Happy Birthday!
Celebrating my 20th birthday in Australia was a dream coming true. Previously, I never associated my birthday with a picnic in March. A picnic! I should be Aussie and call it barbie. Either way, it was totally awesome and something I can get used to. The fact people actually showed up on a SUNDAY was a pleasant surprise.
They even got me presents! As a result, my otherwise empty room has now become somewhat more full with the following items:
- a golden ball (which bounces, bonus point)
- a the world's sexiest babe badge
- a photo frame
- a book of logic puzzles (cuz I got logic on my side...)
- Lovely birthday cards
- The Mating Game.
The latter proved to be most successful due to its flirtatious nature. Enough said, I'll let you use your imagination.
In short, my birthday ruled. To be honest, I was a bit nervous about it. Three weeks is not a long time to make friends. Besides, we all know how hard it is to come up with a time which suits everyone. My advice to any future three-week-birthday-foreigner is to arrange for a BBQ. It's a great way for people to meet, and it's easy to organise. Each person brings whatever they want to bring. Period.
Then celebrate!
Oh, before I forget. I also want to wish Happy International Woman's Day! Every day ought to be a happy R-E-S-P-E-C-T day. Although it's harder than it sounds.
Ok, keeping this small..... hopefully, because as you will soon see I planned to go to bed before 12.
The likelihood of this occurring is minor. Why? Because of the addictive nature of writing and the way my mind has just grabbed onto the idea of doing things (thankyou programming, >I ) at a ridiculous rate. So I will not be able to stop writing until something of decent nature appears before mine eyes!
So doing a good job of writing. Right now. That I am doing... Really
Ok enough pandering around to my not wanting to type about things seriously ways. I on the weekend had a quiet one, contrare to my previous post of Carpe Dieming. Which is not to say that I'm a hypocrite (or grif). Just that everyone needs a quiet one sometimes.
So that's that. What else.....
I've said hello to a new person in every lecture. Read my reading for everything ( I think). And I finished my poem for Creative Writing.
Oh aren't I just the busy little bee. Hrumph. I thought I had more to say but am oddly silenced.
I had a thought along the lines of "there are a lot of pretty girls at uni"........."when compared to an all boys school"........"I wond-..... well duh." So that was thought provoking for my social commentary. And now that's prompted the thought that there are a lot of girls/women (not sure which term to use) doing arts. Interesting dynamic change/shift, or meby I'm just doing all of the really girly courses? In any case some food for thought. Now I'll deftly move aside from that topic by introducing a quick ending because of my want to get to bed (I should really write these up earlier).
I'm not really sure what I want from my whole university experience, it seems more or less a table full of the most delicious delicacies I could ever try, each leading onto a bigger and greater feast. So in truth I'm spoiled for choice, and wanting not to develop heartburn or a bad case of a tummy ache I have chosen (tuusen pronunciation!) to take it slow, BUT RADICAL LIKE A PRAGMATIC LENIN. Except no revolution or forgetting what to say to the Krondstat (I think that's the spelling). (<Also this bit is just showing off a bit of flare to get the mind racing and me still typing). Huff, so in short I'm being conservative in my radical carpe diem stratagem. I mean once you commit to something it does take a lot of effort out of you, everything's enjoyable but what do you want to enjoy? Same kinda with people, not that I'm trying to be snobby it's just, everyone's interesting from a certain angle but talking (even if it's enjoyable) should be to your benefit, not something that's a chore or a requirement. So trying to rationalize here, I'm doing what I think I'm up to doing and doing things that benefit me and do not become mindless chores. There's a choice to this "fun," and "lifestyle" of ours, just make sure it suits you.
Ok there we go something profound, hopefully not too forced, tell me off otherwise. Most of this is just a justification for what I think I'm doing (of course I could just be antisocial or selfish in my work/life but that's for you to decide in your reading and wail about underneath, I can choose to ignore it (ha ha?). Anyway, being too self critical (which is kinda an oxymoron, all literature is a reflection on life) so I'm stopping for real and making sure I get to bed. SOON
G'nite
Dan/Yoddeuss
Anyhow
My first week of classes ended rather unceremoniously with me skipping Thursday's psychology lecture. Quelle rebel.
