The day began by breaking the fast with free pancakes at Uni. We arrived about 9:45 am to the Hunter Building, where we at 10:30 am would go to a Study Abroad information session in the Griffith Duncan Theater.
At the table during the breakfast sat six Swedes from various cities and two Germans from Cologne. There seem to be a lot of Swedes here, but many other nationalities as well.
The information session started with a short intro followed by some aboriginal dances performed by four persons with aboriginal ancestry. According to the woman that presented the dances, there doesn’t exist a word for jealousy or suicide in their aboriginal language. Instead, the aboriginal life is about feeling the life in everything around you and know that you are never alone.
After the dance performance, the information presentation continued. It was quite relaxed but also focused on the responsibilities of us as students. The presentation featured two quite funny clips from UoNs Youtube page made by a student named Jackson Lana. In this video, things to think about as a newbie on campus were presented.
Towards the end of the information session, we were divided into groups based on a symbol on the name sign we had been given at the beginning of the session. I was placed in the kangaroo group, which later was merged with the pelican group into the “pelikaroo” group. With this group, I walked on a campus tour ending at Godfrey Tanner Bar where we got food and drinks.
After the lunch, some games were going on, and both Linnea and I tried our luck in a doughnut eating competition. The doughnut was good, although we both lost. After this, we signed up with a student society to go on a wine tour to Hunter Valley later this semester. Putting a preliminary check mark in one of the boxes on the bucket list.
Linnea and I walked around a bit on campus after the activities and after getting our student ID cards. We stuck around and in the evening we went to stand up at Godfrey Tanner Bar again. The comedians were funny and had very diverse lineups. Headlining was Steve Hughes whom I haven’t heard of before, but he seems to be well known, and he was hilarious. He started by claiming that Uni kids are so politically correct nowadays and then tried to push the audience, but everyone seemed to have a good time and the jokes landed well.
It has been a fun day!
/ Gustav