Job hunting and a brilliant weekend

Hello! It's been a fairly busy week so this should be a good post I think and importantly, I have some nice pictures to add to it from this weekend. I last wrote on Monday last week, so I shall continue from Tuesday...

I had a long lie again on Tuesday morning - no classes for the day so when I got up I had some breakfast and then caught up on the news and latest football gossip. The plan for the rest of the day was to sort out some uni things which I had neglected to do until now and then play football in the afternoon. I had to complete my SAAS student funding application, which basically ensures that my tuition fees at Glasgow are paid for, as well as completing my student registration for the new year at Glasgow. Even though I'm studying in Australia, I still have to be registered at Glasgow and have all my financing in place for the beginning of the semester. I quickly hit a stumbling block however after realising that I couldn't remember my SAAS username and password in order to access the website, but I knew the details were on some paperwork at home - I just had to wait until someone was awake back home to retrieve them for me. Productive plans postponed until later in the day, I went off to play football.

On Wednesday I had classes once more, but my Intellectual Property class still had a reading week which meant I could head home after my first class and have some lunch before returning for the later class. I used the remaining time between my classes very productively, by watching some Ready, Steady, Cook whilst having lunch, followed by some other mind-numbing daytime TV to really set myself up well for the rest of the day. After my second class of the day, I came home, made some dinner - after ANOTHER trip to Coles for some groceries - and watched a few episodes of Arrested Development before going to bed.

Thursday brought about a spur of productiveness - I'm not sure if that's actually a word, but it hasn't been underlined by this spell-checker, so I'm going to stick with it. No classes today, but I got up quite early with the intention of heading to the library and doing some work. After breakfast, a shower and the daily ritual of catching up on the latest football news from back home I got dressed and headed to campus to find myself a spot in the library. I'm sure mum and dad will be pleased to know that I was finally getting round to properly pursuing a job here and planned to write myself an entirely new CV from scratch and start handing them out to local shops and cafes. Just as I found a spot in the incredibly packed library - do none these people have homes to sit in, I wondered - and got my laptop out, I realised that I had left the charger at home and had less than 20 minutes of battery life remaining. Mission aborted. I trudged home after stopping by the bank in order to FINALLY pick up my card. I've been here over a month now and only just got it from the Commonwealth branch on the uni campus - totally crap service, and I'd recommend anyone coming here to use a different bank.

After heading home I sat down to get my CV written; I ended up deciding to make an Apple store-specific version with the intention to try and get a job in the Broadway Shopping Centre. After ensuring that I was happy with the final version, I walked to the library at uni to use a printer, before going to the Apple store to hand it in. Getting to grips with a new library and learning how to print things was quite a task, but I eventually managed it and got my cover letter and CV looking pristine - signed it off and everything. Happy with my efforts and feeling confident that I could get myself a position working at Apple given my experience in Comet and Currys, I headed to the top floor of the Broadway Shopping Centre. After chatting to a member of staff in the shop who had only started two days previously, I was informed that Apple deal with all of their job applications online - I had essentially wasted my time, and my printing credits, so headed home once more.

On Friday we had another really good Commercial Dispute Resolution class and afterwards I headed home to have some lunch before heading out to play football again; the plan was to play for around an hour with the Soccer Society lads in Victoria Park and then immediately up to St. Paul's Oval to play with another group. It proved a little too much and I've been suffering from a really tight right hamstring since, after being forced to head home early from the second game. I don't really get injuries playing football - at least none which actually stop me from playing, so it's been a bit unusual for me. I'll need to give it a bit of a break before I play again, which is frustrating.

Saturday morning was another fairly early rise so that I could tackle a new, generic version of my CV and I returned to the library and printed off a few more copies. The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent walking around almost every shop, cafe and restaurant in the local area attempting desperately to have someone offer me a job. It felt like for every CV which I actually handed over there must have been two or three people inform me that they simply weren't taking anyone else on right now. It was a relentless task and one which brought back memories of doing the same trip around all the local shops back in Falkirk a few years back. It was a fairly unsuccessful trip in general, however the guy in the Nike store said he'd keep me in mind since vacancies often came up in the shop, and a cafe nearby are also taking people on, so fingers crossed. The cafe itself would be my ideal choice I think, since it is really close to my flat and it's also a chocolate themed place! It's called Max Brenner's - I've just Google searched it and had no idea that it was a massive chain of places! They sell all sorts of chocolate which is just right up my street - chocolate pizzas, chocolate cake, chocolate bars, chocolate drinks - pretty much everything you can think up! I think I'd enjoy working there, and it's definitely a place Auntie Jean would enjoy! Haha!

