So I am the late one. One week of Uni., two of College I think and its going pretty well. I am still waiting to get into a proper routine... I guess that’ll probably happen next week once all the tutorials, practicals everything starts. Coming to Oz from a completely different country has been a bit intimidating. Writing on this blog is also intimidating cause its all so frikking new. Everything around me is new but I think I am holding up pretty well...Yes, I am not homesick. College does that to you. I still can’t really call College home... Home for me will always be where my family is. Ok, enough of the emotional stuff. So some interesting things that happened to me at Uni (Week1):
1. Got lost: Admit it guys. Even with the damn map.
2. Went for tutorials that actually start next week.
3. Thought the tutorials were relocated, so went on a rampant search for first the Arts student Centre and then The Social and Political Science Student Centre, only to be affirmed pt. 2.
4. Met too many people and didn’t see them again. (Host group program)
5. Realised that all the brown people on campus are (mostly) not Indians but Sri Lankans. How does that happen guys? We (Indians) are the second largest population in the world and I still haven’t met a single Indian fresher, apart from myself I guess... How do they outnumber us? (this is not a racist comment or anything just a fact)
6. Edited my timetable several times.
7. Was still unsatisfied cause most lectures, tutes, pracs were overfull and I wasn't allotted my desired ( word choice?) time.
8. Yet chose to go for lectures I was not allotted (time convenience)
9. Joined random clubs and societies.
10. Went for the Environment’s club meeting which was pretty good.
11. Ate rubbish food at the Union House. (Sorry guys... But I really haven’t liked anything I have eaten at the Union House)
12. Bought the Uni jumper... Which is soo good... Its super-warm!
13. Haven’t done any readings yet (due for next week tutorials...)
And the list goes on...
In other things...
A. Electricity: I just fail to understand why lights need to be left switched on in empty rooms/classrooms...so a whole bunch of my lectures are at the Copland Theatre so I was walking outside... And the lights in the Student Workshops which are outside on the way to Copland were on with no sign of life inside in them. It was really pissing off. I don’t really know what I am supposed to be doing in such a situation... Can I enter the room and turn the light off? Am I allowed to do that? I mean if it was high school yea... That is what I would do... But its Uni now and I don’t know how things work around here. Anyway... I just wish everyone was a bit more responsible and turned off lights when not needed.
B. Blocking the exits: A clear lack of commonsense. So I’ve noticed this both at the Carillo Ganter and the Copland theatre... Overly-enthusiastic students block the exits of the lecture theatre (individually or in groups) allowing the students leaving the theatre only to move out in a single file with baby steps. Therefore slowing down the whole process and the lecture starting late. Guys if you’re doing this blocking thing (in your ignorance or whatever) please don’t its really annoying.
So thats about it. I would have had more things to write about if I started earlier this week... But since I didn’t this is all for now...
Merci bcp.
It's first week over and I already have to do a major assignment. Why, oh why?! I knew I was setting myself up for a tough year, but the number of things I've had to learn/do this week make me feel like I've been tossed into the deep end of an ocean. For example, I have to memorize the chemical structures of twenty amino acids, how to use a scalpel (hilariously difficult for an uncoordinated butterfingers like me), the names of all the bones in a dog's body and then the names of all the 'dents, lumps and bumps' of the aforementioned parts. In a way, I'm pumped up because my course is providing a terrific challenge! But, on the other hand, I'm scared of failing and falling behind.
Luckily, I have a study group of equally motivated friends to work with! I didn't really make the effort to talk to other students at Monash, which is a disaster when your course is as scattered as Science/Arts. You don't see the same people in each lecture and if you aren't adept at creating a wide active network of friends, you find yourself spending many lunch breaks huddling over a book in a corner. (cue: 'aww!')
But having attended orientation and the smaller course size are really helping me to find my feet at uni, and I'm determined to do things properly this time around. It's difficult, making the effort to join in, initiate conversations and remember 120 different names (although, many of them appear to be variations of 'Steph'), but it's been immensely rewarding for me so far. As our Dean keeps on saying, 'These will be your friends and colleagues for the rest of your life!' Heaven forbid they forever remember me as 'the creepy quiet one who likes to read Harry Potter in corners.'*
*note: this is just an example! reading Harry Potter does NOT mean you are an antisocial freak (wearing robes around campus and whispering 'alohamora' in a vain attempt to open locks is a different matter altogether)
Hoorah! For making it through the first week of uni. Gargh! at present time (10:08pm) and subsequent tiredness.
Which will be my main sticking point for this post. University makes you pretty tired.... And I'm an Art's student! So either through a weak constitution or (more likely) working too hard/ running around a lot. It's addictive! and lethal!
