Sunday, 17 August 2008

Today was a relatively easy day. There was an exchange student orientation in the morning where I got to meet four other of the exchange students. All of them are American, except one who is from France. It was good to meet some new people. Orientation was informative, but we still have to meet again tomorrow to get our student IDs, real visas, and pay for our rooms and health insurance. There is so much paper work to get done; it seems like it never ends.

After orientation, I explored campus a little with some of the exchange students. I'm becoming more tolerant of the heat so walking around is not so awful. We went to the gym, and I signed up for equestrian though they do not know if there will be a team this year since there were not many people in it last year. Hopefully there will be; if not, I'm sure I will find somewhere to ride.

Then, we saw the library which is beautiful. We all sat in there for awhile and talked. While we were leaving, everyone seemed to be staring, but I suppose a group of Americans stands out pretty well on this campus. Even though we get stares, everyone has been nothing but kind and truly welcoming.

I went back to the dorms to take a nap, and then met up again with Kendal, Danny, and Jeremy (other exchange students) to go to the welcome dinner. It was mainly for freshman, but we had a good time. There was a lot of really good food including chicken alfredo, chicken wings, two types of rice, bread, salad, and chocolate mousse cake for dessert. Needless to say, I'm eating well here. After dinner, the orientation staff held games (again mostly for freshman). Still, some of us participated in the games. To conclude to welcome session, the Jordanian student organization performed a dance. The whole dinner was a very good time.

When all was over, I stayed with Kendal, Danny, and Danny (another exchange student). We met a girl from India who was very nice. The moon was full tonight and beautiful against the large buildings of AUS. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn't think it would show up too well. Anyway, we all eventually went our separate ways back to our dorms (male and female dorms are on opposite ends of the campus). On our way back, Kendal and I met a very nice male student from Palestine. He offered to walk us back to our dorms, so we all walked and talked with each other. As we were nearer the dorms, one of the campus police told him to leave since males are not allowed in the female dorm area. Just something we will have to get used to. Still, I was glad we finally met some other people on campus, both exhange students and permenant ones.

Tomorrow we have to take care of more orientation stuff, and then we go on a school-sponsored tour of Sharjah which ends at a mall in Sharjah. This is extremely helpful since my cell phone still does not work. I'm convinced they gave me the wrong SIM since I discovered today I can make calls on the cell phone, but I have to dial the country code first. If I had the correct SIM card, the phone would automatically know I am in the UAE. Regardless, I'll go to Estisalat (cell store) tomorrow and hopefully have a working phone soon. Things are well.

-Lindsay