My Class Schedule:
Monday: Intimacy, Love, and Friendship from 12-2, 4-5
Tuesday: No class!
Wednesday: Modern Cinema from 10-2, 3-4
Thursday: Digital Arts from 10-12, 1-2 and Photography from 2-5
Friday: No class!
Not too shabby, right? Now, it might seem like I'm not taking "real" classes, but since my majors at Northwestern won't accept any credit, my advisor suggested I "take whatever my little heart desires". So I figured it's a good opportunity to explore some classes that NU doesn't offer.
So far, the classes have been pretty interesting. We talk a lot about Facebook and Twitter in my Friendship class - mainly about how technology is changing the game. My Modern Cinema class is pretty much identical to the RTVF 220 class at Northwestern, just with more modern movies. (We're watching Die Hard later this semester. I love being a film major. Even if that means I never find a job.) My Digital Arts class is more theoretical unfortunately, but it's still really cool. We get to look at different exhibits from around the world, such as this one in which a guy implanted a mechanical ear into his arm so that people could hear what the inside of an arm sounds like. (This world is full of crazies. But at least they make things more exciting for the rest of us.) My Photography class is probably my favorite class so far. I've always wanted to take it, so I figured it would be fun to explore Sydney with a cool camera and actually get credit for it. Sounds easy enough, right? Well, finding a fully functional manual camera was no easy task. First, my friend Kate and I went down to a secondhand shop near uni and found two cameras there. They seemed good enough, so we bought them. A week later, I was about to start taking my roll and I couldn't find the light meter anywhere (which is necessary to see whether shots are under/overexposed). And Kate's camera wouldn't work whatsoever. So, we went downtown to a professional camera house. Turns out that both of our cameras are growing fungus. Awesome. After this whole debacle, I decided to just get a really nice, secondhand professional Nikon FM camera. Kate and I spent the rest of the day walking around Darling Harbour (I know, I'm obsessed) and trying (note: trying) to take artistic photos. Let's just hope that they don't all turn out blurry and underexposed.
Classes at Sydney Uni are really different from Northwestern classes. For one, people can schedule two lectures at the same time and will just go to half of each. People are constantly coming in and out of lectures, with some people arriving 30 minutes into lecture and other people leaving then. It's as if the professors expect that students won't stay the whole time; they even thank students for coming at all.
While in class, students are pretty much allowed to do as they please. They can eat, text, do other work, read the newspaper. I've even seen students listening to their iPods while the professor was lecturing. And today I encountered the most surprising classroom activity so far: drinking beer. I was in my Modern Cinema class and I heard someone walk down the aisle with bottles clinking. I turned and realized that the student just brought a 6 pack of beer into class. Is there something about Citizen Kane that screams 'be an alcoholic at 11am'? Maybe it's the uncontrollable curiosity about what 'Rosebud' means.... riiight.
As different as Sydney Uni is, I really enjoy it. The campus is beautiful and people just love to spend time outside (that's what good weather does to you). Students are always lounging about the Quad or reading books around the Oval. When I walk around campus, a soothing, happy calm takes over my body. It's like everything is at peace. Of course, that is until I try crossing the street, don't look the right way, and almost get hit by a car (I'm slowly, but surely!, improving).
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