Like exclamation marks! Anyway life at uni is surprisingly free, but with that freedom comes the invitable overdoing of some things. In my case working (for uni stuff)/going out every day has lead to this path of tiredness. Which is fun, but draining. Thus leaving this post kinda scampy.
However I will coment on the week nevertheless! First of all people do not like talking/being out there in tutorials. Which is kinda fair, but from my experience of uni as a welcoming place I thought that everyone would feel right at home going for answers. Instead of being afraid to get the answer wrong. I'm probably having my expectations high but I was hoping for a couple of gung ho discussions of sorts and unique personalities. Not timid sheep.
Secondly carring on from the first not many people like to contribute to class much or volunteer to do things, like to do the first creative writing piece for the class or be a student rep for a lecture. Nup no one wants to get up there and make the most of things. 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.
Ok, nough said bout that. Ummm people aren't always as friendly as they appear, they're people like everywhere else (but marginally friendlier than everywhere else). Sooo, they can dissapoint and surprise you in weird ways. For example people in an Infomatics lecture made themselves known to me (I've mostly made an effort to say hi so it was great to see people making an effort). Dissapoint..... is really little things, people in Melbourne aren't demigods of knowledge and social politeness.
So there we go my token to the week in my need to go to sleep/eat/bathroom state of getting the blog done.
Cya
Yoddeuss/Dan
Did anyone else feel the slight earthquake at around 9 pm this evening ?
I was at my parents' shop, sitting down on a chair, and didn't think it was anything unusual... FYI, Melbourne (and Australia in general) is usually considered far removed from any possibility of earthquakes.
See here for a recent report on the tremor from The Age.
(Okay, to make this relevant to uni life, may I suggest that we visit the Geography department on Monday to find out more about this anomaly ? =P And please bear in mind the earthquake's magnitude in Richter scale, in case that ends up being one of the questions on Trivia Night. Heh.)
cenvii
I used squiggly brackets in the title. heh. I feel special. So, my real name is actually Tom, not Heath as I would have had you believe.
Well, my chemistry lecture on Wednesday morphed into a physics one when the professor began to talk about Schrodinger*. I have no idea how, but it did and we partially zoned out (although he had a slinky spring and he made a couple of people shake it like a skipping rope to demonstrate things called harmonics and frequency. That reminds me; slinky springs are the most awesome invention in the history of humanity.
In any case, the first days of uni have taught me various things about organisation and how important it is to not failing my first semester. I can't even remember how many assignments/work/notes/questions I have that I need to start/complete/read over/answer and given that I've been struggling to record them all in my diary, I'm hoping the LMS can cover for me. A good sense of direction appears to be key since buildings often only have a few access points and some require you to enter from a certain door (the biol. labs....). Fortunately, your diary will have some nice red arrows on the map that indicate where to go.
Also, something I learned recently is that members of the Student Union have access to a lounge in the food court of Union Hall. It's quite a nice place, with microwaves and overpriced vending machines (but they have pocky, so it's all okay). I was in there twice today and both times I ran into friends, so it seems to be quite the social hub. My advice is to get in there early so you can snag a good seat or take up prime TV-watching positions.
Hmm. The Wedding Singer is on TV and I'm starting to question my masculinity since I'm still in the room. Only thing it's taught me is that you should never make a speech at a wedding when drunk. Hmm, I'm getting up to change the channel, so I'll finish this post here. Have fun, hey?
*There's actually an accent on the "o" in "Schrodinger" but my keyboard wouldn't accept ASCII keybindings, so you'll have to imagine it's there. Although, it may not actually be there, depending on which reality we're in (that's a joke!!).
By way of explanation; Schrodinger imagined (or maybe he did this to a real cat. who knows?) a cat locked in a box with a poison gas. The gas had a 50% chance to kill the cat and until the box was opened nobody knew whether the cat was alive. Until the box was open both realities had an equal chance of existing, but afterwards one became an absolute. If you've ever read fantasy (especially Wynne-Jones), you'll understand. Hence, there may not actually be an accent depending on what he was named at birth, depending on what reality we're in and hence the title of this post. Well that was my completely pointless and pretentious footnote. Enjoy it?
I just noticed that when I log in to write a new post, the computer says 'Howdy Natty' at the top of the screen. Haha how strange, is this the same for everyone else? And how are you guys all so organised with your foot notes and stuff?? Madness! I am obviously the tortoise of the group.. I may as well be charging my computer with a hamster in a wheel, my brain is just not wired the same way.