It's okay; I wasn't dropping out of Uni, or dropping acid, or sleeping in a gutter like a low-end whore. On Thursday afternoon I went to a seminar on shaken baby syndrome at the Royal Children's hospital with my mother. (Uplifting, obviously. Our other mother-daughter bonding activities include shopping, pillow talk, and excursions to the Port Philip Correctional Centre to visit convicted paedophiles. Note: I kid.)
I thought the seminar might be useful / interesting in terms of later applications and blah blah blah. It was, and the people running the show were very knowledgeable and pragmatic. It finished at four p.m., and I had a whole hour to get back to the Carrillo-Gantner theatre in time for a Behavioural Neuroscience lecture.
In the car park, wrapping scarves around necks on the fifteen-degree afternoon, the following conversation ensued:
My mother (standing in front of car): "Well, I guess I'll see you when you get home."
Me: "Okey-dokey. Drive safe."
My mother: "Hey, do you want some chips?"
Me: "Yeah, let's go."
What can I say. The promise of food; the comfort of a car (in which your head isn't jammed in somebody else's sweaty armpit, like on the train): I'm easily satisfied. And hence I missed the lecture. But I was too orgiastically caffeinated, satiated and happy to care.
What else? Blogging is an odd concept, based on the assumption that readers, should they exist, actually give two mouldy figs about what you're saying (unlikely). But for the purpose of this exercise, I'll proceed nonetheless.
My weekend now consists of three days, as I have no classes on Fridays, making it smashing by default. On Sundays, my dear friend (who informs me she wishes to be known as 'Scarlett' for the duration of this blog) and I have a semi-hemi-regular open-mic slot at a local music café, and I spent much of Saturday afternoon at her house as we practiced.
After pushing several platefuls of luscious gnocchi down our faces, we walked over to a friend's house for a small get-together. Generally such gatherings involve alcohol, interpretive dancing, and possibly Guitar Hero. However, on Saturday night everyone was surprisingly exhausted after our first week as pseudo-grown-ups, and so the evening culminated in everybody lying on the floor at about ten-thirty.
What crazy kids.
Scarlett and I walked home again and practiced until midnight, at which point we crashed. I believe the turning point was when she accidentally (and with much sincerity) sang 'Put gerbils in your pockets...', instead of 'Put dirtballs in your pockets'.
...and then on Sunday afternoon, we performed to a small (but loyal) crowd, and kicked some arse. It was a real humdinger.
Back to uni today for my first psychology tute, second French tute, and my eighty-sixth coffee, before meeting la familia in Lygon Street for some serious chow. And right now it's so gloriously sunny I might just go down to the beach.
This is so vapidly cheerful I'm making myself nauseous. Good times.
SO HAPPY =D
I'm at McDonald's at The Glen right now. Yes, out of all places.
But I'm so abso-fabulously happy. Just less than an hour ago, I received an SMS.
... so I'm going back to uni for a 6 pm meeting =D Fabulous. More details later. Yayaya =]
cenvii
Again, note the squiggly brackets. They're going to be quite a theme this year, so get used to them.
Well, I just completed a weekend that I'd initially planned to dedicate to completing a week's worth of "uni work". I think the entire weekend can be summed up by the fact that I'm writing this while the computer is sitting on top of a notebook full of Biology that probably needs to be finished for my tutorial tomorrow. That led me to think about something that will probably be very important over my time at uni; what is work that needs to be done?
