One of the really cool things about living in a College like International house is that you get exposed to so many different cultures and people from all parts of the world. This past Sunday IH held the Mid-Autumn festival. This is a popular Chinese celebration of gratitude, abundance and togetherness dating back over 3000 years to China’s Zhou Dynasty. Another way to describe it, is as a sort Chinese thanksgiving.

There are several stories with regards to the origins of the festival. One of the more romantic myths involves Chang-O, the most beautiful woman of Chinese mythology. A full moon is the ideal time to celebrate the abundance of the summer’s harvest and it is celebrated with the eating of mooncake, the traditional food of the festival and the lighting of lanterns.

It was such an awesome experience! The evening opened with a lion dance performance, which kept everyone captivated for the full 15 minutes. After that we were shown videos of the festival in China and how the Chinese prepare for the festival. We were then allowed to wander around B-lawn, which had been transformed for the festival. There was Chinese tea and mooncakes to sample, you could attempt Chinese calligraphy, there were riddles to solve and everyone was given their own lantern to decorate and light up with a candle.

One of the main events was the release of the flying paper lantern. Over the course of the evening, everyone had the opportunity to write a wish on a piece of paper and it was attached to the giant lantern. At the end of the evening, the flying paper lantern, with all our wishes, was released into the sky. Having never heard about this festival, let alone experienced anything like this it really was such an awesome evening.

Another IH event that was also pretty cool was ladies and gents. It is a pub crawl through the city, but with a bit of a difference. The ladies and gents are separated and each group does their own pub crawl, and finally meet up at one place at the end. Each group was given a set of challenges to try and complete over the duration of the evening at the different pubs. The ladies all had to wear bunny ears – it was awesome seeing all the sequined ears roaming around the city! At the beginning of the evening each ladies had a pack of cards handed out amongst them, as did the gents. The mission at the end of the evening was to find the member of the opposite sex with your corresponding card. It was a lot of fun!

Another college event is Dancefest. Each college prepares a 6 minute dance to any theme they want. International House had the theme of reality in HD. The idea was that a girl had been sucked into a TV and all the dances were representations of different TV shows, we had a hoe-down which was representing Famer wants a wife, we had a cabaree dance for Deal or no deal and we had a work out routine for The Biggest Louser. It was a month of hard work, rehersals and hearing the same song over and over again – but it was all worth it! D-fest was one of the biggest cultural events of the year, so many people from all the colleges took part and there was huge support from all the different colleges. IH came third overall, not too bad… J

Another cultural event to get involved in is One Act Play. Our cast was made up of 4 people and had a very interesting story line. Two children had gotten into a fight at school and the play was around the parents of the two kids discussing the matter. Our cast really put in the effort and came in fifth place.

An event recently held at college was the H and I cocktail party. These two towers at IH, held an evening in Paris themed cocktail party to raise funds for the guide dog association. There was French food and French music, as well as a live band. Your ticket also included 4 cocktails or moctails, which ever you preferred. It was a hugely enjoyable evening. There really is a lot to experience ad get involved in at college…

One of the coolest public holidays I have experienced in Australia has been the Exhibition Holiday or the Ekka races. This year it was on Wednesday the 12^th of August. It was pretty much the Australian version of the Ascot. The morning started off with a champagne breakfast at Lydia and Amras’ house, just around the corner from college. There was so much delicious food and was the perfect way to start the day. We then left for the train station to make our way to the races. I got to the train station and realised that I had left my ID at home. It was here that the tag-team duo of Lydia and Amra saved the day – between the two of them, I got home, got my ID and navigated the complicated series of trains and change-overs that eventually got us to the races.

Everyone gets dressed up for the day – the men are in suits, top hats and waist coats and the ladies exhibit beautiful dresses, bags and shoes! It was really fun to place a small bet and anxiously watch the race to see where your horse placed.

Another really cool thing I did with some of the other International students from college was visit Lone Pine Koala sanctuary. Within the space of one afternoon, I saw so many animals associated with Australia – from Kangaroos to Koalas and Dingoes to whombats, I can now go home and say that I have seen them all. It was awesome to be able to see these animals in real life rather then on TV.

One of the advantages of living in college is the events that student club hold. Ball has got to be one of the best!! It is an evening where everyone from college dresses up and we all go out and have an awesome meal and a night on the town. What I really loved about ball is that it is a party with ALL your friends from college. Our ball was at an awesome venue – before kick on which was at the mustang bar, where we had our own floor with a bar, pool tables and dace floor. The day after ball is recovery, which was an interesting experience J

Back home in SA, we sometimes get to see AFL matches. I have always been interested in this fast paced game and was so keen to see a live game. I went to see the Brisbane Lions take on Port Adelaide. It was such an awesome experience. The game is so fast and the crowd really get involved – the atmosphere is amazing! It was a close game, but the Brisbane Lions claimed victory in the end.

