So this Friday is my one year anniversary with my boyfriend. Although that is important to me, this day is significant to me for more reasons than just that.

At this time last year I had just moved to Australia and was having a hard time breaking away from my shy tendencies and meeting new people. After a considerable amount of pumping myself up for confidence, I introduced myself to my neighbors who in turn introduced me to their friends. From this one incident stemmed my entire Australian experience. Now the people who I was so afraid to meet are the people I see every day and share all of my most memorable experiences with. At that time they changed my life and they have come to change my future.

It is hard for me to imagine what my exchange experience would have even been like had I not known these people. They are in all of my pictures and memories. In fact, I am not even sure I would have made the decision to stay here if they weren't in my life.

So tomorrow is the day I get to celebrate having spent an entire year with my best friend. As I am, I couldn't be happier and I hope the same for all of you.

dealing with meanie-heads

This weekend I had the displeasure of having to deal with the rudest man I have ever met...ever. It was absolutely shocking to me that someone though they were for some reason entitled to treat another human being with so much disrespect.

Now this is not the first time that I have run into people like this, all with their own varying reasons to justify their actions. I have just never met anyone like this man. There have been a couple of...well how do I say it...real jerks that I have run into while in Australia. So my message for this week is that if any of my international readers are unlucky enough to run into these jerks, I hope that you will be able to walk away from the situation with your healthy views of Australia intact.

Something that came as a surprise to me when I first moved here is that some people are not as happy about foreigners coming to their country as others are. Being that I am white and American, it is not very often that I run into too many oppositions. However, I am aware that some people have very strong prejudices towards other races. One thing that I have found is that for every person that has something mean to say to me, there are many many many people who love having me here. And I am sure that stands true for all the rest of you.

Although these people are very rarely polite, I am trying to talk about this subject as delicately as possible so as not to offend anyone. The only advise that I can give is to not waste your time, effort, or words on someone that chooses to be so ignorant. I know that sometimes it can feel really satisfying to throw out a quick witted reply or to just down right tell them what you think abut them. Believe me, it won't be worth it and you'll probably just end up getting into more trouble than it was worth. Just turn your back on them, walk away and remember that person is only one in a million.

Friends

A really hard part of being away from home is learning how to balance your old friends and your new friends.

Having done two separate exchanges in my life, one thing I have learned is that being away from home for an extended amount of time really helps to weed out the "kinda-sorta" friends from the ones you know will be there forever.

Since we are only at the beginning of the term and a lot of you exchange students have just arrived, I'm sure you still want to spend time calling, and messaging, and chatting with those you left behind, but make sure you don't become alienated from the people around you. It is important to use this time to get to know the people in your classes and make some good friends. If you don't make an impression now you may get left behind in the dust, and next thing you know its time for you to go home and you may not have had the experience that you hoped for.

The other side of the story though, is that as the year moves on you may lose touch with people you were once closer with. I've lost a few friends due to the excessive space between us, but what I have found is the ones that really truly love you are always waiting for you to come back. I still remember the day I met my best friend when we were six years old. We haven't lived in the same city since we were 15 and we don't even talk to each other weekly, but I can count on her to be exactly the same as she was the last time we spoke.

I hope that everyone had a great second week of school, and we should all look forward to only having ten more weeks left in the term!

Good luck,

Mallory Bailey

Transportation

This is one of the problems that I am running into more than I would like. I don’t have a car, and as much as I would like one, I can’t have it. Having to pay for insurance, petrol, registration, plus any other expenses is too much for me to handle on top of my everyday living expenses and Uni fees. Just writing about this has left me fantasizing about life with a car. I wouldn’t have to bum rides off of my friend, pay for expensive taxis, or take the bus. Having a car opens up what feels like a million other opportunities, but you have to be realistic and understand what you are able to handle financially.

In the meantime my most common mode of transport is the bus! I totally recommend it and would advise all of you to go to the Student Association and apply for a Tertiary Transport Card. With it you get a concession, and an all day pass for all of the zones is only $2.40

Most of the time this a totally adequate mode of transportation, except for the rare moments when it doesn’t come at all…yes readers it’s true! I have been left basically stranded by the bus system not one…not two…I wish I could say three but no, its actually been four different occasions! Although it is times like these that make me really want to tell the bus company exactly how I feel about them, it is best to keep calm.

Now I know that it sounds selfish, but making a friend who has a car never hurt anyone. Having had so much experience dealing with a crisis like this, I am happy to share some of my expertise.

1) First of all make sure you get a bus timetable, in fact get a couple. I keep one in both my purses and my backpack. Hopefully you’ll be able to use that and find your way to another bus stop or figure out if another bus is going to be headed your way

2) Keep in mind that often the buses are running a little behind schedule. There has been one time that I thought my bus to Uni wasn’t coming and just as I started walking home it showed up

3) Write down the phone numbers of your most reliable friends and keep them somewhere you know you can get to in case of an emergency.

4) Keep some spare change in your wallet; it’s only 50 cents to make a phone call from a payphone.

5) Always be kind to your bus driver. There has been a couple of times that when my bus didn’t come, another bus driver recognized me and offered to give me a ride home. They know I’m just a “silly Yank” and luckily they keep an eye out for me.

I hope that all of you make it through issue free, but if you run into trouble, I understand your frustration. With that in mind put it behind you and move on, you are here to enjoy yourself!

Hello students, alumni, and staff of CQUniversity. My goal for this blog is to try and provide some insight into not only being a student, but more specifically an international student here at CQUniversity Rockhampton. Ultimately I would love to be able to inspire someone to take the same leap that I did and study abroad, but I will be happy with just answering a few questions and hopefully providing a good read.

My name is Mallory Bailey and Term 2 will be the beginning of my second year here at CQUniversity. I originally came here in Term 2 of 2009 as an exchange student from The United States, but I fell in love with the country and the people and now I am here to stay until I finish my degree. Many people question me on why I decided to come to Rockhampton rather than a major city like Brisbane or Melbourne and it is an interesting question. My counsellor at the uni I was attending gave me some very wise advice, he said that If I decided to go to one of the more major cities I was sure to have a good time, however if I went to a smaller city then I would probably meet more Australians than other international students and have the opportunity to experience “authentic Australia”.

I have wanted to come to Australia for as long as I can remember. When I was young I did quite a bit of travelling with my family, but my parents wouldn’t even consider taking the fourteen hour flight from L.A. to Brisbane. When I was in high school I applied for an exchange program and was accepted, but when I said that I wanted to go to Australia they denied my request because Australia is an English speaking country and therefore had a culture similar to the United States. Then when I applied to come to Australia once I was in college I found out that there were hardly any scholarships for students coming to Australia because it was an English speaking country and they didn’t consider it to have any “culture”. So when my counsellor told me that I was going to have the opportunity to see the “authentic Australia” I jumped on the opportunity.

I still stand confident in my decision. Living here I know that everyday promises a new experience and a new opportunity for me to learn something new about this amazing country, its people, and its culture.

For any international students that are reading this and have just arrived, welcome! The first week can be overwhelming but take this opportunity to talk to some people in your classes and get to know your lecturers. It’s easier to just melt into the background but take a chance and put yourself out there! In my next blog I’ll cover some more suggestions and advice for surviving the term.

Good luck!
Mallory