Friday, March 02, 2007
Wow. Yet another week.
So my second week of uni has come to an end. It also happened to be the first week of official lectures and tutorials. The flurry of activity, of book buying, of awkward run-ins with new acquaintances, of sprinting across campus to make it to the next lecture on time... god, I'm exhausted! I haven't had enough time to do my readings, yet alone blog regularly, so I'm starting to wonder if the weekly round-up post will be the shape of things to come.
Monday
I met up with Ben and his Korean friend before the lecture for lunch, which for me consisted of two slices of raisin bread still in their original bag, which not only looked absolutely disgusting but tasted somewhat off as well.
I had my very first USA today lecture. This is such an awesome subject, and I really love it. I can't really explain my fascination with good ol' USA, big brother of the worldtm, but perhaps it has to do with all the Hollywood movies I grew up watching. A second lunch was long overdue, so I went with a new friend I made in the lecture. Petra's family comes from Croatia. She's doing a arts/science double degree, which fills me with both admiration and a certain kind of envy. (Yes, I miss Physics, I really do. I want to glorify in standing waves and transistors and photons and work functions and kinematics once more.)
My first ever tutorial for USA today was in the very-hard-to-find room 1006 of the Redmond Barry building. Wandering around the 10th floor, I spotted a guy and a girl sitting on the couch outside the (unlabelled) room 1006. And let me tell you, the guy, Alex, is an absolute hottie. Absolutely hot. Very hot. Extremely hot. Very cute. Super handsome. Justin Chatwin in the flesh. Save me!
Tuesday
A packed day. The professional writing lecturer didn't turn up (we only found out later that there wasn't supposed to be one and the timetable was screwed up). A chance to make new friends while bitching about the inconsiderate lecturer over coffee.
We were introducted to Introduction to Hollywood and Art Cinema with a screening of Citizen Kane, a thoroughly fascinating movie. And let me spoil those of you who haven't seen it - 'Rosebud' is William Randolph Heart's mistresses' clitoris. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I spotted Alex at lunch, although he couldn't join us. He has very hairy legs. Just sayin'.
Met up with Roomie, and went to explore St. Mary's College. With the look and feel of a motor inn, I can't say I'll be eager to live there.
Hollywood lecture, then home.
Wednesday
Contemporary Ideologies and Movements scared the crap out of me. The amount of readings and work that has to be done is quite incredible. My friend's dropped out of it now, and I'm left to bitch with the only other person I know who's doing it about how much work there is and how much we have to pull our socks up since slacking days in Ms Fahey's English class.
Met up with L____, on his request, to talk more about Soc Alt. I'm afraid I have disappointed him a great deal. All that time spent on discussions, meetings and poster runs seems to have come to nothing. I don't know how he's going to react if he finds out I met up with the Soc Party and am planning to attend their forum this weekend.
A M-ASS barbecue at 1pm, where I ran into a Xavier guy and his friend. A summary exchange of numbers led to him saying "I probably won't call, because I have like, 5 cents of credit left." You know, he's not the first person to tell me that. "Well," I reply drily, "I suppose I'll just wait with bated breath for the call that will never come."
2pm: Amnesty meeting. It was really awesome seeing a bunch of people from Gen, and the mix of people is really diverse, so I'm really looking forward to getting more involved. Our little get-to-know you involved us answering three questions:
1. What's your name?
2. What course are you doing?
3. How do you like your eggs?
Resisted the temptation to reply to question 3 with the word "unfertilised" and went with "omelette-style" instead.
7pm: Student Union party at Three Degrees bar... sucked like shit. So few people turned up, my friend bailed on me, and there was this dickhead who made a fool of himself. Some of the weird stuff he did include (but are not limited to): extinguishing the mood candles. Trying to relight them using the huge ornamental candles sitting on the ledge of the window. Setting fire to a piece of paper and littering this poor girl with ashes. Pouring wax and water over the table, and soaking them up with a bunch of sandwiches he grabbed off a waiter's serving tray. Stuffing said sandwiches into his mouth. Flinging sausage roll on to wall, where it splintered into pieces and showered everyone with flaky pastry. And pissing the security guy off big time. I left after a while, but didn't feel like heading home so I called Garry up for gelati. It felt surreal to be back at the gelati shop, but it had to be done. I have to get over it so I can finally enjoy the best tasting gelati in the whole of Melbourne.
