Keeping busy

So, after barely (at least, so it feels) any summer holiday, uni started last week already. I'm doing 4 courses over here and so far, they left me with mixed feelings. Overall, they might not give me the challenge that I need to motivate me. I somewhat purposely chose these courses knowing that I would definitely pass them (and they made a great schedule), but it still feels a bit unrewarding. Anyway, a short description:

Property investment: a course in an area that I'm particularly interested in, namely finance. Will be mostly about deciding between investment opportunities in real estate as well as between investing in stocks or real estate, for example. Seems to become quite interesting and might be the only challenging course. Also involves some Excel skills which I'm lacking, so that's a nice thing to get my hands dirty with.

Leadership principles and practices: potentially good course as this is an area that I'm really interested in but that we don't cover back home in Maastricht (obviously, given that I study Econometrics...). We'll go over all sorts of leaders, from Steve Jobs to Hitler, Stalin and the likes, which should be really interesting. Furthermore, we have to analyse a business leader ourselves for an essay and I'm allowed to do one about Enzo Ferrari, which is obviously to my liking =)

Managing conflict: is a bit of a complement to the one above but here we'll look more at the different ways of solving or at least dealing with conflict, including role-plays and everything. So far, everything we've covered is quite straightforward and obvious, so it's not that interesting yet. I'll keep my hopes up though!

Australian Idol: a course I'm not officially enrolled in but I do attend the lectures as I feel that it gives me more insight into Australia. This course has been made for exchange students and aims at teaching us a bit more about Australian history, culture, conflicts, etcetera. It's really interesting to learn about these things as the course covers a lot of stuff you would never hear about otherwise!
Furthermore, there are also a lot of trips involved with this course such as an outback trip, going to an AFL game, and so forth. Really amazing stuff and even though I'm not enrolled in the course, I'm still allowed to go on these trips as well!

Environmental economics: the name covers the contents. This course is about why there are environmental problems due to economic processes, what causes them and what might solve them. The teacher is great, absolutely energetic and interesting to listen to, but the course is too basic and I haven't heard anything that i can't think of myself...it does, however, fit my schedule marvelously =)


So while I'm at it: even though I only have about 3 days of uni, I'm really busy! I really discovered down here how much more I  could do at home. Don't get me wrong, I'm perfectly happy with my life at home, but it became a bit of a routine. Of course, as an exchange student, there are so many things that you want to do and see and it's easier to keep busy.

For starters, there are so many clubs and associations over here, more than a hundred! I joined only a few (...): the engineering club (old loves never die I guess and they host many activities), the actuary club (which involves Econometrics as well), the French, Spanish and Italian clubs (I really want to learn some Italian and Spanish and I discovered that I really need to brush up on my French!), Monash Dance where I'm doing a salsa course (for the sake of diversity and trying something new).
Furthermore, my friend David is teaching me some basketball, which I've always kind of wanted to play but never gotten into because of not wanting to start from scratch. It's going really well and I'm definitely considering to continue in Maastricht.
I also joined the gym which I absolutely fell in love with! It's got everything one could possibly need, and then times three or so, all brand-spanking new equipment :D Unfortunately, I'm still suffering from a shoulder injury so I can't go all-out, but I hope to be able to work it up gradually.

So all in all, the occasional party and other activities included, all these things easily fill up my schedule and then I haven't even started on the travelling, which is finally getting some ground. This weekend, we'll go to an AFL game. Melbourne is the capital of AFL so it's really a must-do whilst you're here. Next week we'll probably be going to Anglesea, a surfing resort near Melbourne. No surfing will be involved (it's way too cold!), but should still be really cool. The week after that, I'm going to Phillip Island with Larissa, where I'll finally see the penguin parade. That's something I've been thrilled about since the moment I found out about its existence. Why? Because penguins!

In three weeks we'll be going on an outback trip with the Australian Idol course. I'm really happy that I got in as there needed to be enough students to run a second bus. It's possibly one of the few possibilities to go to the outback and as it covers most of this country, it's a must-see =)

Other trips under construction: DefQon Australia in Sydney on September 14 where I get free entrance as a Dutchie, MotoGP Phillip Island (I actually get a student discount on this, how  amazing!), Great Ocean Road, Tasmania (during the swot-vac, the reading week before exams), and possibly Darwin+Uluru for spring break!

Wow, quite a story after all! I intended to make and upload some pictures from my house, the surroundings and stuff I've seen here, but the weather was absolutely disastrous today so I keep that as a promise for next week. Sorry for that!