Side note from the blog author: I, on a whim, decided to write my blog in a narrative style… maybe because there are no TV shows/novels about uni life in Melbourne, and there should be. If its of interest to you, my name is Jinghan and I'm studying maths, physics and informatics as part of a Bachelor of Science, and the rest of me you must discover gradually by reading about my life. Enjoy!
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I woke up. And even though I had been allowed this luxury of waking up naturally without the disturbance of the radio alarm for several weeks, the novelty still hadn’t worn off. It wasn’t until I had lazily climbed out of bed and stared at my laptop for inspiration for something to do that I realised that this was, perhaps, the last day of freedom. Or the first – if university life proved to be everything that I hoped it was.
The computer gurgled into life. I hadn’t had breakfast yet. And as some small voice in the back of my mind kept scalding me for turning on my computer before completing my morning rituals, I navigated to the university portal. I wasn’t sure what I expected. This was finally the day where I would get my timetable, and I would finally have some clue about what my year would be like. My diary, usually filled with commitments and colour-coded highlighting, was strangely empty from the first week of semester one onwards – maybe a pencilled in appointment here or there, but nothing more. As someone who is (perhaps just a little bit) obsessed with keeping her diary in order, having empty diary pages was like being… naked.
The portal site was down.
Typical.
Perhaps I would have persisted refreshing the page for the rest of the day, but there was other things I needed to accomplish during the day; for one, I needed to go to the university (for the first time since enrolment) for a first year bloggers meeting: just another one of those commitments that I had enthusiastically signed up for in the lull of post-vce-exam trauma, often referred to as a holiday. It wasn’t the first commitment I had entered this year. I already had a job (waitressing), or two (tutoring), was learning to drive, was doing ongoing social work, wanted to create art in her free time – and I didn’t even know what my timetable for the year would be like! I doubted it would be the last thing I would sign up for… Wanting to do everything and be everything would probably prove to be both a blessing and a curse in this year of new things.
Perhaps it was the fact that I had somehow combined breakfast and lunch into something that wasn’t quite brunch and shovelled it down my throat, but there was an uneasy feeling in my stomach as I travelled by train and tram to the university. I wondered if it had anything to do with the impeding commencement of orientation week and henceforth the start of first semester. Academic advice day had passed without much drama, perhaps because it had dropped in almost unexpectedly; but now… it was different. I had talked about the prospects of university with my friends – perhaps too many times. I had repeated the same ideas over and over too many times: about wanting to make new friends, about not wanting to lose old friends, about wanting to study hard, about wanting a job, independence, fun, success… I had expectations. I wasn’t sure what they were, but they were there. I didn’t want to say them straight out – in case they fell through.
Since I was at the uni, I decided I would purchase my student union membership. In retrospect, it was the one thing that I did that seemed to be my baptism into the world of “university students”. For one thing, I was asking the guy at the desk whether I could pay $20 in cash and $79 by card. Leaving me with something around $3 left of expendable funds. Yes, here it was, the taste of freedom, the paying for everything by myself. Living at home didn’t seem like such a doomed existence at that point in time, at least I would get fed despite being short of money. Reading the Union Member’s Handbook rekindled excitement for university and burnt away whatever insecurities had been churning in my stomach (maybe it was my hurried eating after all).
As I explored Union House following the suggestions of the handbook, I morphed into a uni student – every new space was a possibility for a new lifestyle that was starting here and now. Perhaps I would play pool at the bar, perhaps I would borrow films every week from the Rowdan White Library… I recalled my friend who had excited told me about his new wardrobe and had confirmed and reconfirmed and again-confirmed what he would wear to his first lecture. Maybe this was what university was – a chance to create something new with yourself. Part of me had been content with who I was at the end of secondary school, but seeing all the new places… maybe there was still more to life to find out about!
Alas. When I got home the portal was still down. The wait is perhaps the most agonising part.
But apparently I should introduce myself anyway.
To summarise. I am from Country Victoria - "Two cows to every bogan" - and I have a large-ish family, about 4 younger siblings by my last head count... I have a boyfriend of... 3 years? I'll give him a pseudonym later.
My parents are really overprotective, so it was pretty lucky my idea of fun is sitting about at home reading/watching anime/playing games/generally being an awful, shameless nerd.