Thursday
Contemporary Ideologies and Movements. Sat next to a guy who fumed over the lecturer's declaration that Marx and Engel's concept of ideology is one of oppression and hegemony. The only awesome thing about this lecture is that we watched Monty Python's "Holy Grail" for the first few minutes to get us to start thinking about ideology. I think the entire lecture hall would have preferred to continue watching the film for the rest of the day, but unfortunately it was back to ho-hum stuff like the Foucauldian perspective of ideology and how it differs from post-modernist and critical/Marxist perspectives. You know, I quite like the post-modernist way of thinking. I agree, absolutely, that there can't be absolutes, ever.
5pm: Soc Party meeting. I like them. I feel less coerced when I'm around them than when I'm with Soc Alt. They're really funny, relaxed people, and unlike Soc Alt they don't see things in black and white and are less hardcore about everything. One of the members is a self-professed anarchist, which would be enough to get you kicked out of Soc Alt. Klaus, the Socialist councillor from Germany who was guest speaker there got caught up in an energetic discussion with Yorran, one of the members. When Klaus said, "Well, if the fascists kill on of us, we shouldn't kill one of them..." the self-professed anarchist piped up "Yeah, that's wrong!" Klaus began to nod in agreement, until self-professed anarchist continued "If they kill one of us, we kill all of them!" The whole table dissolved into laughter.
The only downside to an otherwise pleasant evening was that they were all puffing away on cancer sticks. "You don't mind, do you?" they all ask nicely. "No, that's fine" I smile, although my lungs give a silent scream of mercy and a little bit of me dies inside.
6.15pm: Film Society screening of Woody Allen's Manhatten. I've never seen a Woody film before, and what stuck with me about Woody, more than anything else, is the narcissim that co-exists with a very deep self-loathing. The humour is wry, which I though was a poignant way of dealing with the incredible loneliness of living in the big cold city of Manhattan. I really think we should have coffees to discuss this. But everyone went home and one of the film guys I met on the tram treated me with utmost condescenscion. He thought me a vapid, mainstream movie watching chick, which isn't entirely inaccurate, but I bet a hundred of the stupid almond nuts he was stuffing his face with that I've seen more arthouse and indie flicks than he has.
Friday
Here I am now, blogging. I have Fridays off. Today I'm going to try to get some work done, because I've got a busy weekend ahead. I've got to tutor tonight, the soc party forum tomorrow, and a singapore students' society city tour and dinner on sunday.
Despite a rather full-on week, and a rather busy social calender for the foreseeable future, I was struck with an incredible loneliness when I woke up this morning. I messaged Leanne to ask if she was coming for tonight's tutoring, and when she said no, I felt even crappier.
Monday
I met up with Ben and his Korean friend before the lecture for lunch, which for me consisted of two slices of raisin bread still in their original bag, which not only looked absolutely disgusting but tasted somewhat off as well.
I had my very first USA today lecture. This is such an awesome subject, and I really love it. I can't really explain my fascination with good ol' USA, big brother of the worldtm, but perhaps it has to do with all the Hollywood movies I grew up watching. A second lunch was long overdue, so I went with a new friend I made in the lecture. Petra's family comes from Croatia. She's doing a arts/science double degree, which fills me with both admiration and a certain kind of envy. (Yes, I miss Physics, I really do. I want to glorify in standing waves and transistors and photons and work functions and kinematics once more.)
My first ever tutorial for USA today was in the very-hard-to-find room 1006 of the Redmond Barry building. Wandering around the 10th floor, I spotted a guy and a girl sitting on the couch outside the (unlabelled) room 1006. And let me tell you, the guy, Alex, is an absolute hottie. Absolutely hot. Very hot. Extremely hot. Very cute. Super handsome. Justin Chatwin in the flesh. Save me!
Tuesday
A packed day. The professional writing lecturer didn't turn up (we only found out later that there wasn't supposed to be one and the timetable was screwed up). A chance to make new friends while bitching about the inconsiderate lecturer over coffee.
We were introducted to Introduction to Hollywood and Art Cinema with a screening of Citizen Kane, a thoroughly fascinating movie. And let me spoil those of you who haven't seen it - 'Rosebud' is William Randolph Heart's mistresses' clitoris. And don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
I spotted Alex at lunch, although he couldn't join us. He has very hairy legs. Just sayin'.
Met up with Roomie, and went to explore St. Mary's College. With the look and feel of a motor inn, I can't say I'll be eager to live there.
Hollywood lecture, then home.
Wednesday
Contemporary Ideologies and Movements scared the crap out of me. The amount of readings and work that has to be done is quite incredible. My friend's dropped out of it now, and I'm left to bitch with the only other person I know who's doing it about how much work there is and how much we have to pull our socks up since slacking days in Ms Fahey's English class.
