Well the first week of school has definitely flown by and it's almost time for next week.
Thursday morning's breakfast event was much more subdued than the event the day before. I arrived half an hour in, yet there was almost no one around. I picked up some pancakes, a hash-brown and some juice and ate at one of the 5 small tables. There was also toast and fruit and eggs that had yet to be cooked, but I decided to move on as some others were just starting to come join in. I only had one class that day, but my Swedish friend and another Swedish girl she had met were going to go have lunch so I joined them in one if the Student Unions cafeterias.
Friday I headed down to my one class in the morning and was recognized by a local girl also in the class heading down the stairs too. I found a seat next to her in the packed lecture hall and had a first lecture for that class. The lecturer provided us with a handout of what would be covered that class, and we didn't even get halfway through. An hour after the class had finished I headed towards the geography building as the geography school was hosting a BBQ. My Swedish friend also showed up, and we were able to talk to a handful of other local geography students and lecturers. It was a good opportunity to meet many locals, but unfortunately the majority of people who showed up worked in the building as either a lecturer or in the office. The few students who did come were mainly first years although many of them had taken a gap year(s) and were about my age and even older.
After the BBQ, we headed to the Science Library (one of the three UTAS libraries on campus) and loaded up our student cards as printing anything costs money and can be deducted from your ID card. I tried asking locals if they also all used the school printers, and it appeared that most did. However at 12 cents a page it definitely will add up if you are printing large assignments.
Spot the Parrots!
Nearly everyday this bird is found checking out these dying flowers
I went to bed early Friday as Saturday morning was the day of the "Race across Hobart" event I had signed up for. We met outside the Student Union Building at 8:30 am on Saturday. Although the event was for all international students and new students, everyone except for 3 of us were from Asia....well one girl said she was from Sydney. We were broken up into groups of about 5 and there were 7 teams, my team being number 6. My group members consisted from a girl from Malaysia, two brothers from Singapore and another guy from Singapore. Apparently there is a standing joke that Malaysians and Singaporeans are enemies, however we all got along well. As the two brothers were both first years, the other two group members were our team leaders being the most educated on the Hobart community.
The first challenge was to complete a Sudoku puzzle which allowed you to receive your first clue. Our clue led us to Salamanca Square, where the market was taking place. At a Salmon Shop we completed our simple task before getting our next clue. This one was trickier as it suggested that the next spot would be in the same vicinity, however in actuality it was further along the harbour. We wasted about an hour going back and forth before phoning in to get a hint for the right direction. Upon finally arriving, the next challenge was to guess the flavours of ice cream (YUM!!) while blindfolded. We then head back to the market and found our next challenge at a pie shop. It involved using modelling clay to help guess as many objects as possible and we were told we had done very well.
Powerwalking to the city centre was necessary to take us to our next challenge. It took place out side a book store and was a simple matching card game. The next challenge wasn't far away at a hair salon. There we raced the clock to put in as many hair elastics into the Malaysian girl's hair as possible in two minutes. We were thrilled to hear we had put in the record-breaking number of elastics.
We then made our way to the buses catching a bus up to North Hobart. At a Malaysian restaurant (recommended by the locals) we role-played a skills game of letting people cross the "river" with certain restriction involving who could use the boat and who could be left with who. We were once again told we had the fastest time. Walking down the street a bit we stopped outside an Indian restaurant and were told we needed to entertain our hosts before we could receive the challenge. At a loss of things to do, we each drew pictures of each of the two guys and presented them with our sketches. The challenge was to eat as many pappadums as possible in 2 minutes. We were given two attempts and told that we had once again scored the top score.
Our bus trip this time took us back to Sandy Bay where we did two challenges in Asian grocery stores either guessing the price of certain dishes or correctly determining the ingredients in a meal. Outside a bubble tea shop we each used a variety of implements to transfer rubber balls from one side to another. I was happy not to use the chop-sticks or a fork. Instead with my soup spoon I stretched between the group, collecting on one side and bringing it to the other so that the other members only had to barely touch the balls as they made their way across.
Our final instructions were to make our way to the Long Beach at Sandy Bay. In competition with only one group that we knew of, we decided to walk as fast as we could the 2 km down the road instead of waiting for the bus. In the final stretches the bus made its appearance so we hopped on to see the other group. Oddly they chose to get off early so we jumped off at the closer stop and ran to the meeting point to beat them. All the other groups had arrived, the first one having arrived hours ago (but they chose to drive to some of their challenges). Luckily for us, the day was not being judged on time but on how well you had done on your challenges.
As a huge group we walked back to the University for our snacks. Juice, chips and sandwiches were served in excess. They then began awarding prizes, and not too surprising, my group came in first! Everyone received gift vouchers although each group had different ones, but first place also came with a bag of mementos from the Salmon shop. A hat, water bottle, pen, key-chain, discount card, salmon cookbook and nutrition facts came out of the prize. From the gift certificates I received a free bubble tea, a haircut (I think...it doesn't actually say anything) and a $25 gift certificate for the Salmon Shop. Not a bad day overall!!