End of my first week!! Woo woo wooity woo. Lol I am, in case you couldn't tell, in an exceptionally good mood today (the copious amounts of chocolate might possibly be responsible for the hyperactivity which is about to ensue)! Not because it's my day off either, I've just loved this week so much and I'm now grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. Actually, I am from Cheshire but have never seen one of these crazy grinning cats. Where does the saying come from? Obviously some absolute weirdo in Cheshire had a mad grinning cat and stupidly decided to brand all other cats with this same malady. Just putting that out there in case you were all like 'ooh Natty can we come home with you to England and see the grinning cats and maybe bring one back and introduce them into popular Australian culture'. Because that's such a likely possibility. I'm shutting up now and moving on to more relevant topics of conversation before somebody calls the local psychiatric ward.
I don't know how everybody else has managed to post so much, I've been crazily busy and haven't had a chance until now. Nonetheless I've been thinking about my blog posts throughout the week and trying to decide what deep knowledge to impart to you all this week - cue long haired hippies holding hands in a 'mellow-yellow-let's-all-ride-a-love-bus' fashion lol. Mmm so let me see, what have I been thinking about amid the hours spent listening to the fox lol. What other Melbourne radio stations are there?? It's the only one I know! Not that I don't love hearing about Hamish and Andy's sea voyage...
Anyways onto my points for the week.
1. Okay, for anyone who has not already discovered this, the desks in Theatre E (old arts) are lethal! Obviously designed by a student hating sadist. They sort of roll upwards from next to your right knee (quite cool...potentially) and, once up, even the slightest bit of pressure or elbow leaning type action makes them flip back down again. Not fun. Especially if you have a sandwich. Which I didn't, but I did laugh at those who did.
2. A gap year (or in my case, two) is a good thing. Admittedly not for everybody but I realised this week why I didn't enjoy uni the first time round back in the land of rolling hills and increasing levels of knife crime ( England). I went to Uni straight from school, exhausted from working so hard for my exams and generally just a terrified 18 year old without a clue. Also, I think I just went to Uni because it's what everyone at my school did, I didn't want to be left behind and that's the direction my teachers pushed me.
So when I got there I didn't enjoy my subjects because I didn't really know what I wanted to study and didn't really have much motivation for anything... thus I fell behind and just got bored and fed up. Taking a gap year made me a lot more confident and gave me a chance to grow up and learn a bit about myself and what fascinated me. The difference between my first week at Melbourne compared to my first 2 months in Birmingham is phenomenal. I feel engaged with my subjects and actually enjoy doing the reading/ work/ going to lectures etc. I know it's early days and you're probably all thinking 'yeah yeah' but it's genuinely been a very different experience.
All I'm saying is, don't go to Uni just because your friends are/ you want to have a three year party/ your school thinks you should. All of those reasons are great but it's ok to take some time off and find out what you want to do etc. Nobody ever told me that it was ok to wait or that a year wouldn't make any negative difference. For some people going for straight from school is the best thing they could do, and that's so great, but for me it wasn't and I'm pleased that I gave myself the chance to change and do something which I'm now enjoying much much more :)
3. The union members food room thing (anyone know what it's actually called?) is really cool. There's a weird picture on the wall of some guy being crushed by a roof in a tree (??) but otherwise it's cool. In fact, most of the union stuff is good - join the union! You get a cool sticker too :) haha.
4. Lots of work. Ok, not that much I suppose it just feels like a lot because I'm tired. Are all the other creative writing people writing a lot? My tute teacher (teacher? what's the right word here?) suggested we all do 30 mins a day which seems pretty reasonable but then when I sit down and try to just 'be' creative it doesn't always work out. Hmm do you think my blog would count as creative writing? I could make it all rhyme... except we're doing free verse poetry atm. Hmm, maybe not. I need inspiration for my poem... ideas are welcomed :)
That's all I can think of for now but I will post something again over the weekend if I think of anything. Other than that it's on to week two :)
love Natty xx
Yes, Friday off!
I guess I was really lucky with my Alloc8. I didn't have to change it one bit.
But now it's autumn and COLD. I'm sorry, but I think we have to go through some very simple autumn/winter tips. And just to let you know, this is NOT cold. This is what I'd say is cozy weather. Then again, I was brought up in Sweden and have endured -30. Go Northern Hemisphere!
TO PEOPLE FROM MAURITIUS AND OTHER EXOTIC COUNTRIES
- Try to cover your head and throat (a reason to why half my flat mates got the flu). Did you know about 80 % of your heat is up there? Take care of it!
- Get to know your own heat system. Where are you usually cold? Fingers? Toes? I do believe we got gloves and warm socks here too.
- Do exercises. It can help you keep warm.
- Why not try to find someone "hot" on campus? I'm sure that works fine too... ;)
All the best of luck!
Keep yourself warm!
Warm regards,
Olle Continue reading "Friday Off! (Olle)" →
And I'm finally getting around to updating this thing. It's not that I didn't want to... it's just that I didn't want to.
