Mood:
happyLast week was a busy one! We had our first unit of lectures, which covered Critical Thinking and Communications, we had our first paper due, and we had our first official formal event, which was a Dining In at the school. Not to mention the Volleyball competition and the social engagements.
Our first unit is Critical Thinking and Communication. It is mostly Australian Grammer, sentence structure, essay writing (both defense and academic), and such. It also covered argument formation, organization, fallacies in reasoning, and critical outlook.
Our first paper was called Exercise Aspirant. In it, we had to describe the major lessons learned in our career thus far, our near- and far-term aspirations for our careers, and what we hoped to gain from this year at the staff school. They didn't tell us this, but these papers were "formatively assessed" against the critical thinking evaluation criteria and was used to give the instructors an initial assessment of our writing abilities. Luckily, I did pretty well on it, though it was "formative" (meaning not formally graded) and not "summative" (meaning for an actual grade). It was a 1,500 word essay, plus or minus 10%.
Next week we will be doing Exercise Short Talk, which is a 5-minute oral presentation of the same material. It is also formative, and will judge presenters' briefing styles and abilities.
The Volleyball tournament was held on Wednesday, and was used to formally introduce the students to the weekly sports requirements. We get to pick the sports we will participate in from now on, but last week was Volleyball. Kimberly and Jacoby showed up for the games, which were held on the outdoor sand courts on the campus. My syndicate won fourth place of the 15, or so.
I said that Kimberly and Jacoby came. The truth is, they showed up after having left the Prime Minister's XI Cricket match against Sri Lanka. This is something like an "all-star" team. Basically, the Prime Minister picks eleven up-and-coming stars of the game to compete against an international team. They discribed the game as being dreadfully boring, which we knew. The most fun part of the game was talking to the people in the stands. As it turns out, both of the people on their left and right had recently been to the D.C. area in the States, so there were lots of stories to tell.
Apparently the players were pretty bored, too, as several of the Sri Lankan "outfielders" decided in the middle of the game to just wander over and sign a few autographs, get some gatorade, hang out with the crowd and then rejoin the game. It was a one-day match, which is a fast game, but still takes all day (7 hours). Australia was batting the whole three hours they were there.
On Wednesday night, Jacoby and I went to Hapkido for our second class in Australia. I think Jacoby likes the class, as he is making friends fast and once class ended, he began to play/spar with one of the other younger adults. I eventually had to tell him it was time to go. It looks like Jez Attridge may be joining the same program, which is great. Jez is my British friend from the course, who is married to an American from California names Jana. Anyway, Jez and I were talking Martial Arts the other day, so I invited him to the school. He came and liked what he saw, and says he is interested in joining up! It'll be fun to train with him as he is just a good, fun guy to be around.
Saturday was a quiet day. We went to the Greek Club for lunch, which we became members of last week-end. It was a great lunch, followed by dinner with my officially assigned "Syndicate Buddy" and his family, Rob and Gail Sanders and their son Matthew. We had a great time eatting home-made pizzas which Gail is very good at making. We sat and talked about where to find things in Australia and what to see on vacations. We talked mostly about Tasmania, since I think that is our next trip.
We also joined the Irish Club and will be going there for dinner tonight to hear Irish folk music and enjoy some traditional Irish fare. But, this morning, we are going to the Hall Markets, which is a flea-market sort of "trash-n-treasures" in the town of Hall in northern Canberra. It is the largest one around, and only happens once a month, on the first Sunday.
Good luck with your next week!
- Ryan