On Saturday night, Jessica, Alex, Jordan and I made our weekly visit to the Morrison for one dollar oysters, before we headed to Darling Harbour to meet up with some other international students and watch the fireworks. Pretty much all year round here, they have fireworks on a Saturday night at Darling Harbour - probably the nicest part of Sydney, where there are countless fancy yachts, lots of cafes and bars, a massive IMAX cinema, as well as the Hard Rock Cafe and other nice seafood restaurants. The fireworks were great and totally free, which meant there was a huge turnout of people to watch them. We ended up going to a few bars afterwards and ended up in Sidebar, which is a sort of nightclub/bar close to Central Station - it's also really handy since it's only a 2 minute walk home at the end of the night!

Here's some photos, some of which even include me!

In order: Alex, Jordan and I, then Jessica and I, and finally Jordan and I - all taken at the Morrison.

This next picture isn't a very good quality, and doesn't really do the place justice, but it's Darling Harbour overlooking the pontoons. The lights around the waters edge are all cafes, bars and restaurants. The next picture is the fireworks, which are very, very difficult to take photos of!

Today is now Sunday and after a long lie from last night, I headed to Bondi Beach this afternoon to meet up with Jordan and Jessica who had made their way to the beach much earlier. I caught the train and then a bus from the city centre out to the coast; Bondi is such a lovely area and exactly like you would imagine it - full of surf shops, everyone wears flip-flops and shorts and it has a real "beachy" vibe to the whole place. First thing I did when I got off the bus was grab an ice cream for a little shop before heading down to the beach to meet up with the other two. The first suggestion which was made was to go to the official Ben & Jerry's shop to get some ice cream; even though I'd just had an ice lolly, I wasn't kidding myself and knew some Ben & Jerry's would go down a treat. The ice cream was really brilliant and the flavours on offer made choosing one or two really difficult. I eventually settled on a tub with a scoop each of Chocolate Therapy and Coconut Seven Layer - both of which were excellent!

This is a photo of Bondi just as the sun was starting to go down and people were heading home. The beach was so busy today and I can't even imagine what it will be like in the summer! You can still see quite a lot of keen surfers catching the last waves of the weekend in the water.

I'm now totally shattered, it's almost 11pm and I can barely keep my eyes open. We had a big dinner in the flat tonight, and I think I overate after skipping lunch - except the ice cream - so I think that's definitely added to how tired I feel now. Here's a picture of dinner - the dish on the left was a kind of spicy noodles with fish, almost certainly the hottest thing I have ever eaten although it was really tasty too. The dish on the right is Korean style fried rice, which was excellent! I'm going to have a brilliant recipe collection when I come home!

Class tomorrow, so I'm off to bed now.

Jamie

One month gone already!

Mum and Auntie Jean have been pestering me to keep this updated again, so I'm forcing myself to sit down and write another post. I have a week of events to catch up on, but it has been a quieter week really, so it shouldn't be too long!

Tuesday 13th August was the first day after my last update, and I had another chilled out morning after a long lie - no classes for the day. I feel like I keep repeating myself on this with respect to which classes I have but my mum keeps asking me which classes I have on such-and-such day and I don't think she's quite grasped that it's always the same yet; Dad correctly pointed out, "If she read the blog she'd know that!" After my quiet morning, a friend and I met for some lunch in Chinatown in the afternoon. I had sticky honey chicken, which was excellent and there was definitely a huge choice of dishes you wouldn't ordinarily see in any Chinese take-away back home - only solution will be to try them all out, I think! Before our food was served, we were presented with a little tea-pot filled with warm, weak tea, which was pretty strange and not particularly palatable, however I did drink a cup in pursuit of good manners. This plan was promptly wasted when the waiter practically ran over and filled my cup from the teapot once more - thanks for that, mate. Afterwards we bought some cakes from a Chinese bakery and ate them in the sunshine in Victoria Park - excellent afternoon, centred around good food.