Met up with L____, on his request, to talk more about Soc Alt. I'm afraid I have disappointed him a great deal. All that time spent on discussions, meetings and poster runs seems to have come to nothing. I don't know how he's going to react if he finds out I met up with the Soc Party and am planning to attend their forum this weekend.
A M-ASS barbecue at 1pm, where I ran into a Xavier guy and his friend. A summary exchange of numbers led to him saying "I probably won't call, because I have like, 5 cents of credit left." You know, he's not the first person to tell me that. "Well," I reply drily, "I suppose I'll just wait with bated breath for the call that will never come."
2pm: Amnesty meeting. It was really awesome seeing a bunch of people from Gen, and the mix of people is really diverse, so I'm really looking forward to getting more involved. Our little get-to-know you involved us answering three questions:
1. What's your name?
2. What course are you doing?
3. How do you like your eggs?
Resisted the temptation to reply to question 3 with the word "unfertilised" and went with "omelette-style" instead.
7pm: Student Union party at Three Degrees bar... sucked like shit. So few people turned up, my friend bailed on me, and there was this dickhead who made a fool of himself. Some of the weird stuff he did include (but are not limited to): extinguishing the mood candles. Trying to relight them using the huge ornamental candles sitting on the ledge of the window. Setting fire to a piece of paper and littering this poor girl with ashes. Pouring wax and water over the table, and soaking them up with a bunch of sandwiches he grabbed off a waiter's serving tray. Stuffing said sandwiches into his mouth. Flinging sausage roll on to wall, where it splintered into pieces and showered everyone with flaky pastry. And pissing the security guy off big time. I left after a while, but didn't feel like heading home so I called Garry up for gelati. It felt surreal to be back at the gelati shop, but it had to be done. I have to get over it so I can finally enjoy the best tasting gelati in the whole of Melbourne.
Thursday
Contemporary Ideologies and Movements. Sat next to a guy who fumed over the lecturer's declaration that Marx and Engel's concept of ideology is one of oppression and hegemony. The only awesome thing about this lecture is that we watched Monty Python's "Holy Grail" for the first few minutes to get us to start thinking about ideology. I think the entire lecture hall would have preferred to continue watching the film for the rest of the day, but unfortunately it was back to ho-hum stuff like the Foucauldian perspective of ideology and how it differs from post-modernist and critical/Marxist perspectives. You know, I quite like the post-modernist way of thinking. I agree, absolutely, that there can't be absolutes, ever.
5pm: Soc Party meeting. I like them. I feel less coerced when I'm around them than when I'm with Soc Alt. They're really funny, relaxed people, and unlike Soc Alt they don't see things in black and white and are less hardcore about everything. One of the members is a self-professed anarchist, which would be enough to get you kicked out of Soc Alt. Klaus, the Socialist councillor from Germany who was guest speaker there got caught up in an energetic discussion with Yorran, one of the members. When Klaus said, "Well, if the fascists kill on of us, we shouldn't kill one of them..." the self-professed anarchist piped up "Yeah, that's wrong!" Klaus began to nod in agreement, until self-professed anarchist continued "If they kill one of us, we kill all of them!" The whole table dissolved into laughter.
The only downside to an otherwise pleasant evening was that they were all puffing away on cancer sticks. "You don't mind, do you?" they all ask nicely. "No, that's fine" I smile, although my lungs give a silent scream of mercy and a little bit of me dies inside.
6.15pm: Film Society screening of Woody Allen's Manhatten. I've never seen a Woody film before, and what stuck with me about Woody, more than anything else, is the narcissim that co-exists with a very deep self-loathing. The humour is wry, which I though was a poignant way of dealing with the incredible loneliness of living in the big cold city of Manhattan. I really think we should have coffees to discuss this. But everyone went home and one of the film guys I met on the tram treated me with utmost condescenscion. He thought me a vapid, mainstream movie watching chick, which isn't entirely inaccurate, but I bet a hundred of the stupid almond nuts he was stuffing his face with that I've seen more arthouse and indie flicks than he has.
Friday
Here I am now, blogging. I have Fridays off. Today I'm going to try to get some work done, because I've got a busy weekend ahead. I've got to tutor tonight, the soc party forum tomorrow, and a singapore students' society city tour and dinner on sunday.
Despite a rather full-on week, and a rather busy social calender for the foreseeable future, I was struck with an incredible loneliness when I woke up this morning. I messaged Leanne to ask if she was coming for tonight's tutoring, and when she said no, I felt even crappier.
Labels: University
# posted by me lah @ 10:36 am 