Sure, I turned up at lectures and took notes and crossed out things that had been changed and met a bloke from South Korea and at least semi-understood all the material that was covered. So, what comes next? I have a list of theoreticals (which is good, because I can use fancy Wordpress formatting)
- Read over notes diligently every evening after lectures
- Summarize notes at end of every week into actually useful notes
- Do required reading and look up glossary words before lectures start
- Finish work set in tutorials (and don't use it as a computer-rest)
- Complete the "optional" pieces of assessment which are on the LMS
- Do all prelabs/ILTs/preliminary reading etc. before classes that require such work (actually this is kinda important, because they're generally hurdle requirements)
Well, that's what I decided I was meant to do. I tried to do it all. Honest. So, I suppose the moral of this little story is that you need to just set aside some time to do the basics. Rewrite your notes. Go through the textbook and master concepts. I'm about to do that and I'm hoping to; understand my Biol. lecturer and the terminology he uses, finish assignment 1 for Calculus and answer the question posed in the Creative Writing lecture.
Hmm. Maybe I was too amibitious there. Ah well, I'll update you all next time I post here.
Hello world! And welcome back to another episode of .. whatever this is.
And fellow FirstYear bloggers, you guys are insane (in a good way) - my last entry has already been pushed to "Previous Entries" - oh to dwell in the past.
So its me again, your Pokemon friend, (lyrical miracle. coz' it rhymes) and I'm trying to keep up with:
a) The efficient updates of each blogger on this site =P (we're all dying for front page aren't we guys)
b) With the homework that I suddenly discovered I have. It pays to listen to lectures guys, or at least check the LMS - because I've had no clue about this homework until.. today. Thank God I've got a day off this Labour Day.
Onwards, to bitch a little about "Australia’s largest free community festival, Moomba Waterfest". Which apparently "represents a fantastic opportunity for all of us to recognise and celebrate the strength and unity of our community."
(http://www.thatsmelbourne.com.au/Whatson/moomba/Pages/Moomba.aspx, City Of Melbourne representative, 2009)
check it out, I'm citating. Probably incorrectly too. Transition to Commerce lecture here I come.
In a nutshell, I'd like to send out a dire warning to any would-be Moomba-ers (despite the festival ending .. Monday i.e. today), to eat before hand, bring a casual drink, and the mindset that "I will only spend my money on rides".
What they don't tell you on the That's Melbourne! website is that Moomba, like the Royal Melbourne Show, will rip you off if you try to play any of the games, sure you see people with big toys walking away. But how many people do you see NOT walking off with big toys?
Take this example. I have a friend who is a little short, and only just made it above the 140cm height requirement for the rides, and is of Malaysian decent (nothing against Malaysians. Just mentioning it because of my Singaporean descent. And the ongoing play feud between Malaysians and Singaporeans. Singapore is better. And don't bother about the bubblegum argument, it doesn't have any effect). She paid $10.00 AUD, for 5 huge basketballs, to shoot at a ring no more than a metre away, with a diameter of about 2 metres.
She got all of them in (surprisingly) and won ... not one of those huge orange Neopets Scorchio toys (yeah, kinda sad that I knew which Neopet it was.), but, a purple tiger toy no bigger than her hand.
The "amazing deal" that the guy offered us (after he had stolen our money, and given us this piece of crap toy) was that we could pay ANOTHER 10 bucks, and play again, and IF we won, we could trade it in for a bigger toy!
And there were 3 sizes of toys. So to get the 'big' ones, we'd end up playing 30 bucks. And there was no guarantee because the guy would probably smack the balls away.
$30.00 AUD for a soft toy that was probably made in China, and cost maybe 10c to make (due to the horrible lack of minimum wage)? These guys are making like a 3000% profit.
She's gonna kill me for mentioning her height. Might I also add despite her minute size, she's incredibly vicious and violent, having my under-eye poked with the force of a bull, forced my already small left eye to close up a little more.
She was aiming for my chin. Yep coz my chin is close to my eye. Thanks.
Beware of Moomba! The rides are pretty fun though (but I'm not really sure if they're worth 10 bucks a pop.)
kthxbye
ASH!
comments welcome.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the last few days thinking ‘I’m going to blog about that’. Then I promptly forget and by the time I’m sitting at my laptop – it is currently 1am on Monday morning – nothing very interesting comes to mind. I will make do, though.
