Through the looking glass (Sophie)

Days have been flying by with their usual eventful tendencies; rushing from one class to another, sharing a joke here and there with a friend and then worrying that you’re behind on reading and nearly putting yourself to sleep by doing 3 hours of management study at once!

Currently I am in the computer lab and am about to attempt printing my first document ever using a university computer. I will no doubt end up making fool of myself as I have no clue how to do this.

I have already embarassed myself within the last 10 minutes by being somehow unable to open the door to the lab with my keycard. I suspect I simply didn’t push hard enough on the door. I ended up creating a queue of 3 people behind me! (Of whom I tried to placate with my “Sorry I’m a first year” line)

Just previous to this I had yet another embarassment in my accounting tute where my accounting tutor exclaimed to me in front of the class (in a friendly impressed way) “YOU KNOW EVERYTHING!”

Little did he know that last night I was almost in tears because I couldn’t understand my accounting tutorial homework. I have just been lucky in class so far because I have been able to answer most of the questions he has presented through my large degree of general knowledge.

So with that said I must make it clear that this doesn’t mean I actually ‘get’ accounting yet. I didn’t do it in year 12 and am struggling at the moment to get my head around everything. I don’t want my tutor to think I find it easy and then feel foolish when asking for help.

Mind you, I am actually feeling better about the whole thing now. Last night I think I was just exhausted and unable to think logically. When he went through the homework in class today everything clicked like a lightbulb going off in my head and I UNDERSTOOD!

I hope however, I really do, that it won’t be that I just THINK I understand only to face next week with the same dilemmas.

I have a plan though. I’m going to go through all of this week’s accouting tute prep work again to ensure I DO know it, then I will do next week’s tute prep work this weekend. If I don’t understand that, then I will go to a pitstop tutorial next week before my Friday accounting tute.
Therefore problem will be solved.

As far as I understand, Accounting is not hard, it is simply something that requires a lot of practice.

All my other subjects are going well right now. Funnily enough, Quantitative Methods, which I thought I would hate…has become a subject I enjoy for it’s pure logic and direct thought-streams. The lecturer (whom I only know as ‘Vance’) cracks the most lame/amusing jokes which I very much appreciate. He definitely has a bit of a personality and I think many of the students who orginally took him to be some boring maths guy, are warming to him and seeing value in taking QM1.

On the other hand Management, which I thought I would love, has become a subject I am currently finding a bit too ‘wishy-washy’ -full of theory and not many hard solid facts. With my ever-changing interests and opinions however, I’m sure this will all change soon enough!

Microeconomics is also a subject I am very much enjoying. There is such a sequential follow-on from Year 12 Economics and I love how we are slowly starting to examine concepts learnt in Year 12 with greater depth and analysis.

As for some non-subject related discussion.

I am currently upset that the mentor I was meant to have through the mentor program somehow gave out an incorrect contact email address….after 2 weeks of waiting for her to email me I contacted the person in charge of the program who proceeded to give me this girl’s cellphone number. Last night I left a message and have had no reply yet.

I hope she does contact me back. I will be disappointed if she doesn’t.
Socially wise- I am enjoying the company of all my new friends. It has been hard to find the time and energy to spend much time socialising though as all my study and uni work has been taking up so much time.

Wednesday I managed to escape off to the Political Interest Society meeting again which was nothing but pure escapist fun! I find it impossible to stay quiet there as there is just so much to talk about and so much I want to say. I love hearing all the other opinions of the other fascinating group members too! The format of discussion is so flexible which is great because when you have something you want to talk about, it’s easy (even as a first year!) to grab hold of the talk and lead it into new territory. This week I encouraged a contemplation of the parallels between communism of the 1950s and terrorism of today. Is it all a media beat up I asked (thinking back to the concept of the domino theory)?
Talk of the American government and “Are they evil?” was most amusing and highly contentious! It’s something I don’t think anyone will ever come to a conclusive opinion on until the thousands of conspiracy theories cease to exist (which of course they never will!).

Anyhow,
I must get onto that printing…
So wish me luck.

I’ll attempt to figure it out.
And if I don’t know what to do…maybe I’ll just ask someone.

Hehe. Problem solved! My friend is meeting me to show me how to do it!

This is uni life 🙂