Picture with the Pope

Aussie pronunciation lesson of the day...
             Instead of saying "Z" like.... well "Z" as we do in American, they instead pronounce it "Zed." For example, if you wanted to say "Zebra" it wouldn't sound like it would in the States.  Instead it's pronounced more like "Zeh-brah."

            So Wednesday was Market Day, finally. They had to push it back to this week because of all the torrential rain we had been getting last week.  In between classes a class mate and I dropped in and spend a bit of time walking around and checking out the stalls.  Pretty normal for a school fair as you might expect but obviously with different booths and all.  We got lots of free stuff, mostly papers and such of course, but for some odd reason they were handing out lots of hygiene stuff like shampoo samples, lotions, tooth brushing kits… I wonder what kind of message they were trying to send!

            

            But honestly, there was some really cool stuff there and some very interesting booths. Lots of fun school clubs and places offering cool opportunities to students. They had one of those photo booths where you sit in and make faces at the camera then get your strip printed on the outside.  

Of course Lauren and I had to do that!

            They had lots of free food and of course it was the one day I had brought my own lunch. Figures. A classmate and I also got to take a picture with the pope! That was fun.

            We got some otter pops and candy as well and we also got to pet a baby croc!

            Thursday was a later school day and I spent most of the morning and early afternoon catching up on emails and hanging out at the lodge before heading out to my 2:00 and 3:00 classes.  I must say, the trek from my 2:00 class in the Science and Engineering section to my 3:00 class in the Health section was quite a trek to make in under 10 minutes! But evidently many others had to make it as well and I was far from the last one there. I must say, this campus is quite large.  I’ve been on campus for nearly a week now and I still cannot quite find my way around all the time.  I’m afraid it may take a while to get fully settled and find the best pathways to classes (there are so many!) but at least I can finally read the map displays now so that’s good.  

            Speaking of getting to know campus, that evening was the Northreach young adult “Selfie Chase” as well and that was helpful in orienting on campus a little more. Essentially, we were given a sheet of tasks to do and riddles to solve around campus and we had to do as many tasks as we could in an hour all the while checking in with our tasks three at a time to gain points.

Reading our list of tasks

            There were things like “Go to the Woolies on campus and get the mangers signature” and “Carry a strangers groceries” or “Get change for a $2 coin in 5 cent pieces.” We also had to get a picture on one of the bridges with our whole team only the catch was that we couldn’t get caught by the troll hiding in the woods or we would lose 10 points.

"Go to Woolworths and carry a strangers groceries"

"Get a picture of your team with the crocodile covered in balloons blowing bubbles"

           

            And then there was this big bonus point opportunity where there would be this guy in an orange vest running around campus and if you saw him you had to try to catch him and rip one of the numbered tags off his vest. The number on the tag was how many bonus point you got. We got a lot of running out of that one throughout the game and we finally did catch him by the end.

"Find a poster of something you didn't know anything about then come back and tell us about it"
Yay Blue Mountain Coffee!

            We also had to do other things around campus like taking a picture with someone in uniform or finding a specific book in the library. At one point we had to fit out entire team in the smallest space possible  and then another time we had to recite a poem to a stranger.  And of course for everything we had to document it all with a picture or a video.

"Get a picture of your whole team with a random stranger wearing a blue shirt" Thank you random biker!

            It was loads of fun but I must say by the end we were all quite tired.  We ended it with a trip to MacDonald’s for some hangout time. Which, by the way, they call "Mackers" in traditional Aussie word shortening style.