Wednesday was another day of classes, however Competition Law was cut short half way through as the lecturer had a child minder issue; in truth it had been a long day and I was glad to get home sharp. I went into Coles on my walk home and did some more food shopping. I feel like I'm in the supermarket every other day or so, picking up odd items for the flat. Wednesday night was spent watching some episodes of Still Game after cooking dinner - I had totally forgotten just how funny a programme Still Game is since it had been so long since I watched it. I've stayed up late three nights this week watching it and I've seen nearly 4 full series worth of episodes!

Early in the week I also had a look around the University of Sydney Social Societies website to see what clubs and societies there were to join during my time here. I saw quite a few which caught my attention - mainly the Soccer Society (obviously!) as well as the Wakeboard and Water-Ski Society. The Soccer Society play every Tuesday and Friday and the lads I've been playing with the last few weeks play Monday and Thursdays, so it means I can play 3 or 4 times most weeks which is great in this weather! The Wakeboard and Water-Ski Society is something which I'm really keen to try once or twice before I go home but I think it's too expensive a hobby for me to be taking part on every trip to the water. Must get a job soon!

Thursday brought another long lie and a chilled out day before doing some shopping - again! - and then some uni work in the afternoon, followed by some TV at night. I caught an old episode of Australia's Got Talent, before the new series started on Sunday; it's a totally mad programme over here, Dawn French is on the judging panel and it's hilarious! Thursday night also brought about the FA Centenary match between England and Scotland at Wembley, but I decided not to stay up late to watch it since I had my 10am class at uni the next morning. Turned out that Scotland did alright and lost 3-2, but the biggest positive for me was that the United players did quite well. That reminds me, in order to try and keep any football chat in this blog to a minimum, I've started another United-specific blog to share my thoughts and views on the team this season and beyond. I'll post the web address at the bottom of this post if anyone fancies reading it. Friday brought my final day of classes for the week at uni and on Friday afternoon I met up with the guys in the Soccer Society for a game in the afternoon.

The plan on Saturday was to go to the Morrison once again so we could keep taking advantage of the $1 dollar oysters for the month of August and get some cheap drinks into the bargain. Afterwards, my plan was to meet up with the people from the Soccer Society once more to go to a different pub, not far from campus, in order to watch the first match of the Premier League season. However, I ended up going out with some mates to a few bars instead and arrived home at a pleasant 4am. We went to one place called the Scary Canary near Darling Harbour, which was a great little bar/club and I actually met a girl there who was in my school year at Beaconhurst - unbelievable! We had a great night and after a trip to McDonalds I arrived back in the flat to watch the United game; I managed to find an online stream showing the game, saw we were 2-0 up and decided that it was time for bed. Poor effort from myself, but it had been a long night, in fairness.

Sunday brought a bit of a hangover after our long night, and I spent the day watching TV - Australia's Got Talent and X-Factor were the highlights. I'd urge everyone to go onto YouTube and search for the video from Australia's Got Talent of the guy in the wheelchair who does acrobatics - and yes, you did read that correctly. It's amazing, go watch it! Today is now Monday and I've had another day of classes today, except Intellectual Property where we have a reading week this week. I came home after class, watched the new episode of Breaking Bad and made some dinner. It feels like this post has been a bit rushed and I've promised myself once again that I'm going to keep it updated more frequently to make it easier to remember all the things I've been doing. I'm not sure what my plans are for the rest of the week, but I also promise that I'll get a few photos for the next post too!

Today marks exactly one month to the date that I landed in Sydney, and I've had so many great experiences already - several months more of a similarly brilliant time would be great!

Here's the address for my United blog:

keeptheredflagflyinghigh.blogspot.com

Until next time,
Jamie

Another busy weekend

This update is a little overdue given that I had to go back and re-read my last post to check where I was up to and what I had already written about. I shall pick things up from Friday 9th August.

