Better late than never...

I know these next few blogs are obviously a few months late, but I figured better late than never (plus my blog is due today for Northeastern). I don't know why I put them off for so long. The last few weeks of being in Sydney were absolutely crazy and looking back now, it all seems so surreal. Classes ended on June 5th and then we had three final weeks to cram in everything we hadn't done and wanted to do..and also some things we DIDN'T want to do, i.e. study for exams.
I had SO much work the last week or two of classes. Becca and I had a 6000 word essay due for our Multicultural class which was a group effort, but we also had a poster presentation to go along with it and another 2000 word hand out to give to the class. The class was an education class, focused on learning and teaching, and the project was a research assignment where we had to incorporate some kind of multicultural aspect of Australia into lesson plans that one would use in a classroom. Because Becca and I are clearly not planning on becoming teachers in the near future, this was a little bit of a difficult task for us, but our teacher was very understanding and took into account our situation. We chose to do our project on gender and focused specifically on gender in sports, the workplace, the family and in education. By some giant miracle we were able to pop out a 24 page paper on the subject and hand it in on time, with a presentation and a poster (which contained lots of glue and glitter =]). We ended up getting a 20/20 on the presentation and did very well on the paper too.
My sports and film classes also had GIANT papers due at the end of the semester. Each, I believe, were 3000 words. An easy feat it seemed after completing the 6000 word paper for my other class. The film paper was on a movie that we had to choose and watch. The instructors gave us a pretty detailed outline of what the paper was to be like, so the actual content was not hard to come up with, it was the actual sitting down and writing it part that was more of a struggle. In true Laura fashion, I finished it last minute and turned it in, also getting a good grade in that class. For sports I REALLY pushed it to the last minute. The paper was due on June 28th and we were leaving Sydney on June 28th. I started and finished the paper in about 3 hours on June 27th, handed it in and was finally DONE!
In between the film paper and the sports paper, I had to take my econ final. Somewhere after the econ midterm, I realized that I was in way over my head with this class and towards the end of the semester, I concluded that even if I were able to pass the class (highly unlikely with a 50 average before the final), I would not be able to get a C or better which is what I needed for the class to count at Northeastern. I debated back and forth whether or not there was even any point in taking the final and after talking to my parents, decided to go and see how well I do (or in this case, how poorly). So, I went to the final, guessed on most of the multiple choice and made up all kinds of nonsense for the short answer and then wrote a note at the end explaining the reasons for my disastrous work and left. Luckily I was able to take the course pass/fail so that the fail (which I ended up getting by the way) won't show up on my transcript and I can take the class again this Spring.
The academics at the University of Sydney were surprisingly more intense that I ever expected. I should have never taken an econ class while abroad, but who knew something so universal could be taught so differently in another country. Although everyone jokes about how none of us did any work in Australia, I actually have to say that I had more work there than I have ever had at Northeastern. Of course the environment made it more difficult to complete this work and maybe I would have done better in the same econ class had I been at home, but I wouldn't take any of it back. I had the greatest semester of my life and learned more about myself (even academically) than I ever have before.

So, enough of the boring class stuff! On to the exciting vacations we took during study break!