Preparing for those awkward, week 1 get-to-know-you activities (Simone)

To anyone who is not yet at uni, or who is about to begin this semester, I must warn you that one of the hardest questions you will be asked in your first tutorial for each subject actually sounds deceivingly simple:

‘Please tell the class your name and one interesting thing about yourself’.

If you are at uni now and have answered this question already, what on earth do you say?! Please feel free to comment and share your interestingness! I am in serious need of inspiration. Maybe I’m over thinking it a bit, but last semester I ended up blabbering out something embarrassing nearly every time, and I must not let that happen again in semester two! I don’t think I’m particularly un-interesting, I just don’t have anything special or different to tell people, you know? (Damn the fact that I’m not from anywhere interesting – I haven’t moved out, I’m just in my home state, chillin’ with my family. The most common answers from my classmates seems to be “I’m staying at ___ college on campus”/”I moved to Melbourne from…” It’s so simple and effortless, and yet it’s cool too because it indicates a certain independence/exoticness, you know? I’m clearly a tad bit jealz!)

Alright. Brainstorm time.

‘Hi, my name is Simone and…’

‘…I live with my parents and sister, only a couple of trams away to uni.’  (Too boring.)

‘…once a magpie landed on my head and start pecking.’ (Too weird. And probably won’t help with that whole ‘friend making’ thing at all! I’m ashamed to admit this is what I told my psychology tute last semester. I thought they might laugh… but really there was a just a whole lot of staring, and that was all. Epic fail. Not sure how I managed to make friends in psych after that!)

‘…I went sea kayaking to see dolphins in Byron Bay over summer.’ (True! But the dolphins didn’t turn up, so it’s a bit of a fail of a story! Thanks a lot, dolphins, for ruining this moment for me… or perhaps I could just leave out the whole bit about them not showing up?!).

‘…I barrack for St.Kilda.’ (Hmm, does this sound a bit ‘footy bogan’?! I guess it’s not as bad as saying I barrack for Collingwood, but still… is it just me or are people not into footy immediatly slightly repelled by people who are?!)

‘…I have a bit of a crush on Robbie Turner from Atonement’. (Having a crush on a fictional book character may freak some people out, though, even it is a whole lot better better than on one of the guys from One Direction or Justin Beiber or someone.)

‘…all of the pets I’ve ever owned have either died or run away.’ (Makes me sound like some kind of evil, pet-killing/hating person! Definitely not the right impression to give on Day #1. I swear my five goldfish were all fed and loved really well. And the cat was just a bit crazy from the begining. Totally not my fault).

‘…I’m a checkout chick at Coles.’ (I’m not ashamed of this – us uni kids have to make our money somehow! – but it does sound a little bit bogan and boring, eh?).

‘…my favourite film is ‘Pride and Prejudice’.’ (Too boring? Perhaps it sounds a bit too posh, like I’m totally Mr Darcy-adoring and all. Pff. I don’t like Mr Darcy! Not at all…..!)

‘…I don’t think I’m a boring person but I’m not a big fan of these get to know you activities because they do not reflect who you actually are and just make you feel embarrassed and awkward if you don’t have anything particularly good to say in comparison to those people who just moved from Switzerland or whose father is an astronaut and WHY must you put us through this?!?!‘ (….or not?)

God knows what I’m going to say, dear readers. Maybe I should I just stick with ‘Hi, my name is Simone and I am a worry wart because I thought way too much about what to say to this exact question!’.

(True.)