And so it begins...

I'm a 22 year old attending the University of Wisconsin - Platteville, in case you don't know me. I created this blog to document my journey to the other side of the world. I'm spending the next semester abroad in Newcastle, Australia, and figured this was a great way to not only keep everyone back home up to date, but also use it as a journal for myself. I'm planning on using this more as a journal and less of a blog where I post lyrics and make other people cry or some nonsense. I'll post as many details as I have time for...if you're extremely interested in my travels, you will get all the information you can handle. If you're less than interested, I'll have lots of pictures too.

One thing I never expected was the amount of work to set this all up. When I decided to go, I knew I'd be filling out some paperwork, but never this much! I had to fill out dozens of forms, get recommendations letters from teachers, find courses and their Platteville equivalents, and collect signatures from a couple of the higher ups before I was even accepted into the program. Now that I'm officially going, I was handed a three ring binder full of paperwork! Many of the forms seem to be redundant, and I'd hate to be the one that has to keep all this paperwork in order.

I had a three hour orientation meeting tonight, met with everyone leaving in the Spring, the directors of the program, and a bunch of students who were nice enough to come out and answer questions on the individual programs. It's all pretty overwhelming, but after going to the meeting, I feel much better, as all of my questions were answered, I know now pretty much everything I need to pack, and I seem to be farther ahead than the other applicants as far as paperwork goes.


Some notable things I've done thus far:
-Most of my paperwork
-Got passport photos taken
-Applied for a passport
-Booked a flight
-Applied for a loan
-Registered for classes
-Mailed a medical form to my doctor that I will hopefully get back sometime.

Stuff I have left to do:
-Finalize details for my sublease back here.
-Finish paperwork...only a handful of pages left, most of them needing MORE photos
-$400 program deposit
-Stop by "home base" (study abroad office) and pick up MORE paperwork and my ID card.

For whatever reason, the cheapest flight I found was $1923 after tax. That seems to be a bit higher than some of the other students, I talked to two who were in the $1600-1700 range, but I am flying from Appleton to Chicago, which is nice. I don't think I came out too bad. I leave July 4th, 2008, and returning November 29th, 2008.

I just spilled some beer on my keyboard, so if the blog ends abruptly, you know what happened.

And the loan, oh man...$20,000! Everyone says that most people run out of money, so I guessed a little high. I forgot about financial aid, so I might have guessed even higher than I thought.
Program cost - $11000
Airfare - $2000 (round trip)
Spending money, food, travel, rent while over there - $5000-$6000
The rest of it I'll put toward canceling my credit card or paying my rent next semester

Well, that's enough for now. I'll post up later with my full itinerary and more details as they develop!