Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wow, what a week.
I'm sad to say that Orientation 2007 has come to an end. Never before in my life, I think, have I been so challenged/entertained/excited/afraid. My initial apprehensions about not being able to make friends, or facing the sharp edge of an imposed high school type pecking order have thankfully fizzled out.
Uni is awesome.
Tuesday
My most nervewrecking day. Sitting on the tram listening to Placebo to calm my nerves down (doesn't make sense, really) I expected the worst - and got it. I could only click with some people in my host group, I was edgy with fears about my problematic subject combination and problems with my diploma, and the place seemed so huge and I kept getting lost. To make things worse, there was a girl in my group who had a) partied with celebrities like Kylie Minogue in London and had danced and been kissed on the hand by Tyrone; b) gone to a German boarding school with royalty, and c) danced onstage with the bodybeaters or some rock band or whatever. Perhaps you could extrapolate some really heady stuff about my insecurities here, but I got a major "Privilege!" vibe off her. And my feelings about privileged people with an astonishing sense of self-entitlement has been made pretty clear. Of course, I do acknowledge that it is a biasness that is not always fair or justified.
Our host group leader, tiny A----, was very, very enthusiastic. Case in point. While we were touring the Sydney Myer Asia Centre building, she suggested we all pile into the very awesome glass and steel lifts and take a ride down every floor.
I'll let that speak for itself.
Wednesday
Academic orientation day, chock full of boring lectures and academic talks. It was so entirely uninteresting that I can barely remember much of it (perhaps more an indictment of my poor memory than the actual eventfulness of the day) I do remember the media com lunch though, where I met more people from my high school. I am now convinced that there exists a little Gen in our university, and melb uni is hardly the egalitarian place one hopes and dreams of. It was really nice, though, to see lots of people I hadn't seen for nearly four months. And this would be the preening-privilege-parrot in me talking, but... yes, that would be one of the benefits to attending a private school - ready made friends. And yes, I have used (abused) such benefits. But I can't change the fact that there is where I'm from, so now all effort must be made to recognise any little privileges I have and do all in my power to make sure I don't wield them over someone else. And make sure I go all out to befriend people of different backgrounds. Not possible to do the cock-of-the-walk thing in a place filled with 46 000 staff and students. Thank goodness!
Thursday
Clubs and Societies day 1. It was quite fun, met loads of new people, signed up for quite a few clubs (of which I'm sure I will evantually just drop out of): such as the Singapore Students Society (I like Singaporeans, so sue me), the chocolate lover's society, Amnesty International, the film society (where we watch less well-known films and then go out for coffee later to discuss them). I've been shopping around the socialist clubs now, to be my main club.
I also actually went to talk to the fucking Liberal Club, and I have to say that is one of the absolute worst experiences of O-week. If you're not a rich white guy, or a vapid hot white girl... just don't bother with the Liberals. Just. Don't. Signed up to be a writer for the student paper and had a very unsatisfying talk with the womyn's officers, but perhaps if I involve myself a bit more I'll be able to get more fruitful discussions with them.
The rest of Thursday night was devoted to attending Soc Alt meetings, having more dinner and discussions with them. I applaud them for the work they're doing, and the strong stance they take against all forms of oppression, and I have never been able to win an argument against them... but somehow my gut feeling tells me I need to get out of this. I can't explain this right now.
Friday
Clubs and Societies day 2. More of walking around with two of my new-found friends trying to score freebies. Another encounter with Soc Alt, a most terrifying one with one of their founding members, S----- B---------, who is truly a formidable woman who sees no need for a feminist movement, because she believes it undermines the position of women by making them seem weak and in need of a separate agenda of their own away from the men's. I can't agree with her, and yet I can't win an argument against her, given her much stronger-formed political beliefs, experience and superior knowledge and logic. I think this, if anything else, convinced me I cannot join them. Capitalism and oppression won't be the only ones given a beating, it would be my ideas and beliefs that will be thumbed down into one coherent with their thought.
On a much lighter note, I'm back to Friday night tutoring, something I really enjoy. I saw my old student again, and I'll be tutoring him week after next in Chemistry. Next week I'll be teaching this really sweet girl, Cindy, in Physics. But wait - I'm doing an arts degree, aren't I? What am I doing touching the hard sciences? Isn't it then, that I'm no longer qualified?? Plus I've thrown out all my old notes and sold off my old textbooks.
After tutoring, I had a pho dinner at Richmond with Leanne and Jane. I'm so glad to have friends like them around, and I really do hope we continue to keep in contact, especially in the very volatile period of the beginning of school, where you never know if the next person you meet is going to be a mere hi-bye-acquaintance or a friend for life.