Only in 2009 was I first allowed off into the city with my boyfriend (come to think of it I only went 3 or 4 times); I have verrry little experience with the public transport system; I don't actually know anything about the area I'm living in at the moment, like, thank god for Google Maps so I can find ATMs etc; no one from my high school got into UniMelb as far as I know; I am jobless and poor.
So, yes. I'm in a similar situation to many Uni students.
I live with my grandparents now, whom I must say I know very little about. It's been good so far though. The rent is cheap, there are edible meals, and for some gawdfersaken reason she has broadband with unlimited download. It's just a shame it takes so long to get into the city from here (not compared to home of course...).
*EDIT* Holy Heck Hats, I forgot to mention I'm a Science student.
I'll keep you updated on my various and numerous blunders and dabblings, hopefully I'll have created some useful hints and guides by the end of the year. Weeeeek-O starts tomorrow, I'm pumped!
Here are some cows. They are especially for you.
Step One: wrestle with technology (fittingly, it took four attempts for me to spell technology correctly. I wonder if it's like the word "Macbeth" in the theatre...using "the T word" in a computer lab is perhaps the trigger for things to blow up, shut down, yell at you, etc.) If you are reading this, applaud me for conquering technology (don't really clap, though, because that would be weird. Just give me mental accolades. Thank you. Thank you. I'm here 'till 2013.)
Step Two: Write. Well, it's strange that I managed to do step two without fully completing step one. In fact, I don't know if I'll ever master technolog, so forget I mentioned it.
So, now you've had to endure two paragraphs of ramble. Congratulations for getting this far. There are cookies by the door. Since your energy is probably lagging at this point (TIP: caffeine is usually a good go-to substance to improve this), I shall put my "getting to know you" details in a (hopefully) easy-to-read format (unlike the rest of my post).
Name: Laura
Age: 17 (no, I haven't mis-typed my age. I am a youngin. Please spare me the goo-goo-gaa-gaas and the "HA! HA! SUCKER! YOU CAN'T GO TO THE PUB!!!! WHY DON'T YOU GO HOME TO YOUR MILK AND COOKIES?" routine.) I turn 18 on 9th June - feel free to send bottles of alcohol over on this date.
Course: Media and Communications. I'm looking to get into journalism, but I also want to go to NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Art) after completing my "real degree" and pursue an acting career.
Loves: Acting, singing, dancing, writing (really?), reading.
Hates: steak, blood, arrogance, brussel sprouts, tequila (just...don't. Seriously. Don't.)
I come from Trafalgar. No-one's ever heard of it. Usually the conversation goes like this:
"So...where are you from?"
"Trafalgar"
"..."
"It's in Gippsland. About 2 hours away."
"Oh. Right. Cool."
And then, knowing they still have no clue where it is, I change the subject to "So...where are you from?" And, of course, they answer "[insert any Melbourne suburb here]". But, now, I am living in Carlton, so I am immensely proud to say that people actually know where I come from!
I checked my bank account today (after spending half an hour psyching myself up for it, so I could avoid breaking down in tears in the middle of Union House), after a week of paying for board, rent, food, gas and electricity, furniture and other fun things like laundry powder, detergent, scrubbing brushes, etc. I hate spending money on insanely boring things. I'm thinking that in about a week I will be going to Macca's, buying a 50c cone and asking for $6.50 cashout, just so I have money. Such is the life of being a poor uni student...
Bring on the Mi Goreng.
I remain humbly yours,
Laura
PS: I stole that line from Marieke Hardy, one of my favourite writers, however now that I have admitted my lack of creativity once, I shall continue plagiarising without shame. Pity I can't do that with Uni assignments...
PPS: Thanks for sticking with me through this nutty first post. I hope to regain my sanity soon and hopefully my writing will actually become mildly read-worthy.
Well hi. I'm another one of the many arts students who are contributing to this blog this year. I wrote out a post at home, but alas, forgot my hard-drive. So you get an introduction full of unadulterated rambling, typed in the 34 minutes I have left remaining on the (incredibly slow) internet here at the Melbourne City Library.
My name is Katie. I'm the second 'blogger' on here from Western Australia. Our enthusiasm stems from the fact that we're used to having way too much time on our hands, by the way. Don't bother visiting Perth, no matter how pretty people will tell you it is. It isn't that pretty. Some of the architecture makes Federation Square look attractive.
