What do you mean, the library closes at night…?
So the first week of classes are over! My sched is pretty ‘laxed (no, this isn’t cool new Aussie slang - it’s just me..) - I basically have no classes on Mondays and Tuesdays which means hellooooo four day weekend and you know what that means - that’s right, four straight days of crazy, sleepless, uninterrupted 30 Rock marathons in my room, holla! Buut, the downside is my Wed/Thurs/Fri schedule is pure torture. Well, that’s what I would expect in CMU but the difference here is, I actually love all my classes! Oh man, It felt unbelievably weird writing that sentence because my fingers have never typed that exact sequence of letters before (ever) but it’s true - for once, I am actually extremely interested in all the classes I’m taking and what’s weirder is, everyone around me is too!
The week before classes started, I was asking around about my classes and I expected the CMU response to these types of questions - somewhere on a scale of “Oh, that class is an easy A” to “Oh, that class took away my soul and my will to live, but it’s okay because I’ve forgotten how to live without regular nervous breakdowns in the Hunt stairwell.” Instead, I got responses like “You’ll love that class, it’s so much fun!” or “That class is a little hard, but the professor is great and it’s really interesting so it’s totally worth it!”
At first I was like, ugh what is this koala-hugging land-down-under nonsense..hokay Aussies, cut the crap and give it to me straight - just tell me on average how many all-nighters and caffeine-induced panic attacks I have to get through to pass this class. But after this past week of classes I can see where they’re coming from. I mean, yeah, some of my classes seems pretty hard and they’re all lab classes (lawlz, that would be a death sentence at CMU) but I can honestly say that if I had to choose between sleeping or going to lecture, I might choose going to lecture 3 out of 5 times! (Huge improvement considering that back home, sleep beats everything, every time, always, no competition)
Also, the library here closes. I don’t remember at what time, but that’s not important - it CLOSES. At night. Like a regular building. As in, it’s not normal to find yourself sitting in a corner of the library in a puddle of tears and self-loathing at 5 in the morning because you have an Orgo test in four hours but for some reason you can’t stop yourself from watching the next video in someone’s YouTube playlist entitled “cats doin’ people stuff lawlz!!1!!11!”.
But you know, I’m going to be totally honest, while I’m loving the direction this library-closin’ semester is heading, I kinda miss CMU? Ugh, stupid school’s got me turned into some sort of masochist where I actually feel guilty if I’m not constantly complaining about how little sleep I got last night - I’m actually sleeping at least 7 hours a night and I feel like a horrible human being every time I wake up feeling refreshed. What am I supposed to talk about with people if I can’t whine about being sleep deprived?? Like for instance, this morning I woke up to the sounds of birds (that’s right, real live birds..and I didn’t want to shoot them all) and went out with some friends to buy stuff to make chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and then we all lounged around in a friend’s pool. This all happened before noon on a Sunday - I know, I’m becoming one of those people that actually do stuff before noon on Sundays. I used to hate those people. Ugh, I’m the worst.
Ok enough about school - let’s talk about fun stuff! Me and some friends hiked up to the top of Castle Hill (haha, I know, I willingly chose hiking on a Saturday afternoon over sitting at home with a bowl of Cocoa Puffs and Friends re-runs) and even though I was sweating out of every pore in my body and desperately gasping for breath by the time we got to the top, looking out over Townsville reconfirmed that it was a good decision to come here.
Living out here is like an adventure every day. It reaches temperatures here that I didn’t think could actually sustain human life and I have to actively watch out for poisonous snakes when I take the back route to my house - but at the end of the day, it always feels worth it. I feel like the theme of this trip is just figuring things out as they go. At first, that really freaked me out because I like to be in control of things and to have stuff planned out. But after landing here with no place to live and no clue what I was doing, I’m slowly learning to accept the unpredictability of life and to be flexible and open-minded to things. It’s kinda exhilarating to know that I’m only going to see these places and be with these people for the next four months and that it’s up to me to make the best out of it. (Ugggh, that sounds like something a cliched character in a Disney channel movie would say..sorry guise, I’ll try my best to not be an ocean-loving islander hippie by the time I get back home…)
Also, yeah, I’m living in Townsville. Is that ringing any bells for anyone? Let me help you with that..think: Mayor of Townsville. If you had any semblance of a childhood, a short, old white guy with a monocle and top hat should be popping into your mind. Yeah, I didn’t get it either until one of my friends here remembered that Townsville is the city where the Powerpuff Girls lived. Chyeah. Basically, my entire childhood has subconsciously affected my decision to come here.
Oh no! The city of Townsville is under attack - by us being too auss-ome!! Ahahahahhahahaha omg it will never get old (I fully understand if you wanna just stop following my blog now because my usage of that word is just going to increase from here on out…)