I feel a bit like I’m missing out on Uni. Reading the other blogger’s entries, I see that there are a thousand and one things that UM has to offer – I’m just not doing most of them. Whenever I’m at Uni, I’m thinking about going back to College. I’ve made some great friends here, there is free food and it is (now) the much less scary option when I have free time. I can come ‘home’ and get some sleep or play Frisbee. That sounds like a dodgy American holiday camp movie, I know. With this in mind, I’m going to spend a whole day actually at University tomorrow! Hopefully make some ‘uni’ friends.
I never realised how hard it is to be flippant at 1am on a Monday.
…someone just came to my door, I got distracted, it’s now 2:03am.
The brief summary I was planning seems too long now. I only have one question, reader, what are you all finding works for lecture notes? Writing down every word and point, or just writing down a few key ones? I’m struggling, I don’t know which is best!
Well. That was possibly one of the busiest and most stressful weeks of my life.
Oweek was awesome. First week? Well it was cool but not so cool… maybe even downright overwhelming - don’t get me wrong, I’m not some wishy-washy winger unused to the realities of real life... (Ok. I am. I’m really just a spoiled brat, but I’m TRYING dammit!)
So I love all of my subjects. Creative Writing was a blast, I just felt like I was suddenly in a lovely place, and suddenly homework was to write poetry! That’s just about the coolest thing ever, but then I am a massive dork, so I could be alone with that assertion.
I listened to music.
I watched films.
I read novels.
And this is all subject stuff. This is what I do now, and that’s so cool. It’s unbelievably fun and engaging when you’ve been stuck in full time work for a year. Maybe it will wear off, but the interest is there and that’s all that counts, the rest will come.
Yep, that’s right. I love ALL my subjects (yes, even you Homer to Hollywood even though your many required texts are horrendously expensive when added together) but where was I? Oh yeah, every subject, every single one...
Bar one. Ain’t that always the way?
Yeah, turns out I can’t stand French, which is odd, because my original plan had been to try to major in it, but alas, it’s not meant to be. I knew this almost immediately when I walked into my seminar and the guy just spoke French the whole way through, assuming all of us could understand.
Nope. No way. Oh, pardon me, a few people could… and I asked them why too… why was it again?
Because they studied super hard in VCE?
Because they were smarter than me and I was the stupid one?
Because they had watched French news since they were six?
No, try having FRENCH PARENTS or a GAP YEAR in France. Yeah, that’ll do it. Everyone in the seminar I spoke to was either had some ties to French that were NOT VCE, or they were just as freaked as I was.
Needless to say I was thoroughly intimidated. So intimidated that I actually had a panic attack after class and called my mother with the ol’ “I… can’t… breathe… stupid… smart… people… didn’t… understand…” which then deteriorated into another one: “ButifIdon’tgetitnowthenI’mgoingtofailUniversityandendupdrivingatruckwith someguynamedDanwho’ssecretlyapervertandI’llendupcutintotinypiecesandfl usheddownthedrainallbecauseIcouldn’tdoFrenchatUni!”
Fortunately my mother, though it has been a year after VCE, is used to such rants and amazingly was able to decode the above and told me something simple, so simple in fact that I was surprised I didn’t think of it first: just transfer out of it.
Now I can hear many of you screaming in academic defiance at this:
“But what about how useful another language is?”
“What will you do for your major?”
“If you don’t learn a language doesn’t that make your degree in Arts essentially useless?”
And of course: “But it’s only the first week!”
Trust me, I’ve heard them all. And here is my answer. It is only the first week. And after only one seminar I was so panicked and freaked out that I actually had to CALL MY MUM. Nothing is worth that kind of stress, and I don’t actually LIKE French. I like France, I like the French (as people), I even like French accents (who doesn’t). But I don’t actually like French as a language. In fact, if I remember back to the way I felt in my VCE French exam, I actually kind of hate it. I just did it for the above reasons, and they’re the wrong reasons because they’re someone else’s reasons.
