All Hopes I Had Become Surreal

[My Heroine – Silverstein]

Today was my first official day at Melbourne. And, actually, you know what? Today was the first day of Autumn; that means that Summer has ended. I need to update my Summer playlist, and also it means that I’ll stop posting lyrical headings. This will thus be the end.

I think a lot of songs I REALLY WANTED TO USE didn’t get posted on. Well. Too bad. Perhaps I’ll do a Winter title thing as well.

Alright, to cut a long and obviously predictable story short: Yes Uni was pretty good. Lectures haven’t kicked in yet. There WAS one subject which reduced me to dozing, so I actually just changed out of it to something hopefully better EXCEPT I need to get it confirmed and get my timetables done. I hope I don’t get crappy times. I still get Tuesdays off. The food was expensive in Union House so I will start doing packed lunches. I’ll get a Union member friend to go heat it up for me.

Points of interest for today:

1) Josh and Annie are in the same lectures and breaks with me for the first 3 hours.

2) I am actually very excited about doing Professional Writing, even though a lot of the styles will be out of my comfort zone. But I think the Tutes will definitely help.

3) Seeing Zhen (3rd year student and friend) and saying hi to him at the cafeteria actually makes me feel really cool because I know a 3rd year.

4) The Norwegian guy I was talking about is also in my Professional Writing class. I really hope he never finds this blog or he’ll think I’m a complete freak.

5) Josh does not hesitate to tell disgusting stories while I eat.

6) Anna is very gullible. This I’ll go into detail soon.

7) I FINALLY MET SNEAKS!!! I FINALLY MET CHERYL! AFTER GOD KNOWS HOW LONG I ACTUALLY MET HER AND SHE IS RIDICULOUSLY TALL.

Alright, so Cheryl first. She’s doing Uni classes this year, so, because today I was going to stay back a bit to have dinner with Josh, Annie and Anna, I met up with her. This was the first time we ever did this.

I waited with her outside her room, and I swear, when she gets nervous she says the oddest things. CHERYL! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! But actually, it was so good to tall to her in person, and be dwarfed, literally, by her presence.

After that, I went to dinner at Red Silks with the other three.

I think I haven’t laughed that hard or frequently through a meal in ages.

Somehow we managed to convince Anna that the bottle of water she was pouring from is actually pure tequila. We pretended to down the “tequila” with some effort, while she obviously effortlessly chugged it down. She got rather worried that she had “alcohol” without knowing it. It went on for nearly 10 minutes of us just half pissing ourselves laughing.

At the end of the meal, and I swear this happened, I told her that “gullible is written on the ceiling”…AND SHE LOOKED! Man, the fact that she took all of this in good humor and still laughed and had fun with us, that is a sign of a truly awesome person.

We also, for some reason (which I think was mostly Mai), had a huge conversation about cleavages. I remarked that it is awkward for me to hug friends above a certain height, because it means my face is level with some awkward – albeit comfortable – cushioning. Annie asked, “well why don’t you turn your head to the side?” I replied, “I ALREADY DO?! What, do you think I currently hug people by burying my face in their chest?! NO!”

And then, and I can’t remember why, I started singing “Do your ears hang low, do they sway to and fro?” I think it’s because Josh said, “You can just throw [your breasts] over your shoulder when you hug someone.” And, if I recall correctly, the song goes, “Do you throw them over your shoulders like a marching band soldier?”

Alright, so, I think I may have laughed too much today because I read back on what I wrote, and not only does it sound insanely immature, it also sounds a bit high. So I’m sorry if it was tedious to read, but there you go.

I have tomorrow off, to do my subjects. My books, however, are a worry.

So, I bid you my reader, welcome to Autumn. If you also started Uni today, I wish you the best for the future, and I hope you didn’t get TOO ripped off by the expensive food today.

Alex.

I’ve Been The Needle And The Thread

[Must Get Out – Maroon 5]

Sorry, but I haven’t been so diligent in writing up everything that happened.

On Thursday I went up to Melb U again. Took the train up with Jenny (who, by the way, made me wait at Mt Wav for ages and then made me sit in the sun. Jenny, I thought I told you! I hate waiting, and I hate the sun), and then went up to Melb U by myself. Found the Sydney Asia Myer Center easily, and surprise surprise bumped into Annie going to the theater. I swear. That chick is everywhere.

