Wednesday, February 27, 2008
It was the first day of o-week today:
Took 2 trains and a bus (as i said before, it seems worse than it really is..i met people who travel way further than i do) before arriving at the large sand stone buildings that I will be facing for the next 4 years (and hopefully no more). The lush, green lawns outside the Great Hall were today covered by "over 200" stalls promoting clubs and societies of all kinds imaginable.
I entered the Great Hall for the Welcoming Ceremony and thought i had walked into the wrong building. I felt like i was on the set a Harry Potter film. First of all, the building is really called the Great Hall, it looks like the Great Hall both inside and out and when i entered, i thought i was in the wrong place and had just entered some sort of graduation ceremony or something. The Hall had been divded into half, with all the students on one side dressed in black robes, pointing at the first years and muttering under their breath..."are they just randoms?" which was somewhat denigrating to say the least. The first years soon realised they were actually post graduate students and the welcome was for both undergrads and postgrads.
I started talking to the girls next to me. One is about to do a double degree in...health science/rehab counselling?...if i remeber correctly(usyd offers some strange double degrees) and the other girl is about to study social work and both were feeling just as lost in usyd as i was so it was comforting to know that most people seemed to be in the same boat as me. So we were talking away in the rather stuffy Great Hall when through the loud speakers were the words: "please stand up for the official party" I tried hard to hold my giggles . I thought the days of "standing for the official party" had been farwelled the second we finished our final assembly at highschool but obviously not. So the official party consisted of academic staff and students all dressed in black gowns and funny hats...including the Chancellor (or should i say.."Her Excellency", the Vice Chancellor "His Excellency", the Dean of the distinctive faculties and the head of the various student bodies. So we sat there for half an hour (thankfully it was quite short) and the same old speeches that you would expect were made about making the most of your life in university. The formality of the whole thing i found rather intimidating and immediately i knew i wasnt in school no more.
Back to the girl who did that funny double degree..you know those people that you can sense are christian before they even say anything? well.i could tell straight away =) We hung out for a bit after the ceremony and i met a church friend of hers in 2nd year. They were really friendly and I'm kind of sad i probably wont see them around uni much coz we're in different courses and she doesn't use msn or facebook but we did exchange mobile numbers =)
Sadly an hour later, we had to go our seperate ways because I had to go to the pharmacy faculty welcome. It was great meeting the people you're going to be stuck with for the next 4 years (i'll be honest in saying after meeting quite a number of people...i dont actually remember anyone's name espescially when everyone takes about 5 seconds to intro themselves before we start talking about other things) It was funny coz i reckon about two-thirds to three quarters of my cohort are asians(including indians) which is hardly surprising really. It's also funny how asians always seem to flock together and all the caucasians were squished at the back of the lecture theatre while the asians took up the rest of the seats. The 2 hours seemed to drag as different members of the faculty staff introduced themselves to the students and made their boring speeches. There was so much information being presented that most of it just flew over our heads i think and most people just wanted to get back to the social aspect of o-week. We were given a free bbq and that's when we all started introducing ourselves to each other, overall the cohort seems really friendly and i can't wait to get to know these people more as we do lectures, tutes, labs together for the next few years =)
After lunch I made my way to the stalls and that's when i went a little overboard i think. With 25 hrs crammed into 4 days of uni you'd think I'd try and take it alittle bit easier with other things but...nups..I think my remark about living at uni this year seems more true now than it did when i said it a few days ago. Ok..call me crazy but i joined:
2 Christian fellowships..Evangelical Union (EU, the main christian student body) and Christian Students Unite but i'm about to ditch the latter and join Student Union instead because they're quite strongly connected to BLue Sky (my church uni fellowship group) Don't know too much about Student Life, besides the fact that my brother told me to join it coz everyone at Blue Sky who goes to usyd or unsw does. EU sounds really good though. At first i thought pharmacy wouldnt have a bible study group of their own and it crossed my mind that it may be a good idea to start one someday before i realised..EU does it all. So there are apparently weekly meetings where everyone comes together and there's a speaker and then there are weekly bible study groups and they divide us according to our faculty which is pretty cool =) SO yeps..that's 2 Christian fellowships. On top of that..
I joined 2 choirs. One which is a smaller one which i'm guessing sort of resembles like a Renaissance..churchish style choir and another choir, which is..or is part of the music society and is i think the main choir for undergrads. I'll probably end up ditching the first choir or which ever one i don't like as much just coz i really don't think I have enough time.
I joined the wind symphony so that i can keep playing my clarinet, however...I'm a bit unsure whether i really should go coz rehearsals go for 3 hours and finish at 9pm which a bit insane i thought but then again I don't have uni the next day which is kinda good (for this semester anyway)
Obviously I joined SUPA (Sydney Uni Pharmacy Assosciation). We get 2 pharm cruises and a ball a year! how cool is that =) and they do pub crawls but i really dont think that is my thing and it's not like uni is in short supply of alcohol anyway. I think we have 2 bars on campus and probably more coming once Sydney Central has been built.
And lastly....(at least i hope it's lastly unless i subconsciously joined other things)..I joined a group called Chopsticks which is the Australian Chinese Cultural Appreciation Society which i found rather amusing and they seemed to have some pretty fun social events and they were giving out freebies which is always a good reason to join anything.
But yep...talk about keeping myself busy at uni but i guess joining different stuff on campus is a great way to meet people outside your faculty. Don't want ALL my friends to just be pharmacy students. Bring on uni life!
Anyway..enough blabbing. I'll end my post with this url: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2713176270
I found this rather amusing facebook group and it's purely sarcasm just in case you don't pick it up and get offended and all fired up. It's actually there to bag sydney uni coz apparently usyd ppl are really arrogant but i guess we cant help but feel a litte patriotic towards our respective unis :p
posted @ 1:38 AM
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