I finally met my roommate, Kika, who is a blast! She took me to a nearby theme park called Six Flags with her friends the day before classes started and it was awesome. I’m really stoked that I ended up with someone decent to live with because after speaking to some of my friends from Orientation it seems that quite a few have ended up with complete duds who won’t even bother to speak to them! I get the impression that making good friends with roommates is a good move for Exchange Students, since having the opportunity to socialise with them can help you to make other friends and to really immerse yourself in the culture of the uni and the country.
I’ve heard some horror stories about this school though … apparently they’re beyond crazy when it comes to sports and last year when the Red Sox lost the World Series there was a massive riot on campus that resulted in cars being overturned and random objects being set alight. Also, I’ve been warned never to go down some path called the “Rape Trail” for obvious reasons, although if I do, or if I have, I wouldn’t have a clue, because I have no idea where it is, and strangely enough, neither does anyone else. Oh! And apparently underage drinking is a massive problem here (the campus has been nicknamed ZooMass Slamherst) and the school has its own police force equipped with cars, dogs, horses and a helicopter in an effort to clean up the school’s reputation!
On the academic side of things, the classes seem relatively easy so far and it’s been VERY easy to make friends in them - the Aussie accent can charm anyone anytime apparently. Let’s just hope the semester continues in this fashion!!
One last thing – if you’re a tea drinker, you will need to go shopping for proper tea bags (not the ‘herbal’ type filled with colourful dried flowers and sticks) because apparently they don’t serve normal tea here!! I miss my Dilmah! And the coffee here is not espresso topped with steamed milk like we’re used to back home; it’s all brewed and kinda tastes like dirty water. Luckily there’s a Starbucks on every other street corner…
Until next time, ciao!
I’ve heard some horror stories about this school though … apparently they’re beyond crazy when it comes to sports and last year when the Red Sox lost the World Series there was a massive riot on campus that resulted in cars being overturned and random objects being set alight. Also, I’ve been warned never to go down some path called the “Rape Trail” for obvious reasons, although if I do, or if I have, I wouldn’t have a clue, because I have no idea where it is, and strangely enough, neither does anyone else. Oh! And apparently underage drinking is a massive problem here (the campus has been nicknamed ZooMass Slamherst) and the school has its own police force equipped with cars, dogs, horses and a helicopter in an effort to clean up the school’s reputation!
On the academic side of things, the classes seem relatively easy so far and it’s been VERY easy to make friends in them - the Aussie accent can charm anyone anytime apparently. Let’s just hope the semester continues in this fashion!!
One last thing – if you’re a tea drinker, you will need to go shopping for proper tea bags (not the ‘herbal’ type filled with colourful dried flowers and sticks) because apparently they don’t serve normal tea here!! I miss my Dilmah! And the coffee here is not espresso topped with steamed milk like we’re used to back home; it’s all brewed and kinda tastes like dirty water. Luckily there’s a Starbucks on every other street corner…
Until next time, ciao!
2 comments:
this is kind of random, i found your blog because i was actually thinking about the old rape trail and i was searching yahoo about it. i used to go to umass amherst. anyways, the reason no one knows where it is is because it's not there anymore, atleast i'm pretty sure. it's used to be across the street from sylvan, linking sylvan and orchard hill. it was a path through the woods, which has been taken out and is now a parking lot i believe? (i havent been there in years). anyways, it had no lights, and signs that said it was unsafe to use after dark. it was pretty damn creepy, so i guess it's good they got rid of it. i got scared shitless in there once, i'm a girl and i was walking through it one night at about 1 am alone (what was i thinking?) luckily, i wasn't drunk or anything or impaired, but i heard some loud rustling and i ran out of there haha. it's pretty long of a path too so it's that much more creepy. the only reason to take it was because it took 5 minutes to get to sylvan from ohill instead of like 10-15 mins walking on the paved paths. but umass is really different now, they were just building the north apartments my last year there. anyways, i hope your classes remain easy cos mine were easy the first semester and then they got hard haha, but i was a biology major, so that's a hard major. :)
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