The lecture was pretty boring as well, but at least the lecture theater looked pretty awesome. Afterwards, Annie went up to the place where she had interviews for Chinese (yelled at Josh over SMS for being late), and then we decided to find Union House by “wandering along in a straight line until we hit something”.

After that, it really was just a blur of clubs, freebies etc. Went back and forth from Bookshop back to Union House etc, met up with Josh who’d by that time decided to grace us with his presence. Met Pris’ friends Sarah and Vits. I joined Aa, which I don’t remember the full name but it has to do with Asians. Then we stumbled across the juggling club, and after severe failure, Jen and I thought, “yes, we should join this club.”

Watched Flare perform, and Annie and I played “what percentage is that overly enthusiastic guy gay?” I started at 90%, but by the time he’d finished with some booty shaking, and shimmy-shimmying, we shot up to 190%.

Picked up Anna along the way, and then we walked around trying to find the rumored “free beer”. We came across the pub crawl, and followed it. On the way, we all thought, “Oh no, this will be okay. Jackie will be able to get in; they can’t possibly check all our IDs.” Well they did, and Jackie, being 4 months shy of drinking age, couldn’t go in. So I stayed outside with her, watching the others drink through the window (they weren’t easing up on the showing off either). Then Jackie and I went to a nearby park place, and sat down on the grass. The others joined us soon, and we sat around listening to – sigh – Korean music.

After that, we all took the tram back to Melb Central. Said bye to everyone, and I found Jenny again, who’d just been to her own RMIT orientation deal, and was full to the brim of stories of RMIT students. I tried to listen but I was tired and hungry.

Jenny bumped into her friends from PLC at Melb Central, and I went to greet them too. Then, we finally went to the Original Lolly Store, and bought the Pop Rocks I’d wanted since the TAYG filming.

And that was Thursday. My feet hurt. Oh and that night I was talking to Josh on MSN and he offered to teach me to dance (so did Dom, but Dom didn’t do anything about it. I don’t know if Josh would. Let’s see.)

Alex.

Everybody’s Screaming

[Untitled – Simple Plan]

You know, the whingey one. Now, I haven’t written about yesterday, and since I have some time to kill before I gotta go shower, so I’ll write about both days.

Yesterday was my first O-day thing at Melbourne. I took the train up with Elmo (…Did I call her Jackie or Elmo? Who cares. It’s Jackie now.) and met up with Jen at Melbourne Central. She texted me saying “see you UCMC.” I replied, “Wtf is UCMC?” Now, who here remembers that blog post where I wrote “I invented a new acronym for ‘under the clock at Melb Central’ so it’s easier and faster to type”? Yes, I failed at remembering my own code.

Took the tram up to Melb U, and went to get my ID and concession cards done. I managed to look like a gimp in mine. Yes. I’m now stuck with it for 3 years.

Made it to my Host group just on time, despite getting lost and having to call my Host. Didn’t really know anyone there, quite a few of the other students in my group are doing Art as breadth or something, as a 2nd year transfer, or something like that, so I felt pretty small.

Oh, but there was this Norwegian guy in my group who closely resembled Cory Monteith from Glee. I may or may not have been walking close to him for the rest of the tour, just to hear his accent.

After the Host tour, I caught back up with Jen, Jackie, and then met up with Nay. We went around trying to get free stuff. We went to the Nando’s stall, thinking they’d hand out free Peri Peri sauce packets. We did get a packet. On the front it said “Not for soft cocks”. It took a good 20 seconds for us to realize we were each given a condom.

Got more free stuff walking around; lined up for 20 minutes for pancakes that came with really good strawberries, and then lined up for 20 minutes for the free BBQ. While we were eating we bumped into an old face from back old VET days with Nay. To cut a long story short, that was a very bad meeting.

Then lined up for snow cones. I wanted a massage too but you had to show that you were in the Student Union, not just lying and saying “yes I am” to get a free snow cone…

Caught up with more MacRob girls, then went home with Jackie. Hung out at the Glen for a bit before taking the bus back, just ‘cos there was nothing else to do.

