Once again (this seems to be a recurring pattern), I have to apologise for my negligence when it comes to blog writing. These past weeks have been really hectic! After some awesome Halloween parties – my first time celebrating Halloween, was quite an experience -, I really had to start Studying and Paper Writing (capitalised for importance). My SWOTVAC week was therefore quite uneventful in that every day was the same – spent in the Bio Science library to try and finish everything. My three assignments and one exam were all crammed in three days (7-9 November), so it was quite some work getting everything done in such a short amount of time. Still, I shouldn’t complain, since at my home uni I never actually have a week off before exams. I can’t imagine how I managed that until now, haha!

In any case, I finished everything and handed in my final paper last week! I’m happy I don’t have to stress anymore, but on the other hand I feel a bit sad that I’m done with uni now. It’s started to feel like home…

Maybe it’s nice if I tell something about my exam Discrete Mathematics that I had on Tuesday last week, to indicate how BIG the differences are with examinations in the Netherlands. At my home uni, I usually do an exam with a maximum of 100 people. We enter the lecture hall, leave our bags in a corner and sit down. Then, we simply write our exams.

But here it was quite a different experience! My exam turned out to be together with about four other courses – which means there were around 700 people in the hall! I was quite overwhelmed at first, and after I discovered that we actually got seat numbers, I gingerly sat down. There was a huge digital clock projected on the wall that told us exactly how many minutes and seconds we still had left. A woman was speaking to us through a microphone about the details we had to fill out and all the other stuff that was not allowed during an exam. There were so many rules – and we kept being reminded of them. The strangest thing that happened was that one of the surveillanten asked me to take the label off my water bottle. I understand why all of this is necessary when there is such a huge amount of people in one room, but it was a totally new experience for me.

In any case, the exam was alright. I was a bit scared at first (maths has never been my forte, but I had to take a science course to fulfill my “general education” requirement back home), but I tried my best and just hope I passed – fingers crossed!

My time in Brisbane is almost up… I’m leaving for a month of travelling with my boyfriend tomorrow. We’re first going to Fraser Island for a couple of days and then we’ll travel downwards along the coast, to Sydney and Melbourne among other places. From Melbourne we’re going to fly to New Zealand and stay there for then days. And after that, unfortunately, I have to fly back to Brisbane and then back to the Netherlands… But I’m trying to distract myself from this thought, haha! I’m really looking forward to the travelling and seeing more of Oz. I’ve been running around this past week trying to arrange the trip, buy important things and pack my backpack and suitcase (fortunately I can leave the latter in Brisbane and pick it up on my way back to Holland). Honestly, I don’t know how I gathered all this stuff!

I’ve also said my goodbyes to many good friends – quite sad! But guys, if you’re ever in the Netherlands, you know where to find me…J

Anyway, I hope you’ll all have a fantastic break and I’ll try to update on my travels! (Have to see how that goes / whether it’s possible.) I’m still having difficulties uploading pictures, so that may take a while. In any case, it’s been great writing blogs here and sharing some of my “abroad experiences” with you!