Friday morning is my 'early' start for uni during the week, where I'm faced with the unenviable task of getting up and taking the short walk to campus for my class which begins at 10am. It's a hard life. Since my timetable doesn't change from week to week, I still only had the one class - 4 hours of Commercial Dispute Resolution. After being a little shocked at just how much I enjoyed the first seminar of this particular course, my fingers were crossed that it wasn't simply the lecturer filling the first class with all the interesting, fun content, which would then be followed by drab legislation and power-point slides. However, I wasn't dissapointed and the class was once again one of the most engaging and enjoyable of the week. During this particular class we had an hour long talk from Derek Minus, a barrister who also practices in the fields of mediation and arbitration - his expertise and knowledge were vast and it was really interesting listening to his real life applications of the theories we were learning. Another good day at uni done and dusted.

The rest of Friday was pretty much my ideal day - totally football orientated. I went home after class, made some lunch and fired up Football Manager on my laptop. This was just a little stop-gap before I got changed and headed back up to the uni campus for the now weekly game of football with a collection of truly mixed students - guys, a couple of girls, people from Europe, Brazil, Australia and several countries in Asia too. It was another really enjoyable game and we played until the light forced us to call the next goal the winner, and I headed home. Shattered. Friday night meant that it was time for Rio Ferdinand's testimonial match, which would be kicking off at 7.30pm back home in the UK - I had the pleasure of setting the alarm on my phone for 4.25am in order to get up and watch the game. By the time the full time whistle was blown I was half wishing that I hadn't bothered since my team lost 3-1 and we didn't play very well either. Back to bed and I slept in till around 12 noon on Saturday before I got up, made some 'breakfast' and had a shower. I didn't really do very much on Saturday afternoon, except go to the shops for some groceries, and a look in some clothes shops which I hadn't been in before, and finally to go into the post office to find the prices for sending things home. Turns out it's quite expensive, so I may have to rethink my plans to send anything back until I get a job!

The weather forecast for Sunday was for wall to wall sunshine and warm temperatures - granted, it is often like that here, but we're moving towards the real nice weather now! Jessica, Alex and I made plans to go and visit the Royal Botanical Gardens, near the harbour front and enjoy a day in the sunshine. We caught the train at Central which took us down to Circular Quay, taking in another stunning view of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House - we commented that we didn't think the novelty of seeing that view would ever wear off! The Botanic Gardens are literally right next to the Opera House in Sydney, so we took the opportunity to walk around the famous wave-shaped building before wandering around the gardens for a while. Most of the gardens aren't even in proper bloom yet, and they're still spectacular - it's quite amazing that I'm actually living and studying in such a nice place right now. I'll let the photos speak for themselves, once more.

In order: from the gardens looking back towards the skyscrapers of the CBD; a very brave duck who wanted some bread whilst we were eating lunch; and a whole load of people enjoying food, drink and music in the sunshine by the harour-side.

Almost every day I have to sort of remind myself that I'm actually on the other side of the world. The other thing is that the time is simply flying by - I've been here almost a month already, and we're into our third week of classes at uni! Unbelievable! Karin told me before I left that I had to make sure to try and be aware of all the things I was doing, take everything in, and appreciate it whilst it lasts and I'm certainly trying to stick to her advice.

After returning home, a few of us in the flat decided to cook dinner together - we overestimated things a bit and ended up with considerably more food than required, but it was a strong effort for Sunday dinner. Below there's photographic proof that I'm eating well, for the benefit of my mum! Sunday night brought another football match, this time the season curtain raiser as Man Utd took on Wigan in the Community Shield. This time since it was only a 2pm kick off back home, it meant a much more respectable 11pm kick off over here. I can tell it's going to be a season of long nights and tired days in pursuit of supporting my team this year!

Today is now Monday and I've had another full day of classes at uni. Afterwards I came home, chilled out for a little while and made some dinner for myself. Stuck the TV on when I was cooking to see that there was an episode of Top Gear on; it's really strange watching it here because it seems lasts for much longer given the inclusion of adverts! I've also just not long finished watching the first episode of the new series of Breaking Bad and it was even better than expected! Anyone who doesn't watch it, then start from the beginning and you'll be hooked in no time at all. Great show!

