Classes and Accents

Busy week. I've had all my classes now, and they look pretty good. The timetables here are crazy... I blame JCU.
I'm not very impressed with JCU's organizational prowess, as you've probably noticed. There was no reason whatsoever that they couldn't have given us international students our logon information before we arrived (as they did for the domestic students), so that I would have known what classes I was registered for, when they met, what books they required, etc, but they didn't. As a result, I didn't receive an email from one of my classes about registering for discussion classes, and also I didn't bring The Secret Garden or The Golden Compass with me, so now I may have to buy them all over again.

Anyway, JCU's timetables are very difficult to follow- classes typically meet two hours a week, and these two hours can be at different times and in different rooms. One of my classes meets at 1:00 on Wednesday and 3:00 on Thursday, in different rooms in different buildings.

There are three types of class sessions here- lectures, tutorials (which are like discussion groups, I think), and practicals (which are science labs).

It's not a big deal if you don't stay for the whole practical, either. I have two practicals scheduled at the same time (granted, one of them only meets three times the whole semester), and neither professor seemed to think it was a big deal. They also tell you that if you have a lecture in the middle of a practical to just leave, go to the lecture, and come back. Compare this to MoHo, where skipping a lab without a doctor's excuse is an automatic fail for the course.

Also, we're required to wear labcoats in the labs at all times, so I now own a labcoat, and it's sexy in the way that only science can be.

So, my classes are as follows:
Plant Survival and Climate Change: (Meets Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:00, plus a very optional prac on Tues from 10-1.) It's mostly about plant adaptation and less about global warming than my advisor at MHC and I hoped.... but it's still interesting and something that's probably pretty useful, and I'm excited about it. Instead of labs we have a week-long field trip during spring break, where we go out to the desert and look at acacia trees.
The professor who's given our lectures thus-far (and there are I think three all together) is a middle-aged guy with a long braid. He came to lecture on Wednesday wearing a bright green shirt that said "You can't drink all day unless you start in the morning," cargo shorts, bright red and black striped socks, and leather clogs. I just thought you should know.

Rainforest Ecosystems: (Meets Wednesday at 1:00 and Thursday at 3:00, plus a practical that meets twice all semester) I'm really excited about this one. It's more plant ecology stuff. We take two field trips to the rainforest, one of them all weekend, and it looks amazing.

Marine Plants and Algae: (Meets Wednesday at 11:00 and Friday at 10:00, plus a practical on Friday afternoon that meets every week). This is the only 200-level (intermediate) class that I'm taking, which would worry me at MHC but here things seem a little easier. Anyway, this is mostly about algae and identifying them... so kinda like Invertebrate Zoology all over again, but without Stan. How did I make this mistake twice?
Actually, it looks like it'll be fairly doable (I did survive Inverts, despite my constant whining), and algae is cool.

Children's Literature: (Meets Thurs from 12:00-2:00, plus an hour of tutorials) Well, you see, it's impossible for non-majors to get into Children's Lit at MHC and I'm an English minor who wants to read kids' books all the time. But the course looks interesting and fun. They're reading a lot of Australian children's books that I haven't heard of before. Next week we're doing The Coral Island as part of the historical children's lit unit. It's about three young men who get stranded on a coral island and have swashbuckling adventures, as all healthy British boys of the 1800's dreamed of.

I talk a lot more about my English and history classes than my science ones, I've noticed. I guess I just figure humanities are more entertaining to the general population.

(I told my Children's Lit prof that I was an international student, to explain why I hadn't gotten her email, and she got very nervous and now smiles really widely at me when she sees me. My other subjects tend to draw international students, but I don't think this one does very often. Also I think she thinks that English is my second language.)

Also went to the anime club on Wednesday. It was fun, and the people seemed nice, so I'll probably keep going. Met an American student who's in my Marine Algae class, and we hung out, despite my conviction that I wouldn't get along with any of the other American students.

One of the guys at the club got really excited when he heard me speak and asked where I was from. It's weird having someone say "ooh, an accent!"when you talk to them, especially when they say it in what you consider a thick Australian accent. I still haven't quite gotten to the point where everyone else sounds normal and I sound weird.

Although, sometimes when I start to talk I realize that I'm going to pronounce things differently than the person I'm talking to would. It trips me up. I also still haven't gotten used to referring to MHC as a university rather than a college (a college here is a dorm. A school is a high school.)

Oh, and one of the other guys at anime night told me my accent sounded very Vancouver. So I can pass for Canadian if I ever have to.