I’m a grown adult now (granted one that still calls mum to have a bit of a sob/ freakout/ mini-tantrum) and hence can now do what I want, and live with any mistakes, if I have to.
So here’s my advice from the lesson I learned this week:
If you don’t like something, you need to change it, and you need to do it before the census date (which I think is next Friday).
Oh, and bonus lesson! Yay!
You’re not alone. Granted a lot of people understood French in my seminar but a lot of people were freaked out enough to change just as I did, and it’s always good if you can find these people and have a chat with them, because it makes you both feel better and like you’re not total idiots for not understanding what the hell was going on.
Oh and bonus bonus lesson! (My, aren't we lucky?)
Never, EVER, watch Atonement when you're mildly upset. It will leave you craving chocolate but unable to move for fear you'll wake your neighbors in what I like to call movie-induced melancholia, brought on by both the sadness of the subject matter and the sheer gloriousness of Keira Knighley's face and dress (OH LORD HOW I WANT THAT DRESS!)
And with that sweet readers, I'm off, I'm obviously getting delusional and need some kind of fix, be it caffeine or sugar or just sweet conversation.
Au revoir.
Updated with [text] 090308
Okay I know I'm being asian mathematical here, but I'm sure you'll agree with that inequation. Uhhh, especially the uni life > study bit ? =P
You do have 3 years to do something at uni, but come on guys Carpe Diem a bit. Reality’s only what you make of it, so make it. Etc about making your own decisions. University is only going to be awesome as you make it, so make it.
~ It’s the end of the week (Daniel)
Dead Poets Society springs to mind... The world is your oyster. Hmm we could equally say me ⊃ uni life ⊃ study, and that's pretty much an all-encompassing statement for at least my next three (or three-point-five...) years here at Unimelb.
Onto a weekly summary :
- First lectures. A.Maths, fun, although I've never done matrices (at school) before. Logic, yay for novelty, especially because it helps me justify my ways of thinking. Clear thinkinggggg is needed for too many things, and I don't want to be hot-headed all the time. PPE, ah damn, I almost fell asleep during that introductory lecture. Ling, woot because I finally get to know so much more about language – that fascinating thing via which I'm communicating with you all now.
- First tutes. So far only for PPE and A.Maths. PPE, at least on this one I deviate from Daniel's experience – the people in my tute actually talked ! Which encouraged me (who usually refuses to say anything at a first-time gathering) to join in the discussion. For anyone interested, it was about the SA government "monitoring" McDonalds' pricing schemes at their various franchises... A.Maths, uhhh everyone got to work on the problems and then we had a lab session. ONE NOTABLE THING : We did the usual self-intro thing, and I was obviously the odd-one-out in my tute group, being the only BA there among all you BSc's and BCom's. Gahhh. But I enjoy being the odd-one-out. I'll have to learn to stare people down whenever I tell them I'm a BA doing maths as breadth and they stare at me like I'm from Mars or something...
- Food at Union House. I think I've mostly been getting the chips and chicken fillet burgers from a certain store... Aaaaand, I'm keeping my voucher as a memento for being an f_y@u blogger ! =P
- Wifi. I have the internet on one hand, but not under ten fingers. Gahhh. The wireless works without any fuss on my iPod touch, but the Macbook seems determined to kick me out of internet access .____. Ah well I've resorted to only taking notes on the laptop. Email, daily schedule and the rest go on the touch. (I need the email because that helps me keep up with the interviews, etc.)
- Audition and interviews. Tuesday – Chinese Theatre Group, Semester 1 Cantonese production cast audition. Everyone's pro, except for me =\ But I'm delighted that the director (who auditioned us) recognised me when I walked past her in the corridor on Thursday. Friday – Chinese Theatre Group, same production but interview for script translator. (Which basically means translating the script from colloquial spoken Cantonese into written Chinese and English subtitles.) Then Chinese Culture Society, interview for general committee. Yay everyone at my interview session (there were quite a few) were accepted. I'm uhhh, not fob ! Please =P
- MUCS rehearsal. That was Wednesday evening. Freezing when we were waiting outside. Met a second-year BA there, and also a friend J. We're singing Mozart's Requiem ! I sang Dies irae with the choral group at school last year, but Requiem aeternam is new to me. All very well, basses rock ! (I'm bass/baritone.)