A quick mention of things which are happening at home right now; good luck to Cameron on his sailing trip - it'll be mega, but you'll probably be sea sick at some stage! Hope Andy and Hayley have a brilliant holiday in Tunisia; and lastly the same for Jason, Dean, Jack and Gareth in Cancun. Definitely missing my pals!

Also, I forgot to mention in my last post a massive well done to my sister, Kerry, on doing superbly in her Standard Grades. I hope if you haven't pestered mum and dad into buying you an iPhone by now, that it's definitely on your to-do list!

Until next time,
Jamie

First taste of "Scottish weather" here!

The other day whilst flicking through some of my photographs which I've taken since I've been in Australia, I remembered that when we were at the zoo last week, we spotted one of those planes which writes messages in the sky. Pretty sure it's the first time I've ever seen one in real life, and it was quite cool watching it go back and forth, trying to work it what it was writing. Turns out it was some kind of website, but I haven't been on to look at what it's about yet. I guess the advertising has worked though, since I'm now passing on the message to anyone who's reading this blog!

The other thing I saw last week, which I also forgot to mention in a previous blog, was the motorbike riders we spotted whilst out one night down at the Rocks - the part of the city right next to the Harbour Bridge. Motorbike riders alone of course isn't very exciting news, except these guys were all wearing onesies! It was quite a sight, and lots of passers-by were stopping to take photos and videos. Not something which you see every day anyway!

On Tuesday this week, I had another long lie - I'm really enjoying not having any consecutive days of uni classes, quite unusual that every other day is the "weekend" for me here. I got up and headed up to uni since I had to go to the campus bank branch to sort out some things, and also to buy my harbour cruise ticket. The harbour cruise was an event organised for the Wednesday night, for all of the International Students once more. I definitely considered it as an opportunity not to be missed, so quickly snapped up a ticket. Tuesday afternoon was fairly chilled as I did some work for class on Wednesday and then went for a swim in the outdoor pool in Victoria Park. Tried to take a quick picture, since it's a really nice pool, full Olympic sized and set in the picturesque surroundings of the park - however, photography at a swimming pool isn't exactly encouraged, so the photo I took is a bit rubbish!

Wednesday saw me take in another full day of classes which ended at 6pm; not leaving much time to walk home, drop off my bag, get quickly changed and head up to Darling Harbour before our cruise left at 7pm! To make matters worse it was pouring rain - quite unusual here, but it meant we had to jump in a taxi to save getting soaked on the walk to the harbour. Usually, a taxi would be quicker, but in a large city like Sydney, traffic is a nightmare and progress was terribly slow. Eventually we reached the harbour with around 5 minutes to spare - relief!

Apart from the rain, which came in spells throughout the evening, the harbour cruise was a lot of fun - we got some great views of the city skyline at night, and captured some great photos on the trip too. It was also good to catch up with some of the other International Students who I hadn't really seen since the first week of orientation and events, and meet some new people once more. Towards the end of the evening, there was a bit of an unexpected treat - I had been chatting to a Norwegian girl on the upper deck of the boat, near the Captain's area, and we were really, really cold, so she asked the Captain if we could step inside the cabin! It was much warmer and he was also fine with us having a go piloting the ship! We got to take in the sights of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House on the way back from the best seat in the house!

Today is now Thursday 8th August, which means I haven't had any classes today, so had a quiet morning followed by a walk around some parts of the main city where I hadn't visited so far. I didn't stay out long since the weather was still horrible - back in the flat no, it's beginning to get dark and the rain is still on and off every half hour or so. Although I did wander down a street in Chinatown on my way home, where there is a seafood restaurant with large fishtanks outside. One of the tanks contained huge crabs; I got a picture which I'll post below, but they were quite incredible! I've never seen any so large before, even in a zoo or aquarium - unbelievable! Also quite a significant date today, because a few months back the Sun newspaper ran the headline that today would be the day Manchester United unveiled Cristiano Ronaldo, after completing his transfer from Real Madrid - I'll believe it when I see it!

Just dawned on me that the photograph above does absolutely no justice to the size of those animals - they were HUGE! Consider that the tank is probably about 3-4 feet wide.

