Classes, Handball and Bratwurst

The next morning I had to peel myself out of bed cause I had 9.00 o'clock classes. It was the worst cause I had only had bout 4 hours of sleep. But somehow I made it and so I went to my first PR tutorial. There was quite a few people there that morning and we did the basic procedure of going over the unit outline. At some point that really start to piss you off cause all you're told is what you have to do not to fail, what assignments are due when, etc. But you also introduce yourselves to your tutor during the first class (or actually during the entire first week) so they know a bit about you. Tutorials are every week (unlike at Lufbra) and you go over the material covered in the lectures, discussing assignments and projects. The tutors even give you their personal details so you can contact them any time you have a problem with the work. I find that pretty cool cause you can get a lot more help from them to get the best possible mark. If people take that help is a different issue. I'm also a person who doesn't really like bugging the teachers about every little problem. I guess I learned that from German school where tutoring cost a hell lot of money (even if given by the teachers) and they taught you to be as independent as possible.
After the tutorial I met Denise, the German girl who is in charge of the Curtin Handball team. She was actually sitting in the same tutorial but I didn't recognize her at first. Denise came to Australia as a backpacker but met her current boyfriend in Perth. She then decided to stay here after she had seen how he studied at uni, which apparently she liked better than German unis and so she moved here to do her degree at Curtin. I find that pretty impressive. I think I wouldn't dare to do that. We had a talk for a bit but she had other classes to go to so she left. I decided to sit down at a cafe which is close to the next lecture hall I had to go to, have some coffee and do the reading for the afternoon tutorial in tradition of documentary. The first bit was pretty interesting and I read through it quickly. I later found out that the second chapter which I also read wasn't assigned for this week but for the following. Well, I won't have to do the reading now then.
The next lecture was also PR (so every Thursday I have the tute before the lecture). I met Denise again and we sat down together. The lecture was pretty interesting and the lecturer (a women who has worked for PR) was alright to listen to. It was just too long and by the end I found it hard to concentrate. I guess even though it says on the timetable that lectures are only 1 hour, lecturers often go for 1.5 hours. Also, all of the lecturers seem to be experts in their job so they come to Curtin to lecture. It's not like they hire scholars but rather experts who know their stuff.
After the lecture Denise and me decided to get some food. We walked to the Tav, where there is a Kebab shop right next door. I got a chickenkebab which wasn't too bad but the bread was way to chewy. Denise and I had a nice talk about the difference between Germany and Australia and she also invited me to come to play handball at Scarborough beach that night. I happily said yes. Since she had classes again, she left pretty soon.
I then decided to sit down at Henderson Court and do the rest of the reading (which we didn't discuss at all during that later tutorial). I sat there for about 45 minutes and then went to my next tutorial for introduction to broadcasting. When I got there the room was already full and the table were arranged pretty shitty cause they were grouped instead of in rows. I sat down where I found space but had to sit with the back to the blackboard. When the tutor came in I was quite surprised. He seemed only about 2-3 years older than me and he was pretty hot at that. ;)
He told us that he worked for ABC tv and also did some online radio stuff. (Again, another inside man). Once more, we started the tutorial off with everyone saying a little bit about themselves including name, what we studied and why we chose journalism (the unit was part of the journalism stream). I forgot all the names right there and then. After the intro we went over the unit outline (AGAIN). I got bored pretty quickly but he also gave us some important info that was not on the outline. Then we paired up for the presentations and already set all the dates. Mine is already in 2 weeks on commercial radio and I'm doing it with a chinese chick called Wendy. Luckily she's from Perth and speaks good English. I actually have to start doing some stuff already. Another good thing about Curtin is that unit grades are composed of quite a few things so when you fuck up one it doesn't entirely destroy you overall grade. You can take quizzes, exams and tests plus tutorial presentations (everyone has to do one on the topic discussed in the lecture) and essays. I think I will have to write essays for each unit but at least they don't all count 100% like for AJ last year.
Right after the broadcasting tutorial I had the tute for documentary. Luckily it was in the same building just a few rooms down the hall. Since we had finished early I grabbed some chocolate and diet coke from the vending machine and sat outside for a bit, regaining my energy (which was pretty low all day since I hadn't slept much anyway. I guess I won't be going out too much on Wednesday nights. Which still sucks cause that's whene everyone else goes out -.-). The documentary tute was pretty small (only 10 people but apparently there should have been 22) and we spent the first half discussing whether or not the tute should be moved from 17.00 to 16.00 o'clock the same day. Apparently there's a problem with the tute spaces and times and there's only 2 tutes for 50 people. Even though the unit coordinator came to discuss with us we couldn't reach a conclusion since quite a few people including me cannot do the tute at 16.00. We will be getting an email bout it soon and I hope it can be all sorted out quickly.
Then again we went over the unit outline but this time it was even more painful cause all the tutor did was read it out to us. We wasted a major amount of time and didn't discuss any of the reading at all (I was quite annoyed by that... but the tutor seemed incompetent anyway). Luckily the tutorial was only 1 hour and so I left for home quickly. There I got changed into Handball clothes and started writing my blog a little until Denise called to tell me to go outside so she can pick me up with the car. We were already late so we headed to the beach right away. Along the way we had a nice talk about this and that. She really is a nice girl.
The ride took bout 30 minutes and when we finally got to the beach we were late for 5 minutes. Apparently everyone had been waiting for us cause as soon as we got there, some guys went to get the goals and the lining (which consisted of plastic thingies that were secured in the sand with metal hooks). It took about another 20 minutes until we started playing. It wasn't practice but rather playing just for fun. I was a bit confused about the rules at first cause apparently you only have 4 players (including the goalie) but you can have two goalies who can switch and go all the way up to offense. There's also no dribbling (you couldn't do it on the sand anyway) and the half circles on a regular field are just lines on the sand. The field is about half the size of a normal one as well. I had quite some fun playing but running in the sand is a thing I wouldn't reccommend unless you wanna get quite some excercise. We played in guys and girls teams and since there were more guys there was 2 guy teams. We played each other until we didn't want to anymore. So after bout 1 hour we packed up again.
The majority of the people there were Europeans (Swiss, Danish, German, Norwegian) who had moved to Perth permanently or who were there for quite a while to work. One of the guys (he was Australian) was having a BBQ that night so he invited all of us over. After some thinking Denise decided to go and so we drove to the guy's place. There we found that he had gotten German Bratwurst and some Sauerkraut. I guess he wanted to do us a favor. We ate the Bratwurst with hotdog buns which tunred out to be quite yummie. Also, it was free food afterall and I had been starving. Unfortunately the Bratwurst (even though it was from a German place) was missing the spices again (just like the one at Fremantle market), but it was still good. We stayed for bout 1 hour, just having dinner, talking and playing some FIFA 09 on the playstation. At some point it was Perth Glory againt Eintracht Frankfurt. The guy playing Perth was better and so Frankfurt lost 0-2.
Since Denise had been up all day, she was very tired and also wanted to get home to her boyfriend so we decided to leave early. On the way back she had to get gas and so we stopped at a gas station, where she chose the wrong (or so she thought) gas type. She panicked and called her boyfriend but it turned out that she had only chosen Premium Unleaded instead of the normal Unleaded which she used to put it every other time. It was actually quite funny to see her freak out about it cause I already knew that it wasn't a big problem. We had a laugh about it afterwards. Denise dropped me off at my place and after I got home I was so tired that I skyped with Pati shorty and then went to bed right away. Afterall, I had stayed up from 9.oo o'clock on and was running around all day.