welcome to my crazy life (Lara)
Heyy people,
Firstly I’d just like to say sorry for being so late to start this thing. But I swear I have a valid excuse!!
You see as well as starting uni this year I also moved from Sydney and am now living in one of the residential colleges…maybe as I get more confident writing in this thing I might reveal which one :p.
So yes, I’m really enjoying uni….it seems so much more free…well it IS so much more free than what we’re all used to at school. And there’s rarely days where I dread going to uni cause of the 4390843096843096843098634096 different un-academic activities offered whilst not in humongous lectures, or tutes.
College is fantastic…. I don’t think I’ve even been homesick yet (is that bad? Do I sound like a teenage runaway??). The great thing about it on the academic side is all of the extra support you get, because I suppose all the staff here know that all of us at some time will struggle even a tiny bit, what with moving out of home as well as staying on top of uni work. At my college, and I’m pretty sure all the others too…we get extra tutes where there’s only like 5 or 6 of us so we can really ask away…and pretty much all the tutors live here too…so I find that makes learning from them easier, cause not only are they your tutors but they’re your housemates…your friends, too.
And if you thought I was just gonna drone on about the academic benefits of college- HA!
The one thing I’ve learnt from moving here is that everyone goes out throughout the week, and sleeps and studies on the weekend. No, seriously. Actually come to think of it, they sleep during the DAY on the weekend, and Saturday night is usually spent out as well. About a week ago on a Saturday night I could have sworn I saw a girl coming out of the bathrooms from throwing up before she’d even walked out of college to go out!
Anyway, without bending the rules and emphasising too much on alcohol (but really, people here are MACHINES!) *Ahem*…The non-alcohol side of the social life here is also great…if you want to do something, at least a few of the other 100+ students will want to do it with you, whether it be go for a random walk, or a stroll to Lygon St. for gelato, the movies, *cough*pubs & clubs*cough*, anything…it’s great and you feel so at home.
Wow, so much has happened the one month that I’ve been here that I could write on for ages… o-week was also a heap of fun, possibly because I was at two o-weeks at once, for both college and uni. Let me just say that if anything crazy happened to you during uni o-week…something ten times as crazy probably happened in any of the colleges. For example, my first full day of o-week:
I was woken at 7am by an o-week leader bashing on my door…that might sound fair to you.. but no. This person was dressed as a CAVE MAN. Haha! C-A-V-E-M-A-N-. “UHH OOGA WAKE UP *GRUNT* *SNORT* WAKE UP FRESHERS!!!” I got changed as quickly as I could into my fresher shirt, put on the headband and hat we were made to wear and somehow made it downstairs half asleep. We THEN proceeded to do the fresher dance. Now, this so-called “Fresher Dance” involves moves such as hip thrusts, the “raging bull”, congo lines, the choo-choo train, oh and how can I forget the “RIP THE PANTIES FRESHERS” move. Great fun, especially at 7 in the morning!!!
OH YEAH, after that because my colour team lost the challenge the afternoon before, we got the glory of being “ponded”- aka: one person holding each of your limbs and dunking you in a freezing cold pond while the rest of the college chants. Later on that day events included performing the fresher dance infront of the Melbourne general public in the middle of the city, lying on the ground in the middle of the city pretending to swim whilst being pelted with water bombs, oh and walking from bourke st mall to southbank tied by the wrists in a 77-person chain.
I could write about every day of o-week, but I think this entry would go way too long. It probably already is too long!My first week at uni was great, I’ve met even more people and all the lecturers seem pretty talented. The only thing I hate is waking up 3 times a week for 8am maths lectures. Maths. A whole new issue, which I’ll just quickly touch on. You see because I’m from NSW I did a different level of maths to what is required to do physics. I am trying to get into vet science, so physics is a prerequisite. Now these maths lectures I’m going to, the stuff we’re doing is stuff I did in year 9, and excuse me if I sound cocky saying this, but, I don’t want to spend an extra year at uni because of maths. So, what’s happening? Currently I’m missing my 9am maths tutes 3 times a week straight after the maths lectures, and going to physics lectures instead…because on Thursday I’ll be sitting a 3 hour maths exam which will determine whether my maths requirement will be waived or not. And I pray to god that it is, because physics is so much more interesting!!!
I also had a biology prac today which involved….cutting up leaves and looking at them under microscopes, and the more exciting part, trying to illuminate firefly tails with concoctions of various solutions, only to have 95% of the class fail to do so hehe :D.
Oh speaking of pracs. Last week in the first chemistry prac my seat was next to the tap, right. And this guy would go to the sink and turn on the tap FULL BALL only to spray water all over me and my titration equipment. Now, the first time I didn’t mind, the second time he did it I was like hmm okay, another mistake, but you know how they say third time lucky? Well maybe he thought the water pressure had dropped for some reason, but by the time he’d sprayed my workspace 3 times I could have swam in the water that went everywhere, and it probably explains why I needed 4mL more solution than most other people to reach an equivalence point in my titrations haha! All in good fun, I guess.
What else have I been doing? Welllll… I went to my first water polo session last week, which was great. I thought it would be weird playing with different people to those I’ve mostly played with for the last 7 years, but it seems alright so far anyway. I ended up getting a lift home with a girl and 6 other American exchange students from America. Umm ahem…did I say 6? Well okay yeah, there was 8 of us in a 5 person car. Shh! Let’s just say it’s not pleasant having a compartment box handle up your arse all the way from Toorak rd to Royal Parade, but hey, I met new friends so meh! Next week is the AGM for water polo, I’m told it’s a night full of alcohol and to beware if you’re new….greeeeeeeeeat.
Another great thing about the clubs at Melbourne Uni- THE CHOCOLATE LOVERS’ SOCIETY. Okay. Never did I think that students pursuing careers in veterinary science, medicine, law etc would also hold bbqs in their lunch breaks which involve copious amounts of chocolate. Sure, there was plates of chocolates at this bbq, which might I add only us members who have paid their $5 fee and are the proud owners of club keyrings could go to, but there was also pancakes stuffed with chocolate, m&ms, sprinkles, if you wanted a bacon and egg sandwich, great, you could get that…but don’t forget the chocolate chip garnish! Best.Breakfast.Ever. Especially after the 11am bio 650-141 lecture which I had to sit right at the front next to someone who still dared to sleep, due to running in, err….late. :D.
One last thing I’d like to add is that the free bands and BBQ’S every Tuesday and Thursday are FREAKING AWESOME! When you want a break from the usual gigantic roll at college lunch, those veggie burgers really hit the spot. (no, I’m not vego but these are top stuff.) oh yeah, the music is great too. Haha. No really. The Trojan horns last Thursday were lots of fun. So was the band I saw a couple of hours ago today…I can’t quite put my finger on their name though.
I’d better finally wrap this up cause I’m either a)boring you to tears or b)saying stuff that’s not even relevant. This whole first year blog is a great idea and I’m glad to share my journey through my first year of university and living in Melbourne with all you lovely people that I don’t even know hahah…I’m sure I’ll get to know some of you…feel free to write to me…if anything I ever write catches your fancy.
Anyway, as the guy 2 doors down belts out the NUMA NUMA song by OZONE and my desk vibrates from its charming accoustics, I’d better get back to studying for that maths exam!
Ciao!