The other thing which I did this afternoon was purchase a ticket for Stereosonic, which is a huge dance music festival here at the end of November. It's held at the Olympic Park, where the 2000 Sydney Games were located, it's two days long and the line-up is fantastic - Calvin Harris, David Guetta, Zedd, Above & Beyond, Alesso, Sebastian Ingrosso, Showtek, Bingo Players and loads more! Should be a brilliant weekend to celebrate the end of exams!

I'll try and do another update in a few days.

Jamie

This post is pretty much all about food

This is an attempt to keep this blog updated more regularly, so hopefully this post will be a little bit shorter!

Firstly, there are one or two things which I think I forgot to mention in my previous blog posts which slipped my mind at the time. The first thing was the car crash which myself and a few others witnessed about a week ago! It wasn't a bad one and nobody was injured or anything like that, but there was an incredible noise as a driver ploughed into the back of another car at a set of traffic lights. There was smashed glass from the lights all over the road and considerable damage to the two cars, but both drivers got out and were fine, thankfully. It certainly shook up our night out though! I'm sure there was something else too, but I can't remember what it was - maybe it'll come back to me...

Anyway, my last update was posted late on Friday night; Saturday the 3rd August began with an excellent long lie, followed by a shower and some breakfast. I had no plans for the day until the afternoon, so with the football league season kicking off in England in a few hours time, I spent the morning reading the sports sections of the British newspapers. It's a little bit odd getting all of my news online when I'm used to reading newspapers and watching TV back home. On that note, I heard a rumour from my sister that my mum is considering changing her daily newspaper from the Daily Mail to the Guardian, or something else; I would just like to take this opportunity to publicly declare myself very much in favour of the proposed move. Furthermore, it's probably not surprising how little news coverage the Australians are giving the current Ashes series, where England are running away with things a bit. After the recent Lions victory down here too, sport is not a popular topic of conversation in the pubs at the moment!

On Saturday afternoon I met up with some other International Students for an arranged game of football - it's alright to call it football in this context, since most of them were Europeans and knew what I was talking about! This was the first time that I had played football closer to the middle of the day and it was melting! It was quite a hot day, but I have to keep reminding myself that this is winter here. I've also noticed a distinct difference in the quality of the grass which we play on here, given that most of the time we're making do with a rugby or Aussie rules pitch to play football on. This makes the ball unpredictable as it bounces and skips across different lumps and bare patches; it's a real test of your ball control.

For Saturday night's entertainment we had arranged to meet up at the Morrison again - which is the place where we previously ate oysters after our day out at the zoo. For the month of August, every day between 6pm and 7pm they're having an "Oyster Hour" which means you can order the shelled delicacies for a mere dollar each - fantastic value considering they are usually sold for four times the price, in the very same restaurant, any other time of the year. The truly brilliant thing about going to the Morrison on a Saturday night however, is that they also have a drinks Happy "Hour", which isn't really an hour because it lasts from 5pm till 7pm - ideal! We headed along at 5pm sharp and had a few drinks before a bell was rung to mark the time at 6pm and you were able to go and order a platter of oysters; the place was packed and there was literally a queue of 10-15 people at the bar all ready to place their orders.

Afterwards we ended up going for some Chinese food since we were all starving - apparently even though they are expensive, oysters aren't the most filling of dinners. The menu was all in Chinese, since we decided on a restaurant near the Chinatown part of the city, which made choosing a little bit tricky. There certainly wasn't any chips and curry, or sweet and sour chicken to be spotted anywhere amongst the vast array of options. Eventually, I spotted chicken teriyaki with noodles, and feeling confident that I had made a selection which I would enjoy, I proceeded to order my food. It turned out to be really nice and even though you could probably describe the place as a takeaway, it was far better than any Chinese food we get at home. The night proceeded with a few more pubs before heading home for a quick - still a little intoxicated - FaceTime chat with those back home and off to bed.

Photo of the Chinese from Saturday.

I spent Sunday chilling out, catching up on the highlights of Saturday's football and doing some work which I had to prepare for my uni classes on Monday morning. It's not Monday night, and I had another 3 classes today which all went quite well - glad to say that at the beginning of week two I'm not finding any of them boring, which is good news. Lastly, I've also came to the conclusion tonight whilst cooking some broccoli to go with my dinner, that whilst I am a pretty decent cook (which will be proven by the following picture) I do miss my mum's cooking.

