March 14th, 2013 was probably one of the most anticipated dates of my lifetime. The 14th, which is also Pi Day, marked the 30 days or in other words, 1 month that I have been in Sydney. It’s hard to believe that it has already been a month since I have begun my journey here in Australia. But, what was much more special about this day was that it was also my 21st birthday!

After more than three weeks of studying abroad in Santiago (I use the word “studying” loosely), I think I finally may have finalized my class schedule.

The first week and a half was filled with long days of orientation, which was draining but ultimately very helpful. We were given a crash course on everything from typical Chilenismos and food to Chilean norms and customs. Eventually the orientations came to an end and we transitioned into talk of classes and Universities.

This week’s post will be a relatively short one due to exams.
Today both the Language Intensive (LI) students and the Contemporary Issues (CI) students have exams.
For me, being a CI student, today marks the end of our first ‘block’ of courses.
I just completed my Government and Politics of China course, and after the weekend I will start my Chinese Economy course.

A few weeks ago, my roommate came up to me and said, “Hey, do you want to go to Brussels next weekend?”

I said, “Yeah, let’s do it.”

And off we went to one of the quaintest places I have ever visited. Brussels looked nothing like London or Barcelona. Perhaps it was the neoclassical architecture mixed with regal gold-painted fonts on shop windows, or maybe it was the cute little lace and artisan tapestry shops, but there was something about this place that was just quintessentially European.

Never in a million years would I have thought that I would ever hear the words New Jersey and cool in the same sentence. It must be a million and one years because it has happened. I am into my second week of classes and tutorials are in effect. What are tutorials you ask? They usually happen after a lecture, and it is basically the lecturer, yourself, along with a small group of people breaking down the information that you have learned in the lecture. My tutorial for my Cultural Studies class has about 25 people.

It was just this week that I realized that I may finally have to step out of vacation mode for a while.  While the work is still not quite as difficult as at Purdue, and I don’t have to stay up until 2:30 finishing my structures homework, I’m currently struggling with the fact that I have a 2,500 word paper due tomorrow (not a usual assignment for an engineering student).  In fact, I’m procrastinating right now, taking a break from discussing remote sensing technologies in forestry.