So anyway, I guess this means I have to do one of those painful introductory posts where I struggle to think of things to say about myself that don't appear arrogant/inane/boring/totally irrelevant. In which case I think I can just say that I'm a first year student doing a science degree (physics fundamentals, biology, calculus 1, English lit) and pretty much stop there.
Now it's time for me to go into that clichéd routine whereby I sort of squirm in my figurative chair whilst whining "there's really nothing interesting about me!" which deep down I don't really believe is true but that I have to say for the sake of form and also so I can buy time while trying to decide what is most socially acceptable thing to say. Is it ok to say that I like reading, like, excessively, or is that too nerdy? I could say that I like sport... which would be true but could lead to potentially awkward questions about what sports I play. I don't play any sport. (I plan to join the tai chi and wushu club, but that's another story). Right! I've got it! I can say that I like art. Art is cool, right? All the cool kids are into art. If I say I like art people will think I'm mysterious and alternative and stuff. They'll think that my strange and unfashionable outfit is a statement of protest against the dominance of the bourgeoisie. Yes. Yes. So I can finally blurt it out: I LIKE ART!
And then I start getting strange looks because I spoke too loudly or too aggressively, but this is the internet so I can ignore them. In reality, talking to people has been pretty easy, except for during my last maths lecture when I was the first one into the room and I sat in the middle of the row and the other people sat like five seats away from me on either side and I was like "wwwwwwwttttttttttttffffffffffffffffff?" Like did I really smell that bad or what? I thought everyone was supposed to be sooper friendly and stuff during the first week.
And I just realised I have a lecture in 34 minutes and I haven't eaten breakfast and yeah. Nice tameetcha all.
Why am I getting progressively more and more tired this week?
You live an hour and a half away from the city, you wake up like 3 hours before the lecture. And .. Connex.
Why is there no reception at Union House?
There's probably lead in the walls or something.
What do those cubey things in The Basement at The Spot actually do?
I dunno, but they remind of some sort of outer space playground.
And why are there leaks in the brand new theatre?
Mistakes, everyone makes mistakes.
Why is it so friggin' cold?
Its autumn.
Yeah, so those are some of the thousands of the questions that I've been brimming with.
On top of that, I also wonder how one of my lecturers expects me to get from the Copland Theatre all the way across like.. two roads, to the Law Building in just under 5 minutes with a 3kg bag, and the distractions of seeing the really good looking people on the way, as well as trying to sort out a friend to sit with.
Short of that, I also realised that the days of summer were extremely short for me (in Australia) due to spending summer in Singapore. I got no chance to wear any summer gear in Oz, instead we're suddenly onto cold weather and I'm whipping out a 2kg, thick jacket that helps me brave the mighty cold winds and erratic downpours.
So now I have to sprint my ass off, with a 3kg bag, 2kg jacket, 66kg of body weight (yeah I actually spent 20c to weigh myself at the Uhouse Chemist. Seems that I've gained 4kg over the past 2 months. Thank youuuu Singapore and your cheap food), slippery ground, the traffic lights of Grattan Street, and all the other distractions previously mentioned.
Hope you're all having a great time!
And for the 80 odd students who rocked up super late to the ARA lecture today, great prank guys.
Wait.. it was a prank right.. ?
Truly yours,
ASH!
Hello, fellow first years. I procrastinated writing my first post (due to nerves, panic, new-stuff overload, ah!) and now I feel guilty about being slack and slightly intimidated by the standards set by the other bloggers. Phew! So, let me introduce myself. My name is Peech, and I'm... not really a first year, since I've completed 3 years of uni already. What am I doing here? Well, the super administrators upstairs let me sneak in on a technicality, since it is my first year at Melbourne University. Harhar! *sneaky*
So, I'm studying Veterinary Science, having completed 3 years of an arts (French and Linguistics)/science (Biology and Chemistry) double degree at Monash. I live in the eastern suburbs, suffer a long commute to uni every morning and get lost using the trams, despite having lived here for 21 years. I'm Asian, and sometimes get mistaken as an international student, (but they generally know my city way better than I do).
Anyway, these blogs are intended to act like a guide to other first years and/or prospective students. I'm going to be a bit dodgy, however, and primarily use this blog to... blather on about whatever takes my fancy. Luckily, my fancies include:
1. Comparing first year university experiences between Monash and Melbourne; and
2. Shedding a little insight as to what goes on way over in the Veterinary Precinct, way over there across the other side of campus.
Hopefully, a this will result in an accurate (and maybe even helpful!) perspective on (my) life at Melbourne University. If only I can find the time between classes, commuting and trying to learn the names of all the bones in a dog's body... *stress!*
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