O, what a week! (Simone)

Somehow, it is already Friday – we have reached the end of a rainy, exciting, Orientation week! Last Friday, which only feels like yesterday, I wondered how I would be feeling by now. More nervous about the start of the semester, or less? But thankfully, it is safe to say that if anything, O-week has helped me find my way around the campus, sign up to some awesome sounding clubs and societies and meet lovely new people.

I think it’s time for another list! Ladies and gentleman, I give you:

Simone’s Fabulous List of Bests and Worsts of Everything at UniMelb’s O-Week of 2013! (*Exhale! Sorry for the long title, folks).

BESTS:

+ The people I met. Through my Orientation group on Monday, a guy sitting next to me in a lecture, and meeting friends of a friend, I have met a few lovely new people. This was undoubtedly one of the things I was most nervous about before the week, so it’s a major relief to have met a few more people. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, apart from to always check whether your top is inside out or not before you leave the house, it’s that you have to be really proactive in your friendship making. Saying hi to a random sitting next to you could prove seriously rewarding – and even if it doesn’t, what do you have to lose!

+ The friendly, don’t-be-shy,-come-say-hi! (I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it! A very bad poet, at that…) attitude of those signing you up at the clubs and societies, and similarly of my Host on Monday. Not once did I, or seemingly my friends either, feel awkward approaching one of the little stalls to write down our names and ask a couple of questions about the club, even though we were all feeling a bit shy and apparently looking like lost first years (as told by a student who approached yesterday! We thought we looked pretty chilled but apparently not!). I’ve signed up to – wait for it – 6 different groups! God knows how I’m going to keep up with them all, but they all sounded pretty exciting. The plan is to attend the first meeting of all 6, then work out which I like best…

+ Freebies! Everybody loves freebies, no doubt about it. In particular, a drink bottle, a pencil case, and a whole array of discount cards and tokens and vouchers. There wasn’t quite as much as I expected there to be in terms of Free Stuff, but still. Anything free is pretty good!

WORSTS:

– The weather! The sun only decided to poke her head out today, our final (and probably most un-eventful) O-week day, which kind of sucked, but there wasn’t much to be done about it but ensure lunchtimes were spent in the very warm Union House.

– Being approached several times by the same groups shouting ‘come join us! Come join us! We’re the best group!’. The pressure is really on and you feel like you’re going to make it incredibly awkward if you say no, thanks, I don’t want to spend $10 on your group when I’m not entirely convinced yet it is my thing! (But maybe that’s the point of their in-your-face encouragement, to sign up as many randoms as they you can to spam email…). A few of the Sports societies didn’t seem to understand that I’m entirely uncoordinated, even when I told them I once kicked the ball behind my head instead of forwards, and nor did the Cheerleaders, who insisted I should join even though I struggled to do a forward-roll in the golden days of year 10 PE!

– I’m not sure if this counts as one or not, but: the amount of paper I realise everyone is going to have to recycle over this weekend! Seriously, though. Free stuff is great; free random pamphlets of things in ‘show bags’, not so great! (Though this point may just be a reflection of knowing that it takes 10L of water to make 1 piece of paper and I’m still feeling guilty from the thousands of litres I probably used last year with all the VCE printing…)

I will leave you with a picture of some of the stuff I did get that I’m looking forward to using/going through. Check out the colourful tabs, thanks Book Club!! Can’t wait to use my new stationary next week!

 

If there anything you would like to add to my BEST/WORSTS List, feel free to comment – be intresting to hear how everyone else’s week went!

Love, Simone

xxxx