Day 1 of O-week: officially survived! (Simone)

Time: 6:05 pm

Number of coffees already drunk after one official day of O-week: 4 (my hands are literally shaking…)

Emotional state: Exhausted and in need of a cuppa, but overall thrilled by the lovely events of today!

 

I suppose I better start from the begining for ya, eh?!

Well, in preparation for O-week beginning, last night I laid out my clothes on my desk chair, went off to bed dutifully at 10pm, and woke at the perfect time to the bright sun, shining through the edge of my blinds. I slipped easily into the outfit I’d pre-prepared, made myself a cup of tea and some honey-on-toast, then waited for no longer than a minute before my tram pulled up at the stop. After meeting Thalia and Arky at Flinders Street Station, we laughed and gossed and made out way easily to our different orientation groups, where I instantly found my lovely host and his group, whom which we became sort of a big family type of unit, laughing along as if we’d known each other for yonks already….

Okay, okay, so none of this actually happened, as you’ve probably guessed by now (or else realised there was no sun at all that could’ve woken me!). In reality, my day went something along the lines of this: being woken by my mum after sleeping through my alarm (…and going to bed at midnight last night), then hearing the hail pound against my window and stressing about what to wear to be weather-appropriate but not a total dag… burning my toast, being totally drenched by the time I got onto a packed tram so that I somewhat resembled a drowned rat for the rest of the day; meeting up with my friends on the Swanston Street tram only to hear someone exclaim loudly, ‘who would do creative writing for Arts?!’, and someone else say, ‘I don’t know what kind of person who would do history for their breadth! Geez!’ (um… hi… me?!). Sadly leaving my friends, I wandered around aimlessly for ages around the huge campus, awkwardly passing different groups with my giant umbrella (and slipping over), then eventually I somehow found the right building my Host had told us he would be at, only to not find my group at all! I must have asked at least 6 different Hosts and their groups if I was at the right one… and then, fearing I would be homeless for the entire rest of my first day of uni, I explained my desperate situation to an Arts Host (“Um, hi… I can’t find my group and I’m homeless and please can I stay with you or else I’ll be on my own in this rain forever and ever!!”), who immediately told me to come join as she was taking on all the orphans, as well as her own group! I could’ve given her a hug.

Long story short – I think I may have joined one of the best orientation groups ever, even if we weren’t a big ‘family’, everyone was really nice, my host was totally dedicated and helpful, and I made some new friends, especially a lovely girl who I had lots in common with, and was meant to be in my original group – so our friendship was meant to be! The heavy rain eventually made way for a blue sky, and therefore you can see, all was well in the end.

As some wise person once said, “let the o-week adventures continue!” Amen, sistah.

Simone writes to you surrounded by a huge array of o-week pamphlets and freebies, and unfortunately realised when she looked in the mirror that afternoon when she got home, that she’d worn her stripy top inside out, all day…. indeed, she also did this on her first day of year 7 with the school jumper. A new, rather embarrassing, tradition for Simone’s first days has thus been born.