Outside of studies, Moving to Melbourne would still definitely bring a culture shock to most people, and as with such most of us have to adapt to the changing customs, different language, and higher prices (le sigh). Fortunately, something about that first part is a thing that I can definitely get used to. Continue reading "A Neat Observation"
Dear reader,
I hope you've had an absolutely spiffing weekend! ('Spiffing' - what a marvellous word! Try saying it now in your best posh accent!) Would you believe we're in week 7 which means *drum-roll please!* .... we're over halfway through Semester 1!!! *Cue fanfare!*
While you've been transitioning to winter woolies and the end of daylight savings, this blogger has made her own enormous step forward... This month, ladies and gentlemen, I boldly ventured where few first years have gone before and moved out of home.
No doubt those lucky home-bodies reading this blog will be wondering what it's like to enter the wilderness of rent-paying, housemates and "OMG who stole my mineral water!?!" So, I've decided, in this post, to give you all the gory details...
*WARNING: Read on at your own risk!*
DIARY OF A WIMPY INDEPENDENT KID - ENTRY 1
DAY 1:
12:00pm - Arrive at your new front-door carrying half the house on your back and realise that you still forgot food for dinner
1:00 - Spend a ludicrous amount of time doing battle with your bed linen (why can't doona covers attach themselves!?)
2:00 -Say goodbye to your dad
3:00 - Play 'Take on Me' (VERY LOUDLY!) and dance like a lunatic around your bedroom because you're all alone and there are no parents here
4:00 - Climb into your new cupboard (for privacy) and burst into tears because you're all alone and there are no parents here
5:00 - Your dad returns (on the pretense of fixing the bike rack that he accidentally ripped off the wall earlier) and takes you out for fish and chips
7:00 - Watch TV with your housemate on a couch adorned with chewing-gum. Stay up late discussing the meaning of life.
DAY 2:
- Discover a plastic bag which someone has tried to flush down the toilet (mm-hmmm....)
- Listen to a passer-by outside your window joyfully singing 'Bob the Builder' at the top of his voice, because he thinks no-one can hear him...
- Attempt to dry dishes using a tea-towel with a big hole in the middle as your housemate set fire to it
DAY 3:
- Take a cold shower before going to uni. Why cold, you ask? Some especially bright spark has swapped the hot and cold taps around. Go figure!
- While showering, leave your clothes and underwear on the basin, right near a resident colony of ants...
- Find yourself scratching awkwardly in unmentionable places all day because you've literally got ants in your pants!
DAY 4:
- While resurrecting last night's left-overs, watch a 'pet' mouse scurry frantically into the kitchen
-Watch your housemate scurry frantically into the kitchen, trying to catch the mouse
- Help your housemate clean up mouse droppings
DAY 5:
- When all alone, discover that a nest of gigantic (and boy, do I mean GIGANTIC!) flying ants have hatched in your kitchen
- Run screaming out of the kitchen and send an S.O.S. to the experts (Mum and Dad)
- Go trigger-happy with fly-spray
DAY 6:
- Discover some cute fluffy mold growing in your non-functional fridge
- Discover a new species of fungus growing on your window
- Decide that this house would be ideal for a biologist
DAY 7:
- Have your first ever house-meeting with tea and choc chip cookies.
- Help your housemates decorate the lounge-room with fairy-lights
- Curl up in your brand new Aria day-bed with a book and a mug of hot milo - this, surely, is the life!
May this coming week bring you all the serenity, harmony and joy which you probably won't find at my share-house... May it bring me lots more good material for blog posts!
Addio!
Aimee
The past week touched my nerves for a bit, and I’m embarrassed to say my limbic reptilian senses mildly emerged as the assessments rolled in.
It’s interesting how one’s mental landscape can be quite the petri-dish no one wants it to be, and a simple introspective moment can be quite the antibiotic to start afresh on an (ideally) new dish.
But it’s not a new dish, nor do I want a new dish, because I want some of those pathogens to stay behind, to remind me what I did wrong, how I defeated it, and let it be a punching-bag for me to exercise my confidence and problem-solving skills. Asking for a new dish is just an easy way out.
No one likes to get stressed out, but for me, it’s important that I remain uncomfortable all the time. One of my favourite quotes comes from the fantastic Hungarian-American Andy Grove:
“Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive”.
So, dearest University, give me all you’ve got.
I’ve also taken some time to explore new ways to manage my tasks in a more effective manner. I love task lists and apps, but none of them quite hit the mark, especially when some features only come from monthly subscriptions. I often find myself switching between several sites and apps, and that is absolutely wasteful of my time. So, three key things that I’ve incorporated for this week:
1. Graphical weekly task planner on a word document
2. App on computer (OSX) to keep me on a current task
3. Figure out some radio station appropriate for study
Alright, gotta study.
