Reflecting on my Wild O-Week (Rick)

This is a summary of the events that occurred during the university O-Week.

Tuesday

On Tuesday morning I managed to just be there on time to see my host, having been delayed by the signing of a petition to call for our government to call off the war. (or something along those lines.) The tour group of which I was assigned was obviously arranged for people doing similar subjects, with our group in general having people who were doing the advanced streams of Maths A and Physics A. We were shown around the university and the tour was tailored to suit students doing science. (as to keep it short but informative.)

This year the logo for the orientation was a camel, and so they decided to include some camels for rides, which looked very out of place in the university. I happened to run into quite a few people that I knew, including some from my school, my college (quite a number of times), some from Melbourne, and even one girl I knew from the Northern Territory. (As I only distantly knew this girl, it was the first time I knew that she was in Melbourne)

We then attended a forty minute ‘Deans Welcome’ with what was not a conservative presenter. He was trying to talk about things that we would be thinking about rather than just telling us to spend heaps of time per week at home study, and to take the whole experience of university in, including a social life and participate in other activities. He was quite elaborate with what he talked about in the ‘social life’. (It’s a bit of a distant memory now)

After that I lined for a free BBQ. While I was there I got chatting to the people around me. BBQ lines are surprisingly a great way to meet people – you’re all standing there hungry, and everyone is doing the same thing, and isn’t going to be moving off everywhere. At the start some people I was speaking to gave up on the line, including a guy that was from Monash University who for some bizarre reason decided to check out The University of Melbourne’s orientation program. I don’t blame them for leaving the cue though.

I happened to run into a few people from my college as I was heading back there. I checked out my timetable, and found that I have 24 contact hours, and have a 9 o’clock start each morning, which I like for consistency. I practiced my double bass, then onto the piano at the hall. One of the other students here ‘caught’ me playing, and asked if I would like to play for the choir, and I accepted. There was a rehearsal later that afternoon.

That night I caught up with my mum over the phone, and then later was trivia night. As usual I was not a useful team member for the trivia in four teams that we will be in throughout the year. (I’m just waiting to be asked how to spell ‘borborygmus’ again!) Special rounds included the singing of words from a book to a well known song, similar to ‘Spicks and Specks’. The first group had an easy song, which was guessed quite easily and straight away. Ours, along with the other three teams’ songs proved much harder, also due to the fact our singers found it more difficult to sing and read words that were different from the original song. Later there was an eating competition to see who could eat all of a slice of butter, salmon, a whole onion, wasabi, a raw egg (already prepared in a glass) and one Weetbix. The raw egg was rather easy to take, as it went down quite easily. When eating the butter the onion proved to taste quite good. Unfortunately I ate the wasabi too fast and felt sick, and chucked up in about thirty seconds. I felt sick for quite a while after.

To end the night we watched the movie Pulp Fiction.

Wednesday

Today I had to be at Uni at 10am for a physics information session, as to know more about my chosen subject. We learnt what we needed including our books, what we would be doing, when we would be able to see some of the administrators and a bit of help of where to go.

I later realised that I’d left the timetable I had for the week at college, but luckily I was able to get the information off someone else’s. I went to attend the ‘Information Systems’ information session, but found when I got there it was not for Introduction to Programming. There was no other information session for that subject shown, and unfortunately it meant I missed out on the maths information session, which would’ve meant I could leave the uni sooner.

Later I went to attend the free physics BBQ. After standing in line for a while and talking to a few people, I realised I had lined up at the free BBQ for psychology students. I decided to stay in line anyway as I’d been waiting for a while. I then went to see where the physics BBQ was as I wanted to talk to some people doing physics! I started to chat to some guy there who was doing physics, and was much easier to start that conversation and keep it going. I then lined up for the maths and statistics societies BBQ, and once again chatted to people in the line.

Because I’d missed the maths lecture earlier, I had to attend the one later in the afternoon. This meant I had to wait around for a while. I was lucky enough to find some people from my college, and also with one of their friends. The people from my college had to be someone else, so I talked to the guy I’d just met for about fifteen minutes, and then went to the maths information session, which was similar to the physics version.

