One month has passed...

I've been living in Bergen for exactly a month now and my life here still feels very surreal. In all honesty I am rarely at university, nor at this present moment do I have much uni work to do, so it's all been parties, going out to dinner and lunch, and many other social activities - but it all seems a bit much when it's been that way for a month and there isn't really any structure to my usual routine back home. While I'm not complaining about the social life - it has been incredibly fun here and Bergen really has the ideal "student life" - but the problem that's itching at my neck is the fact that I don't really feel like I'm here for university, and it's like I have to remind myself that I am still meant to be studying at this moment but it really feels like I'm on a holiday.

Maybe I'm sounding really odd because most people would be crying with happiness of having this life whilst on exchange, but to help you understand the reason why I'm feeling the way I am I shall draw a comparison between my student life back in Perth and my student life in Bergen:

Perth: well I don't really have the "student life" until the semester holidays, in fact most students will go into hibernation when they are back for their semesters at university and it's generally the student who will bail on a night out with friends. I even have the "lazy student life" supposedly because I am a Bachelor of Arts student, and this is assumed because I don't have to go to as many classes as the other Bachelor students - but I don't really feel like I have a lazy life. Generally I go to university three days a week - one of those days is a full 9-5 day (actually starts even earlier because I get stuck in traffic so I'm awake at 6am and have to leave my house at 7am), the other two days I'm there for a sort of half day, until the afternoon around either 2 or 3pm. Then on my days off from university I work a full day during the week, one late night shift and one weekend shift; and the remaining spare day I have off from work or university during the week I used to volunteer for the full day. So my only day off from university, work or volunteering would either be Saturday or Sunday (depending on which weekend shift I'd have to work). Don't get me wrong, I do still make time for my social life - so usually I would go out for dinner with friend/s one night during the week and then would go out on the weekend most of the time - except when I had a mammoth load of assignments to do, then I would hibernate. However most other people my age who are not at university have the ideal good life too, and I think even better than me because they go out EVERY weekend no matter what and they can go out during the weekday as well. I used to get annoyed when people said to me that student's have it so good because we don't really have the "best life" - my other friends who work full-time, they work their 8-5/6 day and come home and can relax and do whatever they want, whereas for me I come home after doing a full day as well of either work or study and I still have work to do once I get inside aka all the readings, assignments, etc, etc. Sometimes I think I would prefer to have the full time job than the study. Yet I do love my life as a student nonetheless.

Bergen: Now I don't have a part time job here so I will take that into consideration with my comparisons, however many students here seem to work more during the semester break than maybe do a couple of shifts a week once they are back at university - or some don't even work at all but use the money they earnt during their holidays. Here I only have to do two courses (whereas back home I have to do four) and again I am at university three days a week BUT I am only there for two hours on those days. Two hours! That's nothing! So I am currently at university Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for two hours each of those days. I decided to volunteer because I love it and would be amazing experience, and also because I have so much free time I need to do something to keep busy. I volunteer at Hulen one shift a week and it's only for one hour, maybe two hours at most; I also volunteer at Kvarteret one shift a week as well between four to six hours; and finally I volunteer at the Student Radio and that's asked to give 10 hours a week, but I don't think it's expected just as long as you come in once a week for some time. So of course with so much free time I am always seeing somebody or doing something because otherwise I'd be in my room watching movies or being on Facebook for way too long which is the wrong thing to do whilst in another country on exchange - you need to experience as much as you can!

It is nice to have more time for the social life here since I don't get to have that much back home, and I am using this opportunity as much as I can instead of ignoring it - but as I said, it just gives me the feeling that I'm living in such a surreal life, it doesn't really feel like "reality" or "the real world" at all. Yet it is great that I have been given this opportunity because next year I'll have finished my degree and it will really be me starting the 'real world' and I would have to get more serious, I'm sure I'd still be able to have some fun but not as much as I would here.

So my first month has felt like a bit of a whirlwind, and I am curious to discover what my next four months here will bring...