24.08.14 (actually written on 26.08.14 but just ignore that)
So, orientation week. What an amazing experience. According to one of the lecturers, it is impossible to get sick here, any hint of actual sickness is actually homesickness, and everyone WILL get angry twice. I’m getting sick of being told “welcome to the USA”, every American has said it. Lanyards here are the best for of self defense. I would have thought that self defense would actually be better than a lanyard. But that’s just me and my city slicker attitude, what would I know?
Downtown is pretty cool but closes pretty early. Dinner service tends to end at 7.30. Also there are many homeless people to avoid. Apparently they leave once it starts getting cold.
The freshers started arriving on Wednesday. Accompanied by 2 parents and a sibling in tow. A typical fresher on moving in looks like an overly confident person, followed by 2 adults each lugging a large suitcase behind them, a couple of bags and a box or 2. I had 1 medium sized suitcase and a sports bag. I have no idea what they are bringing or how big they expect their room to be but I’m guessing they were underwhelmed by the size of the room and available storage space. The fresher’s orientation was on Thursday and Friday. No international students I know went. Walking around campus you saw groups of parents and some kids in a 2:1 ratio taking tours of campus. It seems like they have trouble letting go of their darling parents.
The weekend rolled around on Saturday, I walked the 3 miles to the mall to find some clothes hangers. I managed to score some for free. Unlike last year I have yet to be offered a job, but then again I have avoided Abercrombie and Fitch stores as they seem like the Hallenstiens of the US. There was an orientation on how to catch the buses here. I wagged that one and just winged it and caught the bus from the mall. Amazingly enough I had no trouble what-so-ever. All I had to do was hand over my $0 and it took me to right outside my dorm.
A toga party broke out later that night. Many people were completely trolleyed by the time Kate and I arrived. Ke$ha you lying bitch, the party didn’t start when I walked in, it started way earlier. Anywho the RA turned up and broke up the party at midnight. So a small handful of us headed upstairs to the friendly Irish girl’s flat and continued the party there. Arriving home at 4am I was ready for ‘GoDay’ at 9am on Sunday.
Sunday showed its face after Saturday went for some hardly earned kip. I was up bright and early for GoDay where you take part in competitions to win stuff. It was hard not with people screaming in the corridors and knocking on doors. If I had a shoe nearby I would have thrown it at their heads for waking at the ungodly hour that was 9, 9.30 and 10am. Arseholes. So breakfast rolled around at around 1pm when I arose from my adorable slumber. Later it turns out there was a mechanical bull in the University Center, so of course George, Hayden and I took our turns to ride a plastic machine, giving it the best we had. Racistly we didn’t win anything so then withdrew to the TV lounge in Knowles Hall to watch a the JAFA (Lorde) win here VMA, followed by a couple of episodes of ‘Naked and Afraid’ which were entertaining. Needing to be up at around 7-7.30 the following morning we retired to our dorms at around 1am to get the mandatory 5 hours of sleep a growing university student needs to perform at their best.
Toodles!
Next week:
Classes begin, how will el_meheecan fare? My snack supply is running low, can I find a better deal than 15 annoyingly small but utterly addictive Twix bars for $4? Will I need to take notes in class? Is using Moodle as horrific an experience as it was back at Onslow? Will the foreign lecturers here actually speak English? That is still to be discovered.