Saturday
There was an Amazing Race event organised by the overseas student society held at 1.30pm. Basically, we were supposed to run around the CBD looking for checkpoints and doing stupid stunts one associates with first year undergrad students in their orientation week. I had vegemite forced onto my face, and my group ran around the city with the stinky yeast extract caked onto our faces, giving out the most ghastly stench that made several concerned passers-by stare and ask if we were ok. The less sympathetic ones gave us looks of disgust and cried out "What. The. FUCK?!" at us.
In addition we had to do the most humiliating things, like smooshing our face in flour and begging for money from strangers. But it was an incredibly good bonding experience, and it was also, in retrospect, heaps of fun. You only get to do these sorts of things when you're young, so by all means, just go for it. No time for regrets.
And it was great, because I've made so many new friends, among first years and older students, and have even found a new movie buddy to head to Cinema Nova with to watch weird, artsy indie films. Not art for art's sake, mind you, because we both have standards. We both loved The Chumscrubber, The Thumbsucker and Adaptation. Need any more be said?
The Amazing Race after-party at The Workshop was also fun. I was quite broke and so had to settle for some cheap, not very nice-tasting mixers. (a tequila sunrise and a vodka sprite) It was a good crowd, mostly 3rd and 4th year internationals from Singapore and Malaysia, a sprinkling of local Australians and a post-grad IT person from the middle-east. I had a hilarious time with Trev, a local Australian guy who had taken a gap year in China, trying to maintain conversation with him in mandarin. It's pretty hard to say who mangled the language more... him with his one year of learning the language, or me with my entire pre-primary+primary+secondary+one year of post secondary years of learning to write and speak the language. I can assure you that he kicked my ass many, many times. My standard of Chinese hovers near that of a Primary 2 kid's. Hell no, even primary 2 kids would kick my ass.
My only complaint of the night was a smarmy guy from Indonesia who had apparently taken a liking to me. He said I could pass off as a final year student, thinking it would flatter me (and maybe it does, a bit, but still: I don't want to look that old) tried to get me to down a flaming shot (to... get me drunk??) kept leaning over and pressing himself closer to me and kept staring at me the rest of the night. The absolute clincher was when we had retired to someone's apartment for card games and where he full-on leaned against my entire leg (I was sitting on the couch, he was sitting on the floor in front of me. By then I was completely freaking out and called my mum to come pick me up. Seriously, this guy is doing his post-grad. He's got to be at least 24 or 25. Talk about disturbing.
The other guys were thankfully not at all smarmy. I met a couple of first year Singapore guys who are all going to be 23 this year. When I asked if NS was an almighty waste of time, they all concurred.
Uni is awesome.
Tuesday
My most nervewrecking day. Sitting on the tram listening to Placebo to calm my nerves down (doesn't make sense, really) I expected the worst - and got it. I could only click with some people in my host group, I was edgy with fears about my problematic subject combination and problems with my diploma, and the place seemed so huge and I kept getting lost. To make things worse, there was a girl in my group who had a) partied with celebrities like Kylie Minogue in London and had danced and been kissed on the hand by Tyrone; b) gone to a German boarding school with royalty, and c) danced onstage with the bodybeaters or some rock band or whatever. Perhaps you could extrapolate some really heady stuff about my insecurities here, but I got a major "Privilege!" vibe off her. And my feelings about privileged people with an astonishing sense of self-entitlement has been made pretty clear. Of course, I do acknowledge that it is a biasness that is not always fair or justified.
Our host group leader, tiny A----, was very, very enthusiastic. Case in point. While we were touring the Sydney Myer Asia Centre building, she suggested we all pile into the very awesome glass and steel lifts and take a ride down every floor.
I'll let that speak for itself.
Wednesday
Academic orientation day, chock full of boring lectures and academic talks. It was so entirely uninteresting that I can barely remember much of it (perhaps more an indictment of my poor memory than the actual eventfulness of the day) I do remember the media com lunch though, where I met more people from my high school. I am now convinced that there exists a little Gen in our university, and melb uni is hardly the egalitarian place one hopes and dreams of. It was really nice, though, to see lots of people I hadn't seen for nearly four months. And this would be the preening-privilege-parrot in me talking, but... yes, that would be one of the benefits to attending a private school - ready made friends. And yes, I have used (abused) such benefits. But I can't change the fact that there is where I'm from, so now all effort must be made to recognise any little privileges I have and do all in my power to make sure I don't wield them over someone else. And make sure I go all out to befriend people of different backgrounds. Not possible to do the cock-of-the-walk thing in a place filled with 46 000 staff and students. Thank goodness!
Thursday
Clubs and Societies day 1. It was quite fun, met loads of new people, signed up for quite a few clubs (of which I'm sure I will evantually just drop out of): such as the Singapore Students Society (I like Singaporeans, so sue me), the chocolate lover's society, Amnesty International, the film society (where we watch less well-known films and then go out for coffee later to discuss them). I've been shopping around the socialist clubs now, to be my main club.