Seriously.
I moved here about a month and a half ago with a bunch of bros and brosephines I attended high-school with, united by our unwavering desire to flee Western Australia forever- to bite history in the back and escape the West to run to the East. Since moving to Melbourne I've embraced student poverty in its entirety, albeit reluctantly. Lentil as Anything in Abbotsford knows me personally. I live forever in fear of Yarra Trams ticket inspectors. I've become incredibly inventive with canned tomatoes.
O-Week begins tomorrow. I am coming to Melbourne to study a Bachelor of Arts, majoring (probably) in either History or Spanish. But what does that mean, or what could follow from that? Perhaps I can be an ambassador, with a cocaine habit, in South America somewhere?! Perhaps a historian specialising in Hispanic, uh, history. Perhaps an interpreter? My Portuguese friend does the subtitles for SBS. That'd be pretty cool, I guess. The other night I was walking back from the North Richmond McDonalds where I had been using their free wifi, and these businessmen who all worked at a printing company invited me in for a drink. After listening to them drunkenly slur about workplace politics, one of them queried what I did. After explaining my plans for the next three or so years, one of them stood and asked over and over in disbelief, "But..... why?! Whatever for?!". The guy behind the bar wiping glasses commiserated. He had been an arts student at a different university, and now was a teacher, but worked night shifts at the pub, because it paid better than his day job.
I guess I'm a little nervous to see how this will all pan out. However, after just receiving an invitation on Facebook from the Arts Student Society to what looks like roughly a ten or twelve hour pub crawl, I feel slightly more confident. The principal at my old high-school (who resembled and had a very similar demeanour to the principal in Grease, oddly enough) referred to 2[007] as the 'Year of Action' (oh lawd). So, 2010: The year of uncertainty?
Oh. Emm. Gee. O Week is upon me at last. After three months of watching television, avoiding relatives and decidedly not doing very much at all my university career is about to commence. Oddly enough, and don’t throw tomatoes, I could not be more over holidays. One, because with the promise of many a caffeine filled hour of study ahead my parents have *finally* handed over the keys to a shiny new netbook (almost definitely out of sheer relief that I’m going to get out of house); Secondly and most importantly because university is going to be, pause for emphasis, awesome. I have never been more excited for anything in my life.
But I’m going to back up a moment and introduce myself. My name is Mercedes (yes, like the car and no, asking me if my last name is Benz and sniggering is not a sign of your wit or intelligence), I’m eighteen and I come from the Western Suburbs. I live in Yarraville, a lovely slice of bohemia which mainly consists of ex-musicians, artists ect. and their offspring. Its proximity to first rate coffee and op shopping means that there aren’t many nicer places to live. I was educated in Footscray at a very public school, which provided significant deficits and assets in pursuing my ENTER last year. Footscray was an eccentric place to go to high school and I like to think that I’ve graduated with a tougher skin and, at the very least, a cooler eye.
Anywho, I am now a student of the University of Melbourne pursuing my Bachelor of the Arts. Sometimes the attitude of an outsider to an arts degree can be summed up by a comment made to me by a high school acquaintance.
“Oh so you’re doing an arts degree. Is that kinda because you don’t know what you want to do?”
A few minutes to swallow my cutting comeback please.
I do know what I want to do, because I always have. I want to be doing Arts, at Melbourne. I fully realise that sounds wishy washy but hey, the heart wants what it wants (wishy washy and sentimental). Of course what happens after, that’s a whole different story. So maybe snide girl was a little bit right, but I do know what I want to be doing now. Choosing my subjects was an ordeal because I absolutely wanted to do ev-er-y-thing. Academic Advice day was punctuated by the long suffering sighs of my friends as they listened to me bounce sporadically from whining about not being able to do Creative Writing to squealing about how exciting Principals of Business Law sounded. I shed tears as I was forced to choose between French and American Revolution and Myth, Art and Empire: Greece and Rome. In the end I’ve (hopefully) made the best of settling. For my first semester I’m rushing through the booklist for Literature and Performance, an English subject, and flicking through my glossy textbook (highlight of my holidays was going to the text book store, I enjoyed it in an almost rude way) for Introduction to Political Ideologies (Political Science). My IDF is Philosophy, Politics and Economics and my breadth subject is the scary sounding Critical Thinking with Data. My goals for this year, however, are largely not academic. They involve more then late night cram sessions and micromanaging my notes, because to be honest consuming large amounts of caffeinated beverages is something I already excel at. This year I want to move outside my high school world and create a new life for myself by trying new things, meeting new people and occasionally getting crazy and messy. My expectations for Uni are so high and in a years time when I inevitably reread this post I hope they’ve been fulfilled at least enough so I don’t cringe in disgust at my naïve first year lack of cool.
