Australia Day

It's now my second week at UMass and I'm having an awesome time. My room mate and I dressed up for Australia Day and gave out tattoos for people to wear. As you can see, we went a bit over the top...

I went to an ice hockey game on the weekend which was fantastic! All of the students here really get behind the UMass sports teams so the ice hockey centre was packed to capacity. UMass defeated Vermont 3-1 so everyone was particularly enthusiastic.

My classes are all going well so far. I've found that the focus here is more on assignments and projects as opposed to in Australia where the final exams are heavily weighted. The final exams here are around 20-25% of my overall mark whereas at UQ my finals can be anything up to 65%. This means I have quite a few assignments to do at the moment, but hopefully the final exam period won't be too stressful!

UMass

Some USA lingo for y'all:
soft drink is soda
gum boots are rain boots
rubbish is trash
biscuits are cookies
timetable is schedule
jumpers are sweaters
metric units are ANNOYING IMPERIAL UNITS!!!!

What a crazy week! I arrived (completely exhausted) in New York City on Wednesday night last week after a 30 hour trip. Bag weight: 19.5kg
I spent the first 2 days catching up on sleep, adjusting to the cold and buying warm clothes. On the third day I went to Central Park and China Town and then had to pack everything up again for the 5 hour bus ride to UMass at Amherst. Bag weight: 25kg! So maybe I bought a bit too much at the shops...
Although I only saw a fraction of New York, I'll be returning there later in the semester to check it out properly.

I arrived at UMass Amherst on Sunday afternoon and met my room mate, Catheline, who is lovely! My residence hall (what we call a college in Australia) is 21 floors high and I'm on the 7th floor. I met 2 other Australians who are studying here for the semester but they're not studying engineering. The food here is amazing - it is actually like Sizzler every day except healthier and with more variety. There's sushi, pizza, salads, stir fry, soft serve, waffles, fresh fruit, pasta, hamburgers, soups, bagels, omelettes, sandwiches and lots more. Everyone is really friendly too - especially when I say I'm from Australia.

Classes started yesterday and a major difference is that the class sizes are much smaller than at UQ. At UQ, most of my subjects have 100-200 people whereas here there are only about 30-50 people. This means that they are taught in a classroom instead of a big lecture hall. According to the people I've met in my classes, the subjects I'm taking are quite challenging, so it looks like I'm in for an interesting semester!

Here are some photos from New York and UMass including Central Park (first picture), Times Square (fourth picture), my residence hall (third last picture) and the library at UMass (last picture)

Hello 2010!

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed the festive season!

I've been flat out since uni finished working five days a week at Golder. Vac work is going great and I'm learning a lot, especially about the Queensland Gas Company (QGC) ponds located in the area around Chinchilla. QGC mine the coal seam gas (CSG) from the Surat Basin in South Western Queensland. CSG is a natural gas mostly made up of methane and is extracted through wells. However when the gas comes out, lots of pressurised water flows out of the well. This is where the ponds come in, and Golder who design the ponds. At the moment the water is left to evaporate in these ponds because it is not suitable for any other use. However there are investigations underway into treating this water. Strangely, I've also learnt a great deal about meerkats. Meerkats practise interdependent safety, where everyone looks out for each other, which is what Golder encourages in the workplace. They're also very cute, but I think that's beside the point...



I finish my summer holiday work with Golder this week as I have been accepted to the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, to undertake a semester of study abroad. I only mention this now because up until recently I was still organising subjects, housing and my visa and wasn't certain if the trip would eventuate. But now it's all sorted and I'm definitely going - I fly out on the 13th of January and start uni on the 19th of January! I'll be studying 4 engineering subjects: soil mechanics, fluid mechanics, transport engineering and waste water systems, as well as 1 astronomy subject which should be interesting haha. I've organised it all through UQ Abroad and despite the amount of time and effort I've put into planning it, I'd strongly recommend it to anyone as it's a great opportunity to study and live in a different country. I get credit for all of the engineering subjects as though I was studying them at UQ, so it doesn't add any time to my degree. I'll be living on campus and I'll have a room mate. I'll keep you posted via this blog on whether those American teen movies are an accurate portrayal of uni life.