Another day where time is the only answer (Sophie)

This weekend has been a bit quieter than usual but nevertheless very enjoyable.

Tennis consumed a lot of my spare time between working down at the club and playing Sunday Social Comp at Melbourne Uni. After such a long break over last year due to Year 12 commitments I am slowly attempting to get back to my old standard. I am so glad I joined the Tennis Club at Melbourne because I love all the people I have met there so far. Two friends from there and some other people I know are doing dinner later this week which I am avidly looking forward too.

Saturday night was lots of fun with a close friend of mine who helped me baby-sit my younger brothers while my parents had a night out.

Study also found itself into my routine this weekend (a good thing!) and tomorrow I am planning to hit the books hard for the entire day with no distractions.

Currently I am having a fiery discussion online with an old friend about whether or not the US will bomb Iran. He is Iranian (and a Muslim), very well read on these issues (and studying law!). I enjoy hearing his opinions on things which often challenge some of my own thoughts, while at the same time I do my best to challenge his ideas about things.

So I guess I should get back the subject matter of this entry – my life at Uni last week! Everything went very smoothly for most of the week and nothing too exciting happened.

Wednesday I had great fun at the Political Interest Society meeting as we went from quagmires of topics such as China to the current education system in Victoria. Education is one of my ‘passion’ areas and I feel very strongly about the need for major reforms within the public education system. I could discuss this issue for hours, but it was thoroughly reviving to see so much interest during the meeting about this topic and some great innovative ideas. Sometimes I wish the vision of youth could translate into government more often.

On Friday we had our Microeconomics Tutorial in which we were having a debate with the topic “Government regulation of peer to peer file sharing of sound recordings and movies is necessary”. We’d all had to prepare and the speakers were to be chosen at random on the day. As I have not yet had the chance to participate in a formal debating occasion at Melbourne, I threw myself with enthusiasm into the topic, thoroughly preparing strong cases for both sides of the debate. I entered the room on the day with the firm affirmation that I could win either side convincingly. The general class feeling was that the affirmative side was the easiest (my personal opinion went against this)…and so I was thrilled to be given an opportunity to begin presentation of our case as first speaker on the Negative. My most favoured position is third speaker, where I can have the opportunity to face the greatest challenge of thinking on my feet with nothing prepared, yet I still embraced first speaker position. I motivated our team and organised our group case, ensuring that all team members fully understood the position we were arguing. (Our main point being that in fact the true market failure of the situation was NOT that ‘free-riders’ were allowed to exist with the proliferation of P2P software -like the Affirmative were arguing, BUT that the music and film industries were inefficient because they were not responding to the changed needs of consumers – access to music and film via the internet, and hence were creating a failure of the market. One which would only be furthered through government protection and encouragement of monopoly based distribution rights.) Once I got up to speak I couldn’t stop! I realised how much I’d missed debating and how much I enjoyed speaking in front of people, trying to convince them of my case. Audience members were assigned roles of asking additional questions after we finished speaking, all of which I clearly and logically argued our case’s superior standard. I felt like I was on a roll and understood how some people said that to be a truly great debater; it must be in your blood. It’s definitely in mine, particularly when I think to my grandfather’s amazing public speaking skills and my grandmother’s strength and vitality as a lawyer who helped fight for women’s divorce rights in New Zealand.

I know I may be rambling, but I just get so excited about this. (I think everyone in my class thought I was absolutely nutty getting so worked up over what many may view as an extraordinarily dry debate topic!). Anyhow, needless to say, our side won. I was so pleased with the efforts of my two team mates who performed really well too.
This week is set to be crazily busy. (But what’s new?!).

I am considering whether or not to attend a comedy fesitval act “What’s New Peter Costello Whoa Whoa! (Politics is showbiz for the ugly)”

It sounds hilarious…the Political Interest Society is going as a group together. I am leaning towards going along. Any opinions people?

I have a lot of things I need to organise over the next few days, and have generally been feeling a medium level of stress over everything the last few weeks but I am coping fairly well. Mainly it is just the reading, which has the ability to pile up by stealth and then it is so easy to get behind. I also have quite a few social events I have organised and I am looking forward to spending some time with one of my dear best friends, M.
M doesn’t attend Melbourne and it has been hard to find time when our schedules don’t clash. I am going to introduce her to some of my new friends at Melbourne which will be fun. She is the best company ever!

I am also hoping to get the chance to visit one of my favourite restaurants, Sugo, at some stage in the next two weeks. The food there is amazing, though mid-price range which means it’s not exactly the kind of place a poor uni student could afford all the time, but I like to go there as often as I can. Its close proximity to a Trampoline icecream store is also a massive benefit!!

On a side note, and a rather trivial matter: I am wondering how the Commerce Society’s ‘Booze Cruise’ went the other night? The theme sounded like fun but I’m afraid drinking parties are not my kind of thing. (Perhaps one way I vary from the average uni student?).
Must run,
Sleep desperately calls me,
I am absolutely exhausted.

-Sophie