohol to be expected of study abroad; nothing is quite like unwinding after a long day of classes with an $8 jug (Aussie for pitcher) of Toohey’s New with your classmates.Typical Thursday at the Unibar. Those Jim Beam posters are now up all around my house.

The Weekends usually consist of night excursions in the city at one of the fine establishments in King’s Cross (Trademark Hotel, World Bar, Candy’s) or the Rocks (Argyle, Ivy, Lowenbrau). The night scene in Sydney can be a lot of fun, but expect to pay a $10-$20 cover wherever you go. Also, for a country that is so lax on alcohol consumption, bouncers consistently reject anyone they consider to be intoxicated, which in my experience has included some pretty sober people.Housemate Spencer's 21st at Trademark Hotel... Guess which one he is based on facial expressions.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and expect another update in the next few days, since I got some pretty sweet pictures from the Walk to Bondi.

Much love,
Kid Syd

Playing Slap the Bag at a Pre-Drink

On the Bus to Downtown Sydney