Oh, a week! (Amy)

PUN INTENDED.

Sorry.

So: this week was O-Week. Or Week-O? The week in which we undertake orientation, (that is, the process of becoming orientated) regarding our brand sparkling new university lives. Mine was useful and informative, but not particularly fun, and particularly daunting.

On Monday, I grumbled about having to wake up at 7am. Caught the train properly and the tram was completely full. Full trams are pretty unpleasant, what with the people and the jerkiness and the little old ladies with trolleys wanting to disembark through about 20 bodies.

I met my host group successfully, who were pretty cool people, and we stood around for a while being awkward before heading off to the System Garden (such a pretty place!) to be awkward, but with purpose this time. Our host then led us around campus to places that we’d probably have to use a lot, which was very useful and helped me get used to the area a little bit. We finished up at about 11:30 in Union House after Host had showed us the Rowden White Library, so most people went and joined the Union immediately 🙂

I bumped into a friend from school in Union House and we wondered around looking for food she could eat with her new braces (she ended up having a smoothie). I found the food co-op, which is amazing because it sells vegan food all over the place, gives a 10% discount to members and 20% to volunteers (I will be volunteering. So much.).

Vegan food review!

Co-op brownie: A bit pricey for the size, but very rich, so satisfying. Yummy and easy to eat with one hand, it melts a bit but that kinda makes it better 🙂

Curry place on ground floor: Super cheap and super tasty! Will be going there a LOT.

We met up with about three other friends over lunch time and ate food and met a friend of friend. Friends!

After lunch, friend J and I went to “Getting the Most Out of Lectures” and “Academic Writing at University”. The first was handy, since we didn’t really have much experience with lectures from school, but the second was pretty much just VCE English Language, so we left halfway through 🙂

On the way home I bought the Japanese textbook, got Lucky Cup from MC with J, and finally went home.

Wednesday was tired in the morning. I got to uni an hour early so wandered around all alone for a bit 🙂 I tried to get into the Ballieu Library to see what its deal is, and managed to, but it was full of academic people and librarians, so I left, intimidated, and scurried off to friendly Union House. I explored the basement bit of it, and bought a labcoat and specs with a pretty awesome discount.

Then it was time for Bachelor of Science Course Welcome and Orientation! Where I found another school friend to sit with. There wasn’t a whole lot of new information there, compared to subject orientations, except for all the encouragement to make new friends. School friend and I chatted to the guy sitting next to us, who had big hair, and I don’t remember his name 🙁

I found J again and we went to have lunch at the Japanese place (called Egg? Or something?) downstairs. I had the tofu steak!

Vegan food review: filling and tasty, but a bit too ricey and not sufficiently vegetabley. Quite a lot of food for the price, but I found it too much and gave J the rice.

We found friend E and went to the Calculus 1 lecture, then Chemistry and Biology. They were useful. Chemistry was the most informative, telling us what exactly we need and where to get it for what price. This was stressful. I don’t have all the things yet. Oh no.

Bought Chemistry textbooks at the end of the day. They are SO HEAVY. E bought me Boost 🙂

My host group had its catch-up on Thursday. We ended up joining up with the groups of Host’s friends who were also hosts, and we played games on South Lawn. One of them was the thing wherein you all bunch together and grab random people’s hands and try to untangle yourselves. It took us about 20 minutes 🙂

Then we sort of split up into the clubs and societies expo. I’d heard this was a fun part of O-Week, but it was pretty much just a huge crowd made up of about 10% pushy salespeople. The pretzels and Wilson Hall were good. Naggy socialists and AA people were bad. I joined a couple of clubs, but I couldn’t find the SSS, which I did want to join 🙁

I found J again and we went and had coffee with Host, which was nice 🙂 and then we found one of his friends, and she found her friends. I bought sushi from Plush Fish for lunch.

Vegan food review! I had the tofu futomaki and filled inari. The inari was pretty good, but the futomaki was a bit too big to eat easily, as in, to fit into my mouth, and the nori was very chewy which made it harder to eat. Not likely to buy again.

We bought ourselves some textbooks at the bookshop, and then went to Grill’d for chips. The end 🙂

And today, I had nothing mandatory to do at uni, so I didn’t go 😀

Overall, O-Week was very expensive and tiring, but also helpful, and I met a few new people. I suppose it served its purpose.

Gosh, this is a long post. If you’re still reading, thanks for reading 🙂