Vacation's over, and class is back. Not going to be much of a break until the end of May, so it would be a good time to stay productive for the rest of the semester. With that said, it's probably not as simple as a single sentence, so it's important to consider the following:
Continue reading "Distracte- SQUIRREL!"
Dear reader!
First, let me just say, I’m so happy that you’ve come back for post No #2 of my blog! Seriously, my heart – if you can picture it – is filling up with joy!
And, now… time for introductions!
My name’s Aimee (just in case you missed it!) and I’m one of the many kind-of-excited but also kind-of-terrified first year Arts students who has just undertaken the adventure of a lifetime and begun their study at Melbourne Uni. My mission: to provide five minutes of laughter (and yes, sometimes tears!) to all my reader buddies (You don’t mind if I call you that, right? – Thanks, I thought not!) and remind them, above all, that they’re not the only ones who sometimes find themselves feeling a teensy bit confused, bewildered or just generally in a ‘What the Hell am I doing here?’ kind of mood. I know I do. (We’ll keep that just between us, shall we?)
Ahem…
This brings me to my topic for this week: getting lost! It’s something which becomes a surprisingly integral part of your existence once you end up at a big beautiful campus like Melbourne. And, even more surprisingly, they’ve yet to publish a manual for how to do it successfully. (Weird, eh?) Luckily, I’m here, with a few tips to help you turn getting lost into an art-form! Take it from me, I’m a pro!
So here we have it: Aimee’s Guide to Getting Lost in Style!
STEP 1: Lose the hard-copy map! Nothing says ‘HELP ME, I’M LOST!’ like a big square of paper which gets humiliatingly glued to your face in the wind. And you don’t want to seem lost, do you? Rip it into a million pieces, burn them and then throw the ashes into the sea. All done? Good. Let’s continue…
STEP 2: Get out your smart-phone.
STEP 3: While using your smart-phone, be careful not to walk into anything… No really. It’s amazing how many first years hold phones so close to their faces that they forget to watch where they’re going and smash straight into other people/buildings. I’ll leave it to you to guess which especially talented and coordinated person managed to face-plant against a pole. (Guaranteed duck-lips without the botox– who doesn’t dig that crash!?)
STEP 4: While stopping (so that you don’t bump into things, remember? :) ) instead of looking like you’re lost and reading a map, pretend to be reading a naughty Instagram from your boyfriend/girlfriend (or your best mate if you prefer) and laugh loudly. The people around you will never guess! Just make sure you don’t laugh too loud or they might ask questions...
STEP 5: If you take a wrong-turn, don’t forget the art of U-turning with finesse! Before turning yourself back around, check your phone (or, if you’ve got a taste for vintage, like me, your watch!), whistle a bit, take in the sights and look chilled. Now, you may turn…
STEP 6: Still totally lost and time’s running out? Time to admit defeat and ask for help. Just be careful who you ask. EXAMPLE: The other week I was running around like headless poultry in an atrium PACKED with people and I managed to ask directions from a brand new, first year, International student who barely spoke any English. On the downside, I didn’t get very far. On the plus-side, get lost and you’ll make heaps of new friends!
STEP 7: When in doubt, take a detour and walk into the wrong classroom. Trust me, this one’s a must! I gave it a try in my second week and found it to be a thoroughly enriching experience. Instead of Linguistics, I ended up in Law in Society and brightened up everyone’s day by first, walking in late and then, running out again in a panic, because I’d just remembered that I wasn’t actually studying Law…
STEP 8: If it’s been more than ten minutes, you’re still lost and you’re unforgivably late for class, you have my permission to cry. Raise your head dramatically to the sky (like that blondie in ‘Frozen’ when she sings ‘Let It Go’), throw your arms out wide and howl, “WHY ME!!!???” (Everyone together now!) Alternatively, count to ten and then yell every single rude word you can think of and then make some up. (My personal favourites are ‘Cloff-prunker!’ and ‘Son of a motherless goat!’) You’ll soon feel heaps better!
STEP 9: You finally found your class – well done you! (If you didn’t, well done anyway for trying – now repeat steps 1-8, this time with another first year friend to help you.) Now sit back, enjoy what’s left of your class, then go grab coffee with a mate and tell them all about your adventure.
After all, on your own, you are just another helplessly lost first year. But, when you share your story, you become the latest lost-in-first-year celebrity with courage, humanity and, potentially, a very bright future in stand-up comedy!
So long for now!
Aimee
So, somehow we've made it. Four weeks in and ready to face the assessment wave after SWOT vac - Study With Out Teaching vacation. Hopefully it presented a chance to redeem all those missed lectures and work hard, otherwise it can become a Silly Waste Of Time instead. Almost like a flashback to the last week of term holidays in high school...
My name is Eleanor and I'm learning about language and linguistics here at Melbourne University. To be honest, I never imagined studying arts - yet now I'm writing for this blog and changing from psychology to criminology.
Studying at university does propose a challenge, for example - running to and fro back-to-back classes, jumping over people to find a seat in lectures, early starts in the morning...
But despite all these (any many more, varying upon faculty), university is extremely rewarding. During high school, always dreamed of doing homework without having to push myself - and although that isn't entirely the case (procrastination is unavoidable for some!) it is definitely easier. And, of course, fun once you get into it!
I'll confess - I procrastinate. In fact, I put off posting this for a while until April had swung around, meaning I had to change the former title 'Marching into March'. Nevertheless I hope to overcome this, if not completely but partially, by sticking to a schedule this year and getting all assignments in on time! My aim for my first semester (and hopefully second) is to complete with no extensions.
Does everyone else have goals for 2016? Maybe it's time to relive your new years' resolutions! I remember mine being something related to exercise... unfortunately my fitness currently consists of climbing the Redmond Barry staircase to my tutorial on the 7th floor every week. Fortunately it is 'Active April' this month so maybe I can transform my activity as well!
Good luck for the upcoming whirlwind of a week everyone.
Eleanor
After the stress, intensity and closed environment of Year 12, the copious amounts of FUN which are offered in all forms at Uni present a very welcome change!
As stated previously on this blog, UniMelb is a microcosm of activity, a city within a city, and a massive community to get involved in. There is always something to do on campus if you look for it, and if you find the enthusiasm to jump into the fun side of Uni, it can really transform your experience!
Here are just a few of the fun things that have happened since the start of the year:
Destination Melbourne was a 3 day orientation camp held in late January at St. Hilda's, a residential college adjacent to the campus. I'll do another post about this amazing program in the next few weeks, but one highlight was meeting Bella, one of last year's First_year@UniMelb bloggers who was a group leader on camp!
I wrote an article for Farrago! The student magazine at Melbourne is the oldest in Australia, and gives any student the opportunity to be a published writer! Just send in your article (or artwork) ideas and you might find your name in lights on the pages of the next issue!
O-Week was massive! The week before semester started was devoted to having fun, making new friends, and transitioning to a new campus and a new way of life. There was trivia, speed friending, movie screenings, campus tours, club sign-ups (more on that later) and an evening at Luna Park to wrap up the week. The latter entailed hundreds of UniMelb (and Monash) students having free roam of Luna Park, going on all the rides and having a lot of fun with some new friends!
Clubs are the best thing ever! There are over 200 clubs catering to all kinds of interests, from debating to unnatural llamas (yes, you read that right; don't ask). I joined no less than 14 clubs during O-Week, and while that may be average for an enthusiastic Jaffy like me, I'm going to have to figure out how many of those I will actually have time for! I've been getting involved primarily in the Engineering Music Society (EMS). They run 5 music groups including an Orchestra which I have been playing Violin in and a Chior which I have been singing in. I've met so many friendly and talented musicians already, who, like me, want to keep playing for fun!
I'm also a new committee member for both the EMS and the Italian Social Club, meaning that I will be involved in their planning meetings and the management of the clubs. I love helping out and being busy, so I was thrilled to be elected into these positions – especially since I've only been here for a few weeks! I find they're really happy to have fresh faces involved, so give it a go, fellow first years!
There are just so many things happening on campus all the time; from comedy on Wednesdays, bands playing on Tuesdays, BBQs just about every day (if you're in the right clubs), and so much more, all FREE! I've gotten soapy at the Science "Foam Party", tried to survive the zombie apocalypse in ZEDtown (and discovered that it was more fun to be a zombie anyway), answered plenty of trivia questions and been on a boat cruise with some Italians, and it's only been 4 weeks! Uni definitely is a wild ride, so make sure you make the most of it by getting involved and having FUN! As long as you still have enough time left over for study...
Which brings me to next time: the serious side of Uni and the academic transition from high school.
Thanks for reading,
Raphael 😊
My experiences so far have been akin to travelling into the rabbit hole; but the process has been part falling, part purposefully looking for the fall. That’s not to say I had the hubris of knowing Wonderland would follow the fall—it doesn’t. I took the plunge in anticipating for more rabbit tunnels lain in endless fractals, and it would take me tears, laughter, and sweat to go through countless doors.
This is the non-linear adventure I am looking for.
I know there was another first-year-blogger named Nicole (hi Nicole!—if you’re reading this), and I am in no way going to supersede her and the solid blogging work she has kept up. I’ve been struggling to come up with a way to identify myself differently, but I’m content enough with my name (haha) to come up with a pseudonym. Nor will I call myself “Nicole from _ _ _” because I’m in Melbourne now and where I was born does not define who I am (well, it does explain my penchant for certain food). So, I’ll just stick with Nicole, and hopefully you can spot the stylistic differences to tell us apart.
Here’s a (not so) quick reel of me:
Perhaps next week will open another door, or I’ll keep tumbling and falling for several weeks until I even catch a glimpse of a new door. Admittedly, I do feel as if I am still falling in suspension, but I am starting to get a sense of where I am and the amount of momentum I need to push myself out of this limbo phase (that everyone surely has gone through).
Happy Easter everyone.
It's been a week, and thankfully, it's non-teaching period for whole week here in Melbourne. Time to finally catch up on those lecture recordings you promise you'd watch tomorrow, get a serious dig-in/leg-up on your assignments, and if you miraculously get to the bottom of the work pile, you earned yourself a breather for the rest of the week (thank you for sparing your time to read this btw :P). With that said, I'd like to share a little bit of reflection for the past 4 weeks. Continue reading "Tuesdays with Eyre?"
It shouldn’t happen to a first year…
Picture this. You are alone. It is your first ever day of tertiary study and here you are at the University of Melbourne. There’s just one problem: you don’t have a clue where you’re going!
You’re supposed to be on the ground floor of the ERC. You’ve found the building easily enough, but you’re on the wrong floor. Looking over a banister, you can see all your classmates lined up outside the theatre. So near and yet so far!
After minutes (which feel like hours!) of running around the building in circles, while trying your best to look like you own the place, you find a staircase. Oh great, you think, this’ll get me to my class! Well, you’re right, in a way… Except that when you reach the bottom, there’s a big fat glass wall between you and your classmates. Hmmm…
In a panic, you try the door. Unfortunately, it won’t open - a sign above tells you that this door is for emergency exits only. Even more unfortunately, the noise has caused everyone to congregate around the glass – evidently, intrigued by the strange person on the other side and wondering what she’ll do next! Using an elaborate Chaplin-esque mime, you try asking for directions, but everyone shrugs apologetically back at you. Then, you remember: these are first years, with about as much idea as you have!
After a few more seconds of feeling like a very red-faced museum exhibit, you find your way back up the stairs, out of the building and through the front door. All your classmates now want to be friends… and who wouldn’t with such an entertaining specimen!? But, the worst is yet to come…
Once in the lecture, you decide this would be good time to take some notes. You wrestle violently with the book-rest, set up all your note-taking apparatuses and then, with one fatal sweep of your arm, knock your favourite yellow highlighter off. It rolls ominously under a chair in the next row. Suddenly, you face a terrible dilemma. On the one hand, getting down and grabbing the highlighter while your professor is still talking would probably be very rude. On the other, this highlighter is more than just the thing you use for colouring in – it has seen you through the dark times of VCE and brought you into the bright fluorescent yellow light of your future. Clearly, you can’t just leave it there!
But, getting down isn’t as easy as you expected… First, you have to do battle again with that damned book-rest! You awkwardly hand your new friends all your books and nosedive! This is probably the stupidest possible thing you could have done. Now, you’re in a position which even a qualified contortionist wouldn’t dare attempt! Your bum (if you’ll pardon the word) is airborne, while the rest of you is perilously stuck underneath the chair of the person in front. And still, your beloved highlighter is out of reach! There’s only one thing for it… You push yourself forward. This, unluckily, causes the chair – and the person sitting on it – to rise several inches into the air. You can feel the terrified student on top of you wriggling frantically – probably thinking they are under attack from some under-chair bogey man!
At last, you emerge triumphant, highlighter in your grasp! There’s just one problem… Everyone in the theatre has stopped looking at the lecturer. They’re all looking at you. And, best of all, seats away, so too are a couple of people you actually know from high school. Back in your seat you climb, wishing for a deep hole in which to bury yourself for the rest of the lesson – or preferably, eternity! Then you remember: even if such a hole existed, you wouldn’t be able to find it, because you’re still a disorientated first year!
It shouldn’t happen… but, it did. In fact, it happened to yours truly. Why then, dear reader, am I telling you about it? Well, really, I just want you to know that if you’re a first year in the midst of a mortifyingly embarrassing situation (or if you’re a mortifyingly embarrassed person in general, for that matter!), it’s not just you. It never is just you. And at least it wasn’t you stuck under that chair!
Salutations from your brand new blogger friend,
Aimee
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