Happy Half Birthday To Me!

This weekend disappointed me because I had wanted to travel somewhere and see something other than PE. We didn’t get a chance since most of us had gone to the Wild Coast the a few weekends before so we were trying to save up some money. Basically we went out each night this weekend and I laid out when the sun was up! Instead of talking about my boring weekend I shall talk about my new classes. I am now taking Botany and Zoology, which is why I studied abroad in the first place. I had both very early in the morning on Monday. Botany was first and this was my first large lecture. There were maybe about 60 people in the room, which is like triple what a large class is at LEC. I sat in the middle front so I could pay attention and see the board. I didn’t know anyone because the room was filled with South Africans that are all in the same major (probably botany) and take all their classes together. So if the professor asked any questions about like a timetable, the whole class (except me) had the same schedule, so there was no reason for me to say anything as the minority. We went overrules like any other first day of class and they state that I can not miss more than one class. This is a huge blow. Although I almost never miss class at LEC, here it makes sense to skip a Friday or Monday class to travel and see the country. The professors that get classes with a majority of international students understand that we travel so they don’t schedule tests close to long weekends, but since I am in two classes this term with all South Africans, I really have no other option but to not skip! This might interfere with my plans to see Victoria Falls in Botswana sometime in May. I looked over the syllabus for Botany and realized that I had learned or atleast breeze over most of the topics in Bio2 as a sophomore, so I am not to worried about the class, just the fact that I always have to be there. After Botany I went straight to Zoology where I knew Chelsea and Kristen atleast. We were the only internationals in the class, so when they went over timetables we again had no say. We are in a class with mostly education majors meaning that zoology isn’t their forte, which is nice to think that they all are genius. The whole class was spent arguing about when we will have our practicals for the semester. We finally figured it out after a lot of yelling and Chelsea and I have labs on Tuesday for 3 hours. Three hours seems like a lot, but today when we had our lab the time went by super fast and we even had to stay after to finish our lab. Most other people left before they were finished because they had another class, but Chelsea and I just wanted to get it all finished before we left. I also don’t have volunteering this week because they are on their fall break, which means no homework. I had to switch my volunteer days to Mondays now because of my scheduling conflict with a class. I finally have all my postcards finished and will be sending them out tomorrow! So anyone reading this, don’t expect to get it for atleast 6 or 7 weeks. I should probably just bring them home with me! Tomorrow Kristen and I are volunteering at the SAMREC penguin sanctuary, which will be similar to me volunteering at Penitentiary Glenn in Kirtland this past summer. Today was also a Day Without Shoes to raise awareness of kids who don’t have any shoes and are subjected to infectious diseases. A lot of people on campus didn’t have shoes on today which was very nice to see so many people get involved! Shout out to Olivia for collecting over 1,000 shoes for this special day and donating them to Jamaica!!!! I have to get to sleep early tonight so that I can wake up early ready to play with the penguins!!! Cheers!