1 down, 2 to go

Once again the morning got away from us and we were rushing to make it to class in time. I started the last section of my Creative Arts class today - media arts. I thought I knew where the classroom was but when I arrived there was a sign on the door saying that it was on the 6^th floor in a room which I didn’t know. So I walked in a little late, but had found more classmates along the way so at least I wasn’t alone. We briefly went over media arts and did a few ice breakers exercises to get us thinking more in the technology sense. We were told that we were going to partner up and go around campus to take pictures of our favorite places. When asked if everyone had a camera on their phone I was the only one that raised their hand - shocking I know. But, being the only international student in the class I should have expected that. We had to partner up anyways so I was in good shape and chose to take a picture of the gorgeous courtyard in the middle of the Quad and the huge tree with a circle bench all the way around it that it is front of the library and also where Riley and I often eat lunch together. It was nice to talk and walk with a girl from my class that I often had small talk with. Although I was done with my classes for the day, Riley had to power through three more classes, along with turning in his first final paper. We spent our break looking over his paper until we were confident that it would suite what the lecturer wanted. I know that he was happy to just be able to turn in one of his papers and get it checked off his list of assignments. I had to get working on my paper for the Australian Sport Learning class. The night before we had suffered through the documentary of the Bra Boys that went through the forming of the ‘gang’ in Maroubra Beach. Our teacher had often joked that we better not run into any of these boys while on the beach but I didn’t find them too intimidating; they were basically just a surfing brotherhood. The only issue they caused was being too territory about their beach and fighting other surfers that wanted to claim it as their own. A lot of fights brought out and boys were arrested, but now they focus more on the surfing. There were clips of some boys surfing massive, low hanging waves off the coast of Hawaii which was amazing, yet terrifying at the same time. We were supposed to work that documentary into our paper somehow, along with four other sources so it was quite the task. But the topic was all about Sydney beach culture and we had a lot of experience with that so it wasn’t as hard as I had expected once I got into writing it. I was able to get most of it done while Riley hopped in and out of class which was a relief. After dinner and more homework I had a skype session with a girl from UNCC to talk about our upcoming exchange trip to Germany in the Fall. I had been accepted to go on this faculty led trip for two months but since I'm halfway across the world I haven't been able to attend the meetings. Emily was just catching me up on the stuff I had missed, but really it had just been general study abroad information that I had previously sat through before coming here. Talking to Emily made me very excited for the upcoming Fall and what we had in store for us especially after she said that most of the girls were planning to go to Paris for the first weekend trip!