Another sporting event I went to see was South Africa playing Australia in Tri Nations. Even though South Africa lost and I did not hear the end of it at college, it was awesome! Suncorp Stadium is amazing!! It is such a beautiful stadium and so well designed - our seats were about 6 rows from the back of the stadium and we could still see everything perfectly. There were quite a few South African supporters at the game and the atmosphere was amazing.

This past weekend was Riverfire. It is a huge fireworks display held annually in the city. We don’t really have anything like this at home so it was a totally new experience. The show was huge, 2 jets flew overhead, twice and the fireworks show lasted half an hour. There were also so many people who came to see it, it was great! Afterwards we went to Pancake Manor in the city for some dessert.

I think that the enormity of my decision to do a semester abroad only hit me when I got to Johannesburg Airport. I was crying my eyes out because I was homesick already and I was worried about what was to come. Would I make friends? Would I like the UQ campus? Would all my classes work out? All of these questions and so many more were running through my head. I needn’t have worried.

I landed in Brisbane and was picked up by Lucius of the UQ staff. The University offers a service where they pick you up from the airport and drop you at your place of residence. Lucius told me all about Brisbane and all the different landmarks in the area. Some of them were The Regatta Hotel, XXXX Breweries, Suncorp Stadium and the Gabba.

I arrived at International House and Foo and Rosy, two of the senior residents, showed me to my room. I was on the 5^th floor of G tower. It’s a long climb all the way up, but my room is big, has a small balcony and has a great view of the G-lawns below. Brendan, one of the SR’s for my tower, came and introduced himself before I collapsed into bed.

I arrived a week before Orientation week, so I spent that time unpacking, getting settled, getting over jet lag (definitely under-exaggerated the effects of that!) and meeting people in IH. UQ have so many systems in place to ensure that you know exactly what is going on – getting started sessions to give you all the administrative details, library tours, faculty tours and registration sessions to help you plot out your curriculum. On top of that there were more general sessions, everything from “safety down under” to “Auzzie, Auzzie, Auzzie” and “working while studying” to elearning courses to get more familiar with UQ’s blackboard facility.

It was then time for o-week to start. The first night was a games night and getting to know those in your tower. This was really cool because I met the new and old residents of the college. We then had an inter-tower scavenger hunt on campus, which was a different way to learn your way around. The evening ended at the Second Degree Bar, which is convienintly located on campus.

Monday night was Bara Khana. This is a formal dinner that IH has once a month. Everyone gets dressed up and we have great food. It was followed by a wine and cheese evening in Ivor Crib, the functions hall at IH. Tuesday night we went to Karaoke with Cromwell, the college across the road from us. It was a great way to see a bit of St Lucia at night and meet people from another college.

Wednesday night was pub crawl. We started at the Regatta Hotel, before heading to O’mallys and finishing off at Embassy in the City. The city is beautiful at night. Thursday night was movie night and we all headed to South Bank on the Citicat to watch Bruno. The Citicat is amazing and so efficient! You get a great view of Brisbane from the river. Friday night Cromwell hosted Crommie Bunker with the theme “Into the wild.” I don’t think that I have ever seen so much leopard and cheetah print in such a short space of time in my life! But everyone really gets into it and it’s a lot of fun getting to know people from other colleges. Saturday afternoon was spent at paintball. People came back with some interesting bruises, but awesome stories of what happened! Saturday night was the Op-shop ball hosted at IH. You had to go to an Op-Shop (we call them a second hand shop at home) and get your outfit from there. Some costumes were hilarious, serious 80’s revival!

On Sunday we had a barbeque at IH, which was the perfect way to end off an awesome o-week. It was an exhausting week but so much fun and a great way to meet the people I would be living with for the next semester.

Shortly after O-week, IH hosted a huge multi-cultural event called Soiree. IH is decorated with flags from all over the world and other decorations from past Soirees. There were 14 stalls from all over the world and each stall had food and drink from its’ representative country. At IH, there are people from all over the world and it was awesome to see people in their traditional dress and teaching others about their culture, practises and traditional meals. There was also a range of entertainment – bands, belly dancing, African drumming, a traditional Japanese dance – Soran Bushi, Samba dancing, the Can-Can, to name a few, as well as calligraphy, face painting and henna tattoos that went all day.

I took part in the Can-Can. It was awesome to be able to get involved in something I would not normally do. The week leading up to Soiree, there was an awesome atmosphere at college – everyone is helping out with the decorations or helping with food preparation or practising their performance, it was really awesome to see everyone pull together to make an event as big as Soiree happen. This was definitely an indicator of life to come at IH.