First week of classes at Otago, come and gone, and a second started! It’s a been a good week, though I’m afraid I don’t have as many pictures to show.
My university is beautiful… There’s several dark gray stone buildings, which I find really pretty. Also, everything is so green! This is a picture of the famed clocktower. Even on a cloudy day, it’s magnificent…
Classes are quite a bit different here than what I’m used to, but I’m guessing that’s largely because I’m used to a private, liberal arts school. Some of the differences, though, are definitely unique to New Zealand!
For example, courses here are called papers. We have two hours a week spent in lecture, which are taught by “lecturers” (professors). We’ll then also have a one-hour tutorial a week, where a subsection of the class meets and is taught in seminar-style by a “tutor” (teaching assistant).
Another thing I’m not used to is the unstructured class schedule, or timetable as they call it here, relative to DePauw. For example, I have no class on Friday and only one on Monday, but other days are packed. Also, classes are not necessarily in the same lecture hall from day to day, which makes memorizing my schedule interesting.
Despite this, I’ve enjoyed my classes so far! I’m in Artificial Intelligence, Human-Computer Interaction, Sociology of the Family, and History of New Zealand, so quite a nice range.
Apart from a few club meetings in the evenings, it was a pretty quiet week. I did some planning for the next couple weekends and for mid-semester break. I even got a map of the South Island and marked out where I wanted to go with pushpins. The black pin is where I’m at now, if you’re curious.
It was really nice to have my weekend start Thursday evening; I used Friday to check a few things off my to-do list, namely buy hiking boots!
Looking forward to wearing these out “tramping” (hiking/backpacking) sometime soon! I also got to do some “op shopping” (shopping at second-hand stores) and found a North Face jacket.
Saturday, however was the big adventure day. We went surfing!
It was my first time, so I was pretty terrible at it. The one time I nearly managed to stand up with both feet on the board, I ran into another surfer and fell off… Unfortunately, I have no action shots to share, but hopefully these will suffice as proof that I did it!
We were pretty wiped afterwards, so we just kinda hung out at the beach. Of course, you can’t go to the beach and not get fish and chips…
Such a beautiful day! If every day was like what we’ve been having these last few days, I’d be hard pressed to ever come home…
A couple of us went to a bar called The Baaa later that night – I love that name, you can’t say it without sounding like you have a Kiwi accent! It was pretty chill and had some decent cocktails. And of course, we had to get ice cream from McDonald’s afterwards… Speaking of ice cream, I’ve now tried the boysenberry ice cream from Rob Roy’s and can also recommend.
Sunday was also beautiful! Highlights included visiting the Botanic Gardens just north of my street, which has a large aviary, and going to church.
Overall, it was a pretty chill week, but still lots of fun. These next couple weeks and weekends will be ramping up, though, so I’m sure to have lots more pictures and interesting stories. Until then, cheers!
Ray of Sunshine Travel 