2 down, 1 go to! Posted on October 29th, 2004 by Jared Lee

Believe it or not, it’s time for final exams here at Monash. Thus it should be no surprise that I haven’t been doing too much this week apart from studying, as I had finals yesterday (Thursday) morning in Fluid Dynamics, and this morning in Climate Change & Variability, and I’m happy to say that both exams went fairly well. I still have one more to go on Tuesday morning, for Large-Scale Weather & Climate, but I’m treating myself to a brief respite from the studying. But before I hit the books this week, I spent last weekend having some fun seeing some new places, the Mornington Peninsula and the Great Ocean Road (where I went surfing for the first time ever!).

On Friday afternoon James & Ali picked me up for a drive down the Mornington Peninsula, about an hour south of Melbourne on the other side of Port Phillip Bay, and separating the Southern Ocean from the bay. It was a fine day around most of Melbourne, and we were hoping to see a beautiful sunset aways down the ocean-side of the peninsula, near the town of Sorrento. Unfortunately as we drove down the peninsula we discovered that it was blanketed by a dense fog — bummer. We still went around to some of the different beaches, and even though we didn’t get to see that elusive sunset I still had a good time. One of the highlights of the afternoon was actually a very hungry echidna that we saw next to the car park at one of the beaches. He was so busy gorging himself on ants that he let us get really close to him to take photos, and even let us touch his sharp spines!

Saturday night was time for the IFSA-Butler (Institute for Study Abroad, the group I came to Australia with) Farewell Dinner. It was the first time since orientation that all eight of us (nine counting Jodee, our cool IFSA coordinator) had been together due to busy schedules and different groups of friends that we’ve found, so it was cool catching up with everybody again. We went to a nice Greek restaurant at Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne, and the best part of it was that IFSA paid for it all! I’ll take a free meal any day. 🙂 But we spent a good deal of the time talking about our experiences so far this semester, and about how it’ll likely be a bit tough to re-adjust to life in the States, something called “reverse culture shock.” I guess being prepared for it is half the battle of getting through it, since it’ll almost undoubtedly happen. It’s definitely not something you really contemplate much until you’ve been used to living in a foreign country for a few months already, but it’ll be interesting to see how it goes for me.

Sunday was definitely the highlight of the weekend, a surfing trip and drive down the Great Ocean Road sponsored by IFSA. Only four of us Butlerites from Monash went (Sharon, Caroline, Krista and me), and we were joined on the trip by a bunch of Butler kids from Melbourne Uni. After a rather interesting and frustrating taxi ride into the city in the morning (we were met with more detours than MNDoT sets up during the height of road construction season!), we finally headed out onto the Great Ocean Road, which starts about an hour southwest of the city in Torquay. Completed in 1939 and one of the world’s most-traveled roads (and hence one of Australia’s biggest tourist attractions), it hugs Victoria’s Southern Ocean coastline all the way from Torquay west to Warrnambool (side note: I love the town names here in Australia!).

Our first stop was at world-famous Bells Beach just west of Torquay. I’ve heard a lot about it (it’s a favourite for surfers), and it’s definitely a cool beach. After that we pressed on past Anglesea and on to Lorne, the surfing capital of Victoria, and our destination for the day. First we went a few k’s north of Lorne for a hike and some lunch in the temperate rainforest up there, and we got to see pretty Erskine Falls. When we went back down to Lorne it was time to put on the wetties (wetsuits), grab a board and get a few tips of instruction before we went out in the water (since for most of us it was the first time ever surfing). I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous about it all before I got out there, but that all went away when I caught my first wave all the way into shore. Even just riding on the board laying on my belly, it was so exhilarating speeding along with the waves! Once or twice I managed to get up to my knees on the board, but more often than not those attempts ended in me doing a “nosedive,” where the wave sends you and your board straight down into the water — usually because I did something wrong, like neglecting to hold onto the rails (sides) properly. But I was even having a blast when I’d do a nosedive and get spun around underwater like a coin laundry machine, the whole experience was so fun! Seriously, it was probably the most fun hour and a half I’ve had here in Australia. 🙂 After that we made our way back towards Melbourne, stopping for a late afternoon bbq picnic at Point Roadknight Beach in Anglesea. I have some pictures from surfing and the Great Ocean Road on the October 24th post on my website ( www.seenoevil.org/~jared/blog/ ).

On Monday it was time to hit the books — well, sort of. I did do a bit of studying with BradWa, Simon and Connie (we don’t share any classes, we were just studying our own stuff), but when I say studying I of course mean playing frisbee and watching TV, hehe. Tuesday was a much more productive day study-wise, and Brad took Stefan and me down to Caulfield to show us where our finals were gonna be, which was nice. Wednesday was another study-heavy day, interrupted by a bbq party over at Farrer Hall for BradWa’s 21st birthday. It was pretty cool, and most of the people from Christian Union showed up to it, everyone was surprised at how many people came, since it was in the thick of finals and all. (We call him BradWa because there’s another Brad in CU, we call him BradWe, it’s according to the beginning of their surnames.)

Thursday morning it was time for my Fluid Dynamics final, which was my first one and the exam I was most worried about. But despite a couple tough problems I think I managed to scratch and claw my way to a decent grade on the exam. Finals are generally a bit more stressful in Australia, since they’re worth a bigger chunk of your overall grade than they are back home (this one was worth 60%). Another interesting thing is that all the Monash finals are near its campus in Caulfield (20-30 minutes from here towards the city), at the Racecourse complex, perhaps the finest horse-racing venue in all of Australia. They have these huge rooms all set up with desks (fortunately facing away from the windows overlooking the racing oval, lest we be distracted by sunshine and green grass ;-), and at any one time there are hundreds of students (sometimes close to a thousand “candidates,” as we’re called when we take exams) taking exams simultaneously in each room for their respective subjects. It really is a different atmosphere for finals. And there are no professors or lecturers available in the room to ask a question of in case you’re confused by the wording on a question — it’s all sink or swim on your own. The thing I probably like least about the whole setup is that I have to wake up a good deal earlier just to get down to Caulfield, as it can take awhile waiting for the shuttle buses during morning peak hour (rush hour). I had another final there this morning as well, Climate Change, in what I correctly figured was gonna be my easiest final out of the three. 2 down, 1 to go! The downside is that my final on Tuesday falls on Melbourne Cup Day, which is an official holiday in Victoria, celebrating the Melbourne Cup, the biggest horse race in Australia. Maybe I’ll still be able to make it to the track for a race (fortunately it’s not at Caulfield, that’d be insane).

But once I’m done with finals I won’t be done with studying, as earlier this week I signed up to take the General GRE on November 8th here in Melbourne. I was quite fortunate to find a testing centre in Melbourne, or else I would’ve had to wait to take the GRE until I was back in Minnesota in January, which would’ve been too late for many grad school applications, which I’m probably gonna have to start working on down here before I go home. But there’s almost no way I’m gonna be studying on November 3rd, as I’m sure I’ll be glued either to my laptop computer or to cable TV watching election returns come in (after the Daylight Savings Time switch this weekend, Australia will be 17 hours ahead of Minnesota/Wisconsin, even closer to a full day ahead, which is why the 3rd is Election Day as far as I’m concerned, hehe). The plus side for me is that even if the election isn’t decided until the wee hours of the morning back home, I’ll still be wide awake in early evening! 🙂 Get out there and vote!