I also actually went to talk to the fucking Liberal Club, and I have to say that is one of the absolute worst experiences of O-week. If you're not a rich white guy, or a vapid hot white girl... just don't bother with the Liberals. Just. Don't. Signed up to be a writer for the student paper and had a very unsatisfying talk with the womyn's officers, but perhaps if I involve myself a bit more I'll be able to get more fruitful discussions with them.
The rest of Thursday night was devoted to attending Soc Alt meetings, having more dinner and discussions with them. I applaud them for the work they're doing, and the strong stance they take against all forms of oppression, and I have never been able to win an argument against them... but somehow my gut feeling tells me I need to get out of this. I can't explain this right now.
Friday
Clubs and Societies day 2. More of walking around with two of my new-found friends trying to score freebies. Another encounter with Soc Alt, a most terrifying one with one of their founding members, S----- B---------, who is truly a formidable woman who sees no need for a feminist movement, because she believes it undermines the position of women by making them seem weak and in need of a separate agenda of their own away from the men's. I can't agree with her, and yet I can't win an argument against her, given her much stronger-formed political beliefs, experience and superior knowledge and logic. I think this, if anything else, convinced me I cannot join them. Capitalism and oppression won't be the only ones given a beating, it would be my ideas and beliefs that will be thumbed down into one coherent with their thought.
On a much lighter note, I'm back to Friday night tutoring, something I really enjoy. I saw my old student again, and I'll be tutoring him week after next in Chemistry. Next week I'll be teaching this really sweet girl, Cindy, in Physics. But wait - I'm doing an arts degree, aren't I? What am I doing touching the hard sciences? Isn't it then, that I'm no longer qualified?? Plus I've thrown out all my old notes and sold off my old textbooks.
After tutoring, I had a pho dinner at Richmond with Leanne and Jane. I'm so glad to have friends like them around, and I really do hope we continue to keep in contact, especially in the very volatile period of the beginning of school, where you never know if the next person you meet is going to be a mere hi-bye-acquaintance or a friend for life.
Saturday
There was an Amazing Race event organised by the overseas student society held at 1.30pm. Basically, we were supposed to run around the CBD looking for checkpoints and doing stupid stunts one associates with first year undergrad students in their orientation week. I had vegemite forced onto my face, and my group ran around the city with the stinky yeast extract caked onto our faces, giving out the most ghastly stench that made several concerned passers-by stare and ask if we were ok. The less sympathetic ones gave us looks of disgust and cried out "What. The. FUCK?!" at us.
In addition we had to do the most humiliating things, like smooshing our face in flour and begging for money from strangers. But it was an incredibly good bonding experience, and it was also, in retrospect, heaps of fun. You only get to do these sorts of things when you're young, so by all means, just go for it. No time for regrets.
And it was great, because I've made so many new friends, among first years and older students, and have even found a new movie buddy to head to Cinema Nova with to watch weird, artsy indie films. Not art for art's sake, mind you, because we both have standards. We both loved The Chumscrubber, The Thumbsucker and Adaptation. Need any more be said?
The Amazing Race after-party at The Workshop was also fun. I was quite broke and so had to settle for some cheap, not very nice-tasting mixers. (a tequila sunrise and a vodka sprite) It was a good crowd, mostly 3rd and 4th year internationals from Singapore and Malaysia, a sprinkling of local Australians and a post-grad IT person from the middle-east. I had a hilarious time with Trev, a local Australian guy who had taken a gap year in China, trying to maintain conversation with him in mandarin. It's pretty hard to say who mangled the language more... him with his one year of learning the language, or me with my entire pre-primary+primary+secondary+one year of post secondary years of learning to write and speak the language. I can assure you that he kicked my ass many, many times. My standard of Chinese hovers near that of a Primary 2 kid's. Hell no, even primary 2 kids would kick my ass.
My only complaint of the night was a smarmy guy from Indonesia who had apparently taken a liking to me. He said I could pass off as a final year student, thinking it would flatter me (and maybe it does, a bit, but still: I don't want to look that old) tried to get me to down a flaming shot (to... get me drunk??) kept leaning over and pressing himself closer to me and kept staring at me the rest of the night. The absolute clincher was when we had retired to someone's apartment for card games and where he full-on leaned against my entire leg (I was sitting on the couch, he was sitting on the floor in front of me. By then I was completely freaking out and called my mum to come pick me up. Seriously, this guy is doing his post-grad. He's got to be at least 24 or 25. Talk about disturbing.
The other guys were thankfully not at all smarmy. I met a couple of first year Singapore guys who are all going to be 23 this year. When I asked if NS was an almighty waste of time, they all concurred.
Labels: University
# posted by me lah @ 12:21 pm 
