"You can make friends with people by shaking their hands."

Hello friends,

Well, I assume you are my friends. Because at some point in our interactions, we have shaken hands, right?

This week is orientation week and I've been attending international student sessions. Many of these sessions are labeled "COMPULSORY" on the schedule. The thing is, you don't sign in and nobody's quizzing you later on about the information covered. I'm starting to wonder if "compulsory" in Australia means something very different than in the U.S. Like "compulsory if you can make it" and "no drama if you don't."

I attended a COMPULSORY international student welcome yesterday morning. I woke up very early (well, for me) in order to get to school by the 8:30 am start time. Arriving at the building, another fellow and I were engulfed in the swarms of people standing outside. Finally around 8:40 someone opened the auditorium and we flooded inside--air con! After finding seats, we waited. And waited. Around 9:00 someone announced "We'll be starting at 9:30." Seriously? I could have gotten some more sleep. Does this mean my 7 pm classes don't really start until 8 pm?

The session finally got underway and I felt like a little kid at an assembly. Lots of people were introduced and lots of talking ensued, most of which I did not understand. Yes, I speak English.

Here's what I learned at the session:
1) You can shake hands with people to make friends with them.
2) There are 669 Chinese students at University of Queensland and 369 U.S. students.
3) Mumbling Australians with faulty PA systems are generally not effective at communicating information to an auditorium full of international students.

Lest I sound like an ingrate, I did gather practical information from my "Safety Down Under" session today. Here we learned about all the stuff that can kill you in Australia--from drunken Aussies to spiders, snakes, jellyfish, and sharks. We were warned about the birds here that will swoop down and pull tufts of hair out of people's heads. The speaker suggested putting your "sunnies" (sunglasses) on the back of your head so the bird will think you are looking at them. I couldn't tell if she was serious or not. Still trying to get the hang of Australian humor. (On a side note, another fellow decided that my new Australian nickname should be "Sunnie." Great--I mean AWESOME! as they say here all the time). We were also taught that if we are in danger, we should SCREAM! Personally I find pepper spray to be much more effective, but apparently it is illegal here.

After the session I went to look at a double bed base and discovered these "when nature attacks" stories were chillingly commonplace. The person selling the bed told me that he was moving furniture last year in Brisbane and got bit by something, on his foot. Pretty soon his toe turned black and things went downhill from there. He almost lost his leg.

So the moral of the story is--if you see a spider, SCREAM!