I ruined the broccoli - overcooked it.

Until next time,
Jamie

Firstly, the broccoli and a pretty good effort at a medium-rare steak. Before anyone cracks any "poor student" jokes, it was a cheap cut of meat, from the supermarket! Still, tasted fantastic though - compliments to the chef. Second photo is a quick snapshot of my uni timetable.

Getting used to life down under!

I know that in my last blog I mentioned an intention to update this a little more regularly, however that's not really been successful, so this will probably be another rather large update I think! I'm also aware that a lot of this post is going to be centred on my classes and uni time, so it may be a little "law-heavy" but hopefully I'll have some other interesting stuff in there for anyone who isn't interested in the academic side of things.

Today is Friday 2nd August, it has been a little under a week since my last blog post and I've just finished my first full week of proper classes in Sydney. My timetable here is quite interesting, both in terms of the schedule of classes and the classes themselves. Usually in Glasgow we have large lectures which will be held in large rooms with maybe 150-200 people as well as smaller tutorials of 10-15 people which are more participatory and require a reasonable amount of preparation. On the other hand, here we just have seminars - which is almost like a hybrid of a lecture and a tutorial. The class number is quite small for a university class, or at least compared to what I'm used to, and there is a certain similarity to a high school class. There's a lot more participation, questions being asked and general activity in the class; it actually proves for a more enjoyable class I'm finding so far, even though you're expected to contribute a bit more. I'm also hoping that the on-going participation and necessity to be involved in the class will be helpful when it comes to studying for exams and there should be less need to frantically cram information in the final weeks!

The other difference that I've found about uni from my time here so far is that I'm only actually in three days per week! I only have classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, which is a great way to break up my week a little. So, Monday of my first proper week began with Anti-Discrimination Law, which was an interesting experience given that I had no expectations of what these "seminars" would be like whatsoever, (Gary!) Personal joke if any of the fives lads are reading this! The class was quite interesting and fairly enjoyable, and it was the first of many classes where some of us would have to forget about, "How would EU Law apply to this matter?" This class was followed by Intellectual Property: Trademarks and Patents which was another fascinating insight into a subject area which hadn't been studied by myself before. It concerns the real life examples of all the biggest companies and brands in the world, and again seems like something which will really hold my interest this semester. The third class was Competition Law and it's probably the one class which I have done something similar to back home, since a significant section of the study of EU Law concerns competition legislation. Whilst not quite as engaging a class, I found the comparison between the EU and Australian approaches interesting, both in the similarities and the differences. These three classes are then repeated on Wednesday, after I spent Tuesday catching up on some household chores and some work for uni classes the rest of the week - quite literally day one and we've been given homework already.

Thursday night brought around another game of football, which was good fun once again - I could definitely get used to playing a couple of times per week and with virtually guaranteed sunshine every day. I tried to get a fairly early night after coming home from football and making myself some dinner (pasta and tomato sauce, if you're interested in that sort of thing) since I had a 10am start for class on Friday morning. The final subject that I'm taking for this semester is Commercial Dispute Resolution - another which I had no prior experience of studying. This was one class which I wasn't particularly looking forward to, purely because it was 4 hours long, from 10am till 2pm, once per week for the whole semester. "Surely we're going to have at least a break or two during that time?" and "Will we get to stop for some lunch or a coffee maybe?" were both popular topics of discussions among those of us who were taking the class. As it turns out, it's been my favourite class so far. I can't quite put my finger on why it was so good, but the lecturer was excellent, the subject itself really seemed to capture my imagination, it seems totally different to any other subject which I've previously studied and of course, he allowed us a break to go and grab a coffee - although I have to say, the 4 hours flew by.

I realise that I've just written a considerable wall of text, so I won't add any more to this particular post. I've pretty much covered all of my first week of classes anyway, so this seems like a nice place to round off for now. For anyone reading this who's disappointed not to find any scenic photographs attached to this latest post, then I can only apologise!

Jamie