If you have any questions or comments please post below, or maybe if you want to look out for me in a shared subject (because that would be so welcome my head might explode). Until later, see you alligators.
Hi Guys,
Just a quick introduction of myself.
I'm Jenny Wang, an international student, studying The Bachelor of Biomedicine. I was in Brisbane Queensland for the last two years, completing my high school and before that I was in China, in a relatively small but busy town.
I just got here last week, and since the day I arrived in Melb, I have been very busy with losing my way and finding my way in the city as well as in the campus. He-he/
Everything is so exciting and so new! Meet people, making friends, living in a new place, starting uni and trying all sorts of different things...
I really hope I can meet tons of friends here and pls pls make comments! Thax a loooot!
Alright, this is for today. I think I am starving here, see you soooon!
P.S
Hey guys, I'm Kate and I wrote a draft for this intro post on another computer and now I can't be bothered retyping it (my usb is somewhere in my luggage). I just moved into college and life is hectic. Can't wait til we get an internet connection so I can actually do this thing properly!
Just quickly, I'm studying a BA and a Dip Lang (German), I'm from both the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and a small country town just north of it, went to a public school and have wanted to go to UoM for quite a few years.
While you're waiting for my first proper post, here's a song I have stuck in my head (hopefully this will become a constant in my posts)...Johnny Flynn - Tickle Me Pink
Hello everyone!
My name is Lois (pronounced Low-iss, like out of Family Guy/Superman… it’s not “Louis” which I get called a surprising amount), and I am a first year student blogger, beginning at the University of Melbourne in 2010 (in about… 1 weeks time?!)
I thought that as a first post, I should probably just introduce myself to you all, so you can perhaps understand my following entries a little better.
I’m doing a bachelor of arts, and this year I’m taking subjects in French, philosophy and ancient history – at the moment I think I want to major in French and philosophy, but I change my mind about once a week, as no doubt you’ll discover if you follow this blog! In my opinion there are far too many options in an arts degree, not that choice isn’t a bad thing of course, it’s just I want to try and do all of them. I also hope to do graduate law at Melbourne (the JD), and so I’m going to be a uni, for at least what, 6 years? So hopefully I’ll get to have some fun on the way!
For me, uni is far more than just about the academics – in fact it’s quite the opposite. Music, acting, sport, debating, and of course socialising; I hope to do all of them in good measure by joining (probably the majority) of the clubs at the uni, and the college which I’m moving into today… AHHHH! :D
Moving from Perth where the rest of my family lives was a big decision for me, and basically was down to the fact that I wanted a challenge, and I wanted the college experience of living away from home in relative comfort! Why Melbourne? Aside from Melbourne Uni’s fantastic reputation for arts and law, I love acting and there are considerably more opportunities for that here than in Perth.
I don’t want to make this too long as this is just a quick hello, so no doubt I’ll post again in the next few days recounting the many bizarre occurrences of moving into a college, O-week and beyond.
If you have any questions/comments for me about anything at all (including more information about myself... if you'd want it?), ask away and I’ll get back to you- comments are love. ☺
Until next time!
PS. As I love music, most of my titles will be song titles... 50 points if you can tell me which band this title is from!
(I'll give you a hint... they're Swedish)
So, you may be asking yourself: "Why is this 'Rinaldho' person putting up a blog post so early?" Well, to answer your terrific question (if I do say so myself), I am, as the title alludes to, taking advantage of the quiet period before the much-hyped O-Week rears its ugly head. Although there has been a great deal of talk about what will go on next week, I still have absolutely no idea what I am in for, not only will I have the O-Week events to attend, I will also have just moved into University College, which I'm sure will have its own events during the coming week. So, I would just like to get these sort of formalities out of the way, so that my next posts can get right into nitty-gritty of uni life (oh yeah, I just said "nitty-gritty").
