Hello, all!

I just wanted to check in. I’ve made it over to Australia in one piece. I hit a serious delay of 24 hours trying to get https://experience.tripster.ru/sights/admiraltejstvo/ here (a nightmare story of its own), but luckily that’s all over and I made it to my destination! I have been here for two whole days already and I am absolutely loving it. Now that I am a bit more settled, I hope to start writing more blog posts.

I am currently at the Mount Helen campus of Federation University Australia located in Ballarat, Victoria. Ballarat is located approximately an hour and fifteen minute drive from the city of Melbourne where I landed. The drive from the airport to campus was breathtakingly beautiful. This country (or at least the areas I have seen) are so clean, green, and also partly modern and industrial looking. My boss referred to the campus location (the Mount Helen campus where I reside and work) as the “bushlands”, as we are somewhat isolated and located in a very peaceful bushland area of Ballarat. I have yet to see a kangaroo (though I have seen a kangaroo crossing sign), but I am told that sometimes in the morning hours, I may see them hopping near the edges of campus. Peaceful is definitely a great way to describe the location, as It is very quiet here and the night is very dark. I was planning on going for a run around 5am here, but the darkness might actually make it pretty dangerous for me to run around campus, simply because I’m not entirely sure I’d be able to see where I am going!

I have been battling (really losing the battle against) severe jet lag. During my first night here, I went to bed at 7pm and I woke up yesterday morning at about 4:20am. Last night I went to bed at 7pm and I woke up this morning at 1:49am. It seems adjusting is going to be much harder than I thought it would be.

While I have only been here a couple days, I have already learned more than I could have imagined! I am so excited about everything I have learned about and I’m also excited about everything I am going to learn about while I am here. There are so many differences between the higher education system in the USA versus the higher education system (also known as tertiary education) here in Australia. I look forward to posting in the coming days and weeks about several different topics. Stay tuned!