I came to Bali to study… Yes to study in paradise.
So a couple of days ago I had my first schoolday, starting at 10AM. Every day a bus picks us up to bring us to our university and bring us back. When we arrived at the Uni, we started to walk towards a typical Balinese building, in which we had to walk up the stairs. When the doors finally opened, a sort of orchestra started playing music, created on weird instruments. To be honest, I did not really enjoy the music, because it was kind of random and sometimes really loud with high tones. Anyways, after a couple of songs, the tutors were introduced. Afterwards the orchestra started playing again, this time with 3 girls dancing some ‘flower dance’ as it was called, showing the beauty and purity of life.
When the girls finished dancing, a traditional ceremony was held, with a huge rice tower which showed life. One of the tutors had to cut it and give it to a student as a symbol of success in personal and professional life. After this, we had some snacks in our coffee break, followed by some smart pitches of companies. These companies were basically for leisure activities on the island, such as surfing, clubbing, biking and a waterpark.
Afterwards, we had a small introduction lecture of what we could expect in our Event Management programme of this module. In the evening we had dinner together at the beach, followed by a brief party.
The next day, my schoolday started with a lecture, of me and some other students dressing up in clothing from an Indonesian island (see picture above). The island of which I was clothed was Minang, I’ve never heard of it before. We had to come up to the stage and a tutor started explaining the clothing. Apparently, the woman is superior in Minang. Afterwards, the other students had to come up to the stage, and she talked about their clothing as well. Finally, she started talking about some cultural matters. At the end, it was showed to us how to wear the clothing to the temples (for if we want to visit some).
Later that day I met my classmates, who were really nice. We spoke about some small matters in the event management industry. In the evening we had dinner in a Warung, which is a small local stand or restaurant. This was the first time I ate Indonesian in Bali. I was surprised, it was really good!!! I had some chicken with sweet-sour sauce and rice (I don’t recall the name of the dish).
On wednesday we were off, so we had plenty of time to do whatever we wanted. First we went for lunch to Shelter, where I had my first acai bowl ever! And yes it was delicious. After that we went shopping in Seminyak, where we ended at the beach.
The semi last schoolday was quite boring, we started around 12.30pm until 2pm. All we did was basically presenting an event of a choice
On friday, a fieldtrip to a Balinese village was scheduled. When we arrived at the village, everything was so different from Denpasar. The houses were different, especially since they were sleeping outside. We got to check out the houses and had to make art with leaves. Afterwards, we got the chance to make rice cookies ourselves, try some cookies and try some fresh coconut (which the man cut in front of us real quickly). Everyone in the small village was so sweet.
When we were finished looking around in the village, we started going to the rice fields. Here we got the chance to ride with cows through the rice field to make it more fertile. One of the cows in front of me had to poop when I was behind them, which was pretty disgusting. Later, we planted some rice ourself.
After going into the rice fields we went into what we call ‘the jungle’. It was just a tiny jungle, in which a man showed us how they climb palm trees here. It was the typical documentary type of climbing a tree. After he showed us, some students tried it, but many of them failed.
In the afternoon we had dinner with typical Indonesian food. After that we had to travel back to Denpasar where we went to the swimming pool.
I think this week of uni was pretty much fun. How was your first week of uni?