Ok, so here comes the introduction, which I have no doubt, I will be repeating hundreds of times during the coming days. My name is Rinaldho, or Aldo for short (yep, like the shoe store... it could be worse, at least I wasn't named "crocs"). I am half Dutch and half Indonesian, and am a permanent resident here, although I only arrived in Melbourne last october. I moved here from a small island I doubt many Australians would be familiar with, it's called Bali. That's where I have lived most of my life, and so, coming here is a massive change for me, so even though I am a resident, my mind frame is truly that of an international student, which is a title I have been quite familiar with throughout my life... Just to bring this post back to a university based blog, I am also a Bachelor of Arts student, and will be pursuing a major in Media and Communications.
Well, I guess I have said what I set out to say at the beginning of the post. When my next post comes along, get ready to read about everything from Alloc8, to beginning college life, to Host Groups. And hopefully by the end of the year, I, and all my fellow first-year bloggers, will be able to answer most, if not all, of your questions about life at the University of Melbourne. However, if your question isn't answered by any of our posts, I think the best advice I could give would be: assume the answer to be 42. (If you did not pick up on that literary reference... for shame)
Rinaldho
I mean, it's entirely possible that by the time I actually get around to publishing this, everyone else would have already uploaded their first blog; nevertheless, as the time of writing this sentence, there do not appear to be any other introductory blogs written by the 2010 First_Year@UniMelb bloggers. So I guess I'm first off the bat, hooray!
This is probably the first and only time it will happen, though. I have a habit of getting unnaturally keen on things when they're new and interesting, but then my laziness eventually kicks in and most things become a chore. HOWEVER, I will not let that happen, faithful readers! I have at least two to three hours to kill before I'm off to an eighteenth birthday party, and I honestly think that writing my first blog for this site will be infinitely more productive than all the Minesweeper I've been playing recently (that's what being an unemployed* VCE graduate in summer does to you).
Brilliant, two paragraphs in and I haven't even introduced myself, which was basically supposed to be the point of this blog. Well, since you've already had to endure a small wall of text, I'll break it down simply for you:
- My name is Cristina (no, I have not spelt my own name wrong, there really is no "h")
- My birthday is November 1st (in case you want to leave me birthday wishes in the future)
- I will begin my first year of a Bachelor of Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne this year
- My interests include writing (o rly?), reading, being practically married to my computer, the Interwebz in general, playing drums, music that doesn't suck (at the moment I have been unable to get this song out of my head), Wikipedia, YouTube, the Opera Internet browser, geeky pop culture, and irony.
- I'm not really a fan of broccoli, hypocrisy, fake tans, and Apple Macs.
So I'm kind of unnaturally excited about starting university. I don't think I've ever been this excited about something education-related, at least not since Prep. I discovered my course in Year 10, I believe, and was initially hopeful of attaining the marks required to get in, then realised that I actually had no hope in the world of getting in, and finally ridiculously surprised myself with my final results, thus being able to get into the course of my dreams. I'm hoping it's everything I've imagined it would be.
I don't know much about how this year will pan out; I'm the first child in my family, so I have no uni experience to go by other than my mother's, and that was in the Dark Ages. It will certainly be an interesting year, I'll give it that. I mean, apart from the huge transition from a cliquey all-girl's Catholic secondary school where you knew your place into the huge world of UniMelbz where you get lost after turning a corner, I'll also be the glamorous-older-woman-at-university while my boyfriend of two years slaves his way through Year 12. Poor munchkin. It's pretty funny, though.
Anyway, I've just surpassed 500 words, so that's probably enough from me for now, otherwise I'm never going to have anything else to say. Basically: I'm a total noob when it comes to university, but I'm *totally* pro at blogging, so hopefully these two factors can combine to produce something wonderful, much like the combination of peanut butter with jam (which I would HIGHLY recommend).
Can't wait for O-Week! :D
Cristina.
P.S. If there's anything else you'd like to know about me - not including my email address, phone number, home address, and cup size - feel free to leave a comment asking. I know you won't, but I can live in hope, can I not?
P.P.S. I'll try to make future posts much shorter than this one.
*My job starts in March. I'll tell you more about it in the coming entries, when I actually start it.
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