A month in...

Hey!
Its hard to believe I've been here for more than a month now. Having classes makes the weeks sort of blend together. I'm still having a great time and loving it!
The past week was pretty low-key. I wrote my first paper- a film review of Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom. You've probably seen something Luhrmann has directed: Moulin Rouge, Romeo & Juliet (the cool one), and most recently Australia. Its about an Australian competitive ballroom dancer who wants to use his own steps, to the horror of everyone else. Its pretty good- stylistically really interesting. It has the same feel as Moulin Rouge, just a little toned down. I liked it.
It's for my film & theatre class, which is turning out great. Its a 3 hour class once a week, where we usually watch a movie (Australian) and then discuss it. Tomorrow night I'm going to my first theatre production for the class, which I'm really excited about. The playwright came to talk to our class this week, which was cool to hear his thought process in the making/writing the play. We're seeing another play next week, and later in the semester we're going to see Wicked!!! We just found out about Wicked this week, so I'm really excited. I saw it in New York last fall and loved it, so it will be cool to see if and how they do things differently.
My other classes are going pretty well too. Australian lit has been intense (in a good way). We're studying a very specific time period (1960-1988), so the books chosen are all written to say something about what was really going on, or different popular philosophies at the time. Also, they're almost universally about self-discovery in some form, a theme very common in Australian art of the time as the nation was trying to distinguish its own identity from the rest of the world (we've talked about that in the film class too).
Aboriginal history has been really eye-opening. The situation between the indigenous peoples and whites has been really messed up since day one. For me, it seems like a weird mix of the situations between whites and Native Americans and whites and African Americans in the US.
Despite it being winter here, this weekend the temperature hit 80 on Sunday. It was gorgeous- I spent the afternoon in the park with some friends. We were technically 'doing homework,' but I think I read about 20 pages of a novel in the 2 hours we were out there. oops. :)
I also finally made it to the Harbor Bridge and Opera House! Very cool. Bigger than I thought they were. Also much farther than I anticipated- a friend and I walked, and it took forever.
This weekend I'll be at the beach a lot! On Friday I'm going surfing with some friends from surf camp, and Saturday there's an international student BBQ put on by the university. We're also planning a trip to the Blue Mountains for next weekend- hiking, views, and the like. I'm really excited because it's the first trip that we're planning ourselves, without a tour guide or someone making arrangements.
Alright, I think that's all I've got for now! Here's a few closing random tidbits:
- My Spanish housemates were amazed when Elyse and I made brownies one night. Apparently they don't have box mixes in Europe (or at least the Spain/France area).
- Some fruits have different names: cantaloupe is rock melon, raisins are sultanas, and peppers are capsicum.

I hope you all are doing well! Good luck for all of you going (or starting) school this week! I'm sad that I won't be there at UNC to see everyone and hear about summer adventures.

Love from down under,
Emma