Later I went to a run to Northcote, in total making it about a 15km run. I was heading for a music/computer shop, namely Mannys. I’d spoken to a person yesterday who told me this place was in Northcote, and I got the number and street from the phone book. I stupidly didn’t check the suburb in the book, as I realised when I was in Northcote the shop was no where in sight. I asked in a tattoo shop if they knew where the place was, but didn’t have much of an idea, except they thought it might be in Fitzroy. (They had no access to a phone book.) After going back I realised that I had ran straight past the shop earlier. (And almost ran past it again!)

My unnecessarily long trip caused me to be late for the choir which I am playing the piano for. I had to practice this piece again later as to try to be ready for Sunday. I knew it was going to be pushing it.

Tonight was boys night. (And girls night for the girls) We stayed at the hall while the others went somewhere. (???) There was a lot of socialising earlier, but for me things went a bit wild and much of the later part of the night is just a blur. Apparently some people were helping me for several hours, although I only remembered about ten minutes of it. Later in the night when I was in my room I decided to go out for some fresh air. I then realised, feeling both tired and very tipsy, that I did not have my keys. After swearing and panicking for a while, I realised that I was lucky enough to have left my bedroom window open, and later thought that maybe I’d planned to go back in through my window?

Thursday

I woke up, seeing a yellow spew bucket on my floor. I read an e-mail on the computer saying there was a meeting for this blog thing at 9:30! I only contacted the appropriate at 9:23 to let them know I was coming. Here I also met Chris and Jim.

After that I went talking to Jim for a while, as the study skills thing I was wanting to go to wasn’t until 11 o’clock. We talked about what we were doing, and I was also informing Jim about some of the things that I thought would be of interest to him.

The study skills session was informative, but did seem to drag on and didn’t seem as useful as yesterdays sessions.

Later I went to see the clubs and societies. After quite a long talk to the people from the Socialist Alternative I eventually joined, and after such a long time I was off to another free BBQ. I was waiting in line for about 40 minutes, then the society running it had to go, and there was a mad rush as they quickly had to get rid of the last of there sausages. I was unfortunate in that they had no vege burgers – and I was starving! I made do with sauce on bread, but accidentally tipped the bottle too much, spilling tomato sauce all over my hands, legs and a bag I had. I went straight to the toilets in Union house as to rid me of the mess.

I went back to the clubs and societies and am considering joining CHAS (Cosmic Hitchhikers Appreciation Society) and the Jugglers (who also do unicycle riding amongst others). I did join Groove Dance, an Urban dance club that teaches you to dance in those styles. I am specifically looking at locking.

After that I went to a library that was not like any you’ve probably seen – the Rowden White Library. (In Union House). There I got on a computer and played Counter Strike: Source over the internet, and also with very low latency, as low as 5 for some servers. (that’s what you get on a local area network (ie. A home network)). I missed my mouse and headset I had at home though.

That night we had a beach party. We all got dressed in beach gear, and just had a fun night of dancing and socialising. Tonight I decided to stick to Fanta and water. Later we did the limbo, and hit a piñata. And what a piñata it was! We could not break it. We broke what it was hanging by twice, and only was broken by the frustration of someone who hit it when it had fallen. Later I was on the balcony of college and had some nice chats and learning more about the people I was living with.

Friday

I went to have breakfast at 9:30 – woops! Breakfast ended at 8:45! I made do with and apple and a plum. Today I had to wash some clothes, but I didn’t have anything to wash them with, so I got some washing liquid off someone else for a small price. When I went to hang my clothes up I realised there were almost no pegs on the roof (something else I’ve had to buy), so it took a few trips for me to get all my clothes up and dried.

I went to the uni today looking for the Lacrosse club, and they were just one of a few who had packed up early. Finding information on their website is almost impossible, as the stated e-mail does not work, and the website that links to it no longer exists.

After this I went to one of the Socialist Alternative meetings, where they discussed the ‘War on Racism’, and talked about America’s military plans to go to Iran. After we went to one of the pubs on campus for a drink, and spoke to one of their members for quite a while.

Later that evening a number of people went to ‘The Night Cat’ in Fitzroy. They had some great music. (although too loud to hear the band properly, if that makes any sense). When looking from behind the band, Jesse pointed out a guy dancing with long hair, and the energy he was putting in. I noticed he looked very familiar, and went over to investigate. He happened to be someone from my Hometown, and was there with a friend whose older brother was in the band.

That was a wild week. In many ways I’m glad things have calmed down a little.