- Visit to Newman College. After MUCS rehearsal, J invited me to his residential college. Wow it's actually not bad. Stayed for an hour, mostly watching the clip he filmed of his friend's 21st birthday. J's friend's friend wrote a play in secret in under two weeks, all in tribute to J's friend ! Wow, and they put it on all for him. I was simply amazed. And J and I made plans to go watch Wicked some time soon =]
- Club gatherings and activities. I missed CMG's first gathering because of my A.Maths tute =_____= If only it hadn't changed from next Friday to this Friday. But I did go to the HKSA Orientation Games on the same day, if only to watch my friends play badminton and having great rallies. (Yes they were truly great ! I'm a fool at sport and I'm saying this !) And if only I didn't have to leave twice during the gathering for my two interviews...
- [ Making new friends. I’ve found myself talking a lot more this week than I normally would, both to people I’ve only met for the first time and to people from school I’ve hardly ever talked to during my four years there. Which is good, I guess. Social contact is of the utmost importance ! And of course, it helps immensely if you have a lunch buddy, maths buddy, tute buddy, and general all-rounder mates who would walk around campus randomly with you, etc... ]
Upcoming :
- Trivia night. Looking forward to seeing (some of ?) you guys there. We shall conquer >=]
- First committee meeting(s). Time management, leadership skills, effective communication, the whole hog.
- Aa Rumbaa camp. Should I ?
I told Mum about my plans, and she gave me a strange look and said, "Why are you doing so much ?" Uhhh, I'd like to think uni life consisted of more than just studying. But I do study. I enjoy my lectures and readings, alright ? Although I think she must be concerned about my time management. After all, CCS meetings would be on Friday afternoons (some weeks, on and off). And if I (hopefully) become a CTG script translator, I'd have meetings on Monday afternoons too. Now on top of that, MUCS rehearsal on Wednesday evenings, and late finishes on Tuesdays and Thursdays... That means a full week O_____O
Ahem, which still brings me back to the title of this post. Me > uni life no matter what – and that also means I'm going to stay on top of everything ! I'm telling myself I'll cope !
Another long post,
cenvii
I have a little story to tell you all. Once upon a time, lets say 10,000 years ago, there were these hunter gatherer type people. They did lots of stupid things like hunt and well, gather things. Mostly the things were very boring, more specifically a stupidly high number of different species (?) of nuts, animals, plants and blah blah blah. Fast forward 10,000 years to modern day and we have Mr Clive Ponting. Clive decided that the rest of us would be ever so amused to hear all about this gathering nonsense and wrote an excessively long book all about it called "A New Green History of The World." Obviously Clive was isolated and friendless as a child and so decided to inflict his monotony on the poor Uni Melbourne students who decided to take An Ecological History of Humanity.
ARGH! This is the first time since I arrive that my mood has been less than a 10 on the fantastic scale.
What I don't understand is, the first two lectures were fantastic! Even some of the reading has been good and now it's suddenly taken a sharp downward turn. Maybe it's just this short bit and the rest will pick up. Are any other eco hist people finding it the same?
Anyways, I am giving up for the evening to go and do something more fun. I have quite a lot of work to do but now feel unmotivated to do any more this evening because a) it's 9pm b) I've spent far too much valuable time reading about seeds and c) I've now left it too late to go out and do something fun because I spent so long trying to get my head around spear heads or whatever. Grrr. Perhaps a Nutella sandwich and some kind of cheesy girly film accompanied by much dancing around my apartment is the order of the evening... oh wait, did I just say that out loud? Haha
Love Natty xxx
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