I'm not going to make excuses. We could all go on and on (and on and on) about how busy we are and all that, but that's boring and quite frankly I think it's annoying. (Think about it! How boring is it when your friend texts you or you see an old acquaintance and they apologize for not getting in touch because they've been soooo busy?) I know it's absolutely true; we ARE busy and we have to take care of ourselves first, and I'm not trying to downplay anybody's experiences, but it's an established fact that in this day and age it's hard to find free time. This just means you have to make time to do the things you enjoy. I have little patience for people whose sole excuse is that they were "just busy."
In my case, let's say I haven't been responsible in making time to write my blog posts. Now on to the good stuff, the stuff you're here for.
Do you ever wake up with a sore throat and suddenly you just sort of think back to the day before and regret every single potentially-health-endangering thing you did/ate? That's how I felt the very first day of classes for the semester. Yes, I know that's very unreasonable of a thing to think about right when I just woke up, but if you know me, you know that I am the biggest worrywart you'll ever encounter. And if you've ever lived with me, you'll know that I am miserable and mildly angry at everything if I feel even the slightest bit unwell. And I ended up feeling unwell for a week and a half, so I was not a happy clam.
So what am I actually doing here at Murdoch? Good question. I'm taking four units (that's what they call classes here), worth 3 credits each. On Mondays I have Nature-Based Tourism, a class revolving around the different types of tourism which take place in and around nature areas, like ecotourism and wildlife tourism. There is only one workshop per week for this class, so it's about three hours of combined lecturing and group discussion/work in a small classroom setting. For the first workshop, we talked about good ecotourism and what makes it good or bad. I found it all very fascinating and we even touched upon the ethics of some aspects of tourism, like the environmental impacts of it when it isn't conducted or managed properly, or when there is just so much visitor traffic that it affects the ecology of an area that is meant to be protected. The professors (there are two lecturers) are very fun and make the long class session go by fairly easily, and there's plenty of time given for us to work on our group projects both inside and outside of class. The overarching project for the semester involves coming up with a tourism management plan for a selected nature-based tourist site. My project partner and I were given Lake Gwelup Reserve, a city park, to work with, which we've found a little challenging because it isn't what one would normally consider a tourist location. I am confident, however, we'll come up with something great. In fact, we've already gone and visited the site and even went to IKEA for lunch afterward. I mention this because I'd never actually been to an IKEA before (yes, I know, it is shocking), so it was a very memorable experience for me.
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| Overall I think the park was ugly and had large fields of plain grass, but there was a nice boardwalk and some trees partially submerged in lake water |
On Tuesdays I have lecture and a tutorial (a discussion section) called "Spies, Saboteurs, and Secret Agents." It's a super cool title for a class, and the subject matter is also very interesting. I wish I could say the same for the readings, though, because there's a lot of it and some of it is very dense. The professor for this class is a very passionate and well-informed man who has an affinity for lame jokes. He's also Canadian so it's much easier for me to understand his accent. During tutorials, he challenges us with questions about the readings and is very enthusiastic to just sit there and discuss, which I appreciate.
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| The product of a tutorials' worth of discussion...make of it what you will. |
On Wednesdays, I have an Australian Indigenous Studies unit titled "Country, Nature, and Identity: Indigenous Sustainability." This class is very fascinating and encompasses material I'm passionate about: environmental issues, the meaning of identity, and underrepresented groups of individuals. The prof for this class is, I've been told, the "rock star" of the indigenous studies department at Murdoch. I agree with this statement because when he walked in on the first day I thought he was Guy Fieri for a wild moment because he was wearing a button-up short-sleeved shirt with green dragons printed on it and had wild tousled hair. He immediately told everyone to put their phones away, so clearly he means business, but at the same time he's a bit sarcastic and cracks wry jokes with a straight face. That's my type of humor, and combined with the subject material, the 1.5 hour workshop goes by fairly quickly.
On Thursdays I have Water and Earth Science, which is essentially a soil sciences class. It's not required of me for my plant pathology major, but I figured it'd be good for me to have a basic grasp of soil science. So far we've covered basic geology, and the first lab session merely consisted of looking at rocks and identifying them. I got to impress a couple people with my basic knowledge of geology because of my tour guide position at the UW-Madison Geology Museum, so that was nice. There are lots of field practicals for this class, so I'm pretty excited to go out and learn about soil!
Though classes these first two weeks have been a lot for me to take in, I find I am more or less enjoying them just fine. The manner in which we must study for them is way different and perhaps more difficult in a way than I'm used to. Since there is practically nothing due each week unless the prof assigns a paper, it's hard to keep focused and it's hard to just sit there and do the readings. All I've done so far is read and take notes on what I read, which is monotonous. Plus, I haven't had to study since December, so I'm slowly relearning my focusing skills.
I really like how friendly and easygoing workshops and tutorials are here. I don't know if it's because of the specific classes I'm in, and the professors I have, or if that's just how it is in Aussie unis. Tutorials consist of just talking about the material, and there is no homework. This I feel is a little dangerous because that means in most of my classes, there are only three or four grades which make up the final mark in the entire unit. This consists of projects, essays, and exams which are thus all high-stakes. I'm a little nervous as to how that will all turn out, but as always I am going into the semester headfirst and stubbornly determined.
I think I'll end this post here, though attending classes has obviously not been the only thing I've been doing the past two weeks. I apologize for the radio silence last week, and I'll make it up to you (and myself) by publishing this now and immediately writing about the other stuff I did recently! Until next time!
~ JP
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