Busy streets, cheap eats: first weeks (Cara)

I’ve got a much-battered, coffee-stained leaf of paper leering at me from my desk with the words ‘Things to tell the Blog’ scrawled on it, and it’s guilt-tripping me into writing to you. So hi, blog. Let me tell you some things.

Since last week, things have been crazily busy. Some fun times were had, though.

On Sunday a friend from college [if I were a proper blogger, they’d all have thrilling pseudonyms by now, but hey, seems not] and I headed up to Brunswick for the Sydney Rd street party, part of the Brunswick music festival. More of a street carnival/market/assembly of wonderful people to watch than a party per se, and lots of fun. Some highlights:

• A tall, sad-looking tranny with a black jacket reading ‘insecurity’ across the back. Witty and touching at the same time.
• Cheap and truly delicious Indian food.
• A band in the streets performing Janis Joplin songs
• An eclectic mix of political campaigners [urging me to; go vegetarian, save the whales, support the governments school chaplaincy program, challenge capitalism and all sorts of other things]; hipsters on their Sunday market-crawl and ethnic communities doling out delicious food and dances.
• Two old women sitting by the edge of the road, casually spinning wool on old-fashioned wheels.

We also launched into college semester on Sunday with the teeth-pullingly-unsuitable-for-my-atheist-self High Anglican chapel service. Ouch. Good singing in the choir, yeah, but too many Latin phrases for my liking. Much more fun was the annual Rubik’s Cube commencement party organised by the students. We each dress in garments of the six colours of the cube, then swap clothes throughout the night. Good times. And hopefully took our revenge on  Trinity for being so noisy the night before! Ha!

And then…

Uni actually started, and my fun life of trawling cafes and shops and hanging out and college folks was brutally ended. Shame. Oh, I complain overmuch, I actually really love some of my subjects. You should all take music psychology. It is amazing. Do it do it do it. But a lot of uni-times has involved what feels like smashing my bleeding, bewildered skull against the brick wall of beaurocracy that is the Portal, or queuing. (Or figuring out how to spell queueing??). Everywhere, long trails of students snake through the bookshop, Union House, Student Centres, doors to lectures, library information points…. Ugh.

Fun Things Lately

• A friend and I went to see Jean-Pierre Jeunet give a talk today. He’s the director of Amelie (and a bunch of other amazing films) and generally a clever, funny French bloke. So that was pretty amazing. And FREE!
• Joining all those clubs in O-Week is paying off in pastries (French Club),  lunches (M-ASS), or just general people-meeting (MUCS). Good stuff.
• Today was the first time I’ve skipped a lecture. I feel like a proper student now.

Obligatory Whinge-List

• IDFs are a joke. I’ve tried three out of the four now, and none of them appeal to me. Eurgh.
• I keep meeting people, having short but really good conversations with them, and then forgetting to take their number. And sometimes name. So if you’re ever having a chat to someone called Cara – MAKE HER TAKE YOUR BLEEDING NUMBER!
• When are we meant to sleep? Seriously?

Fun Interactive Section.

Give me your suggestions on how to get by on fewer hours of sleep to increase gelato-eating, notes-reading, friend-making and music-listening time allocation. Napping in lectures? Living off coffee? Fire away!

Stay sassy, folks!