Life's Small Ironies (Yan)

This may be my first year at university, but last year when I still lived in Sydney I visited the University of Sydney a lot because, well, I was a nerd like that. One time, I was there for students election week. There were campaigners everywhere and I just thought they were just so annoying, especially since I wasn’t even studying there.

Oh, how the tables have turned.

In case you guys haven’t seen the chalk drawings, posters, people in t-shirts, all over campus the last four days, I’ll say it again: student elections are happening this week.

I kind of want to add an exclamation mark after that sentence but to be honest, as someone who’s running on one of the tickets, I am way too tired for enthusiasm.

I’m vaguely horrified at myself right now. I’m one of those people who avoid people handing out flyers like the plague, whether that be other student elections (as stated above), advertisers in shopping centres, whatever. And now I’m one of them.

It’s strange how campaigners, like teachers, don’t seem to be real people. Like, theoretically you know that they have a life outside of handing flyers to students in front of Union House, but at the same time it’s still kind of surprising to know that they aren’t robots? It’s like when you see a teacher grocery shopping or something. It just violates the laws of the universe. Or is that just me?

I’m really tired right now. I’m going to sleep as soon as I post this because I have to wake up at 6.30am tomorrow; I’ve been on my feet pretty much all day for the last four days and I just want this week to be over already.

On the upside, I’ve made a bunch of potential friends just from randomly starting conversations. So I mean, I suppose this is one way of meeting new people? No? Yeah, maybe not.

I think the main thing I’ve discovered this week is that as soon as you put on that campaigning t-shirt, people think you’re not human. I’ve had people talking about how much they hate campaigners right in front of my like I’m not even there. And look, I get it. I get that everyone finds campaigners really annoying. Trust me, I’ve been there. But something else you should trust me on is the fact that we’re not doing this for fun. Seriously, campaigning is all kinds of painful and not something I’d wish to inflict on anyone. Pretty much the only reason I’m doing this at all is because I genuinely believe in what the student union does. Because I think that the ticket I’m running with has good policies and genuinely excellent values.

I’ve been told by administration that I can’t mention the name of the ticket I’m running on here for privacy reasons, so unfortunately I can’t advertise anything on here. I suppose all I’m trying to say is that if you guys reading this haven’t voted yet, seriously, come down and have a talk to a campaigner sometime tomorrow because I guarantee that we have tons of ideas about how to make everyone’s university experiences the best it can be.

Oops, there I go again, sounding like a walking talking advertisement. I’ll take that as my sign to go to bed already.