first day of classes tomorrow

Tentative course list:

PHIL2074 - Modern Theories of Knowledge
PHIL2082 - Sex and Death: Philosophy of Biology
ENGL2056 - Renaissance and England
PHIL3071 - Adv Continental Philosophy

I may be dropping Mod Theories of Knowledge (PHIL2074) for the course Adv Analytic Philosophy (PHIL3072) since I've gotten permission to take it. I should be up to my ears in reading regardless.

Oh right, and the standard undergraduate degree takes 3 years to complete in Australia -- then some go on to a 4th year for Honors but you have to maintain I think at least a Distinction level ("D") across all of your classes to be an Honors student. If you're in your first year at university, you're a "first year," and likewise for second, third, fourth year, etc. I kept calling people sophomores and juniors and I was getting funny looks until someone kind of mentioned "I've always thought it was cool that you guys have a name for each year." Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, and Senior were so foreign to most people that they didn't even know the order. I kept getting "so 'junior' -- that's like your second year?" or "'sophomore' isn't that your first year?" It was amusing to me to have to constantly explain that.

The university grading system is different, too. At the ANU they have High Distinction (HD) which is 80-100%, Distinction (D) 70-79%, Credit (C) 60-69%, Pass (P) 50-59%, and Fail (F) below 50%. I've heard different things about how difficult the grading system is. Someone told me that it's pretty tough to get all High Distinctions and that it can even be difficult to get a Distinction in a class. I guess that's as it should be.

I practiced cricket for the first time today. I can pitch the ball pretty well, but I still haven't gotten the hang of batting, nor gotten used to the idea that you don't (can't) strike out in cricket.

They do a lot of competitive inter/intra-college (college = residence hall) sport here. There's a huge running event called "Inward Bound," or usually just "IB," where participants get blindfolded and taken out to some unrecognizeable destination at 9 in the evening (so it's dark) at which point they then take off their blindfolds and compete in groups of 4 to make it back to campus before all the other groups. This event comes in a few different levels or distances. There's a 20K, 100K (!), and a few intermediate distances. But the distances listed are decieving because you also have to "find" your way back and are likely to run more kilometers than are listed. Right now I'm training for the 20K -- we'll see...

I'm going to give Rugby and Australian rules football a go as well. I'll let you know how that goes.

So there was an Eastern Bloc Bar Night in the Buttery the other evening, then we had a huge campus wide toga party two nights ago (complete with an eating-of-strange-things competition, a cardboard tube javelin throw event, and interpretive dancing), there's a masquerade ball tonight, and more to come. All the events are probably going to slow down a bit since classes start tomorrow, but other things like sports are going to be picking up.

Huge Nine Inch Nails concert in Sydney tonight. Didn't get tickets in time and would have had to miss classes tomorrow. I'm still planning on going to a few concerts while I'm here, though. Definitely want to visit Sydney and Melbourne, and I'm starting to think it would be pretty easy to catch a cheap (so I'm told) ferry to Tasmania while I'm in Melbourne. I'm still working out dates and times. It's going to be good though. That's basically my feeling right now.