You Say, "Goodbye." I say, "Hello?"

One of the more interesting parts of travel is saying, “Goodbye” to the ones you love. The people with whom you bother to take the time to do so obviously have meaning in your life, otherwise, it wouldn’t matter. I asked my best friend a few weeks ago whether or not he was going to be around on New Year’s, explaining that I left on the 3^rd, he said that he would tell his parents that he was going to stay and celebrate. I remember that our friends went over to his house when he left for Brazil and we spent time together, laughing it up for a while. 
 

I’m not the best at saying it either. I always put it off, telling the individual that I’ll make sure to see them before I leave, thus putting the blame on me if I don’t see them. But sometimes, even after you exhaust your best efforts, the window closes on someone, and the realization hits that you won’t see them again for four months. That, my friends, is difficult. You meet so many people that when it comes down to the wire, it is hard to choose to whom you actually say, “Goodbye.” And even when you do that, it’s harder still to actually make the time to do so. 

 How do you say, “Goodbye” and who do you say it to?

For most people, you don’t. You simply leave, and that person wonders where you are or completely forgets you exist until your return.
 

For others, you may expect to see them this weekend at a party. A gathering of friends to give a hug or a handshake and say, “I’ll see you in May! Have a Merry Christmas!” Easy. Convenient. Personal(ish). 

There are those with whom you’d rather spend all night reminiscing about the year or playing a round of Mario Kart. Fortunately, I live in the town where I grew up, so all my friends are here. Hopefully, when New Year’s rolls around, I’ll be with friends, celebrating and ringing in the New Year with people I love, with the anticipation of an amazing trip two days later.

This is how we play Mario Kart

Or there are the ones who you just want to give a big hug and hear some words of encouragement before you depart. Those are the tricky ones. They don’t fall into the circle of reminiscing, they aren’t going to the party, but you care enough to say something. It is with them that I feel like a traveling salesman. I make appointments to see them. I meet them for lunch, or at their house. I explain what I’m doing, I seek any support from the client, and then I shake their hand and leave. 
 

The only downside is that sometimes you miss the window. You check availability, and they’re gone before you even made the appointment. It never works out like you planned; you should know that by now. With those, there is no lunch, no home visit. No explanation, no face-to-face moral support, no handshake. It is simply a missed appointment. A client you expect to catch, but they flew. And a missed appointment can’t be rescheduled.

From Death of a Traveling Salesman... Yeah, it creeps me out too.

If you’re reading this, I would love to come tell you, “Goodbye.” Give me call, send me a text. I don’t want to be your missed appointment, because, odds are, you may be mine.

Life's Too Short To Even Care At All

20 days...but who's counting?


Earlier, I mentioned that I wasn't allowed to take Negotiation, due to a pre-req. A few days later, I was told that I was allowed to take it, go figure. So, in an effort to still have some control as to what classes I will take, I completely redid my courses to be...


Markets and Corporate Behaviour
Orgainsational Behaviour
Negotiation
Market Research and Analysis


Unfortunately, Markets and Corporate Behaviour and Market Research are at the same time, so I dropped Research and replaced it with International Marketing. Hopefully all of that will stick, and I can move forward.

TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!

The week before classes is Orientation Week, commonly known as O-Week. Basically, you can wrap up your enrollment, meet the other students, and just have an all around good time before classes kick off. Learn about O-Week! From what I understand, there is indeed a Toga party, so I'll definitely be sure to let you know how that goes down.


In other news, I didn't receive the scholarship I was hoping for. But, like I told a friend of mine, life goes on. I made my final payment, so I'm going for sure, I'm just not sure what all I'll be able to afford while I'm down there. I know I'll take a trip to Sydney and Ayer's Rock, but everything else will be on standby. No worries. I asked to go to Australia, and really, I got exactly what I asked for.

The Days Never Seem to End

28 days until takeoff.

Friends, let me tell you a story. In America, we attend a university for four years, in Australia, they study for three. Here, classes are BA1101, MATH2350, etc. Over there, they are MGMT11-101, IBUS13-304, etc. Obviously, when you take four years and cram them down to three, you're going to get some overlap, or some expectations. With Bond, it comes to a whole new level...

Remember the classes I wanted to take?
Fundamentals of Finance
Econometrics (uggh)
Organizational Management
Strategic Marketing


Yeah, that isn't happening. Because, come to find out, because I never took a certain class at Texas Tech, I can't take a class over there. 


No problem, right? I'll just tell them what's going on and they'll work it out!


Wrong.

The catch is that I'm not daring to take a science abroad.

The class they would have me take in order to take Finance is called "Business Maths" known as "Business Math" here at Tech. I was able to duck out of Business Math with the agreement that I would take Calculus I and II, which is substantially harder than Business Math. For Bond, however, that just isn't good enough. Because God knows if you can find integrals, you can't figure out how to calculate an interest payment. They would not allow me to take Finance with a Calculus background. I fought that University, involving my Study Abroad advisor and my program advisor. Needless to say, both are not too thrilled with how I've been treated by a top notch university. However, in the end, they did recommend an alternative to Finance, just so I wouldn't stress trying to find another class. I respectfully turned them down in pursuit of a more manageable alternative.


So I decided that my classes would be…


International Trade

International Marketing

Organizational Communication and Leadership

Negotiation

Nice, right? Negotiation! All you do...is negotiate! I need those skills if I'm going to continue to deal with this university!

I go to register, "Oh cool, I'm a Bond student, it can't be that hard to register for classes!"

Wrong.

Whether here or abroad, this is how my registration always ends up.

Log in. Verify all the info. See the classes. "Econometrics (uggh)" is there, but "Negotiation" isn't. More emails fly. Apparently, to take Negotiation, I need a class called "Organisational Behaviour." (You can't beat the random "u"s.) So again, I'm told that because I haven't taken a course, I am not allowed to take another one. I checked with Tech to see if "Organisational Behaviour" would be cleared to take. It was, so  this is the email I sent to the program...

Apparently I haven't taken it, as [Tech] has a course specifically called Organizational Behavior, and it fits in my degree plan, so all should be well with the world. I hate that I have to sacrifice Negotiation, because I really was looking forward to taking it. But, if that's the way it must be, who am I to argue (again)? 

That leaves me with: 

International Trade  

International Marketing

Organisational Communication and Leadership

Organisational Behaviour

I called my program to make sure they were cool with it, and that's when I aired grievances against the university. When you have to run a student around the mill just to take four simple classes, you aren't really top notch. I'm not happy, but that's the way of the world. We'll see what we hear. I'll keep you posted.