Marx

I've been busy getting all my final assignments done, of which I have 2 due today. Lately it has been extremely hard to motivate myself to do anything that relates to school. I think it is just the fact that I know that I am going to be leaving in the next few weeks (which is a pretty depressing thought) and I want to do all the things that I'm never going to be able to do again rather than schoolwork.

Finals here in Australia are just a bit different than from home. At home, you would have 3-4 exams throughout the semester and then a large final at the end of the semester which counts for about 20% of your grade. Here, you have almost no exams during the semester, and very few assignments which count for a surprisingly low percentage of your final marks. Then, at the end of the semester, you get hit with all your assignments at once, on top of the fact that you have to study for your exams which are worth 60-70% of your whole semester grade. I'm lucky to only have finals in 2 of my classes, but the other 2 have huge assignments due in the next few weeks.

Grading is a bit different as well. You get a "High Distinction" for anything over 80%, "Distinction" for 70-79%, then "Credit" (60-69%), then "Pass", and then "Fail". In American grading standards, anything over a Distinction is counted as an A. I figured that it would make my job much easier as a student, but it just means that they grade much harder here. A 65% in Australia is actually pretty respectable, where at home it is a failing mark.

I should probably stop procrastinating and do my assignments, I know.

Almost One Month Later...

Ok, good. He's posted. He isn't dead. Even though he said he would post a week ago.

All I have to say is that school, as well as the social aspect of school, has definitely picked up a bit. You'll all be glad to know that I've been working pretty hard over the past few weeks, trying not only to make my stay here in Australia a good growing experience, but a good academic experience as well.

I woke up this morning at around 6:00am to proofread and complete a paper, and now I am just waiting for the Faculty of Arts building to open so I can turn it in and be done with it. It was an extensive look into the various nuances of Australian Rules Football, along with it's social and economic impact. I also gave a presentation in class about the different sport associated with different groups in Australia. I picked similar topics for each assignment, so I could knock out two birds with one stone, as they say. I'm clever like that.

As far as my intellectual curiosities go, I'm taking a huge interest in the natural sciences. I'm thinking of the environment, like how plants and animals work. I haven't had much time to really sit down and think about it as a career path yet. I just hope that it isn't too late for such a radical revelation. There's not much correlation between biology and civil engineering. I suppose that I have only really finished general education courses, and I'm really not that far into the civil engineering aspect of my schooling. If anything, I've taken more advanced chemistry courses than anything else.

Hopefully I can periodically keep up with small updates. All of my previous posts are pretty long and detailed, which is why I think that it has been so hard for me to keep up. With a small post here and there, I can at least give you guys a hint that I still care about letting you know what I'm up to.

Tasmania

Coming. I won't say "soon", but it's coming.

Includes:

Port Arthur
Cadbury Factory
The "Tree House"
Spelunking
Tesselated Pavement
Driving on the Opposite Side of the Road
Mount Wellington - The Coldest Place I Have Been so far in Australia

and...

One Extremely Dirty Rental Car