July 16

This morning I slept in then spent the rest of the morning just lounging around and enjoying the lack of things that needed to be done. :) It wasn't raining this morning, and there was only a breif raindrop here and there throughout the day.

This afternoon I decided to go down to the mall to buy a microphone for my computer, and to go food shopping again. I still had plenty of food from my previous shopping experience early last week, but there were several items that I had run out of, so I decided to stock up. I decided after I got done shopping, I would go running. The supermaket was crazy today though and there were tons of shoppers and lots with full carts of groceries. I chose to wait inthe shortest checkout lane, and it ended up taking me 15 minutes until I was checked out! Crazy. By the time I was done shopping and had brought my shopping trolley all the way back to my dorm, it was after 5:00 and was already getting dark. I changed and got ready for a run anyway, and just did a short 15-minute run instead of my planned 30+ minute run.

This evening most of the people in the residence halls are arriving back. I have lots of neighbors on my floor now, and they all seem pretty cool so far. It'll take me a while to remember all their names. The Ozzies seem to be so much more social here than the Americans in the dorms at Mansfield were. I barely knew a handful of people on my floor back there, but here everybody knows everybody, and everybody talks to everybody. Of course, there's more compulsory interaction, though, as we all must share the same kitchen and prepare our own meals. At Mansfield we just go to the cafeteria to get a meal. Most of the people I've met so far seem pretty cool, which is pretty cool.

Tomorrow's my first day of classes (all lectures tomorrow). I'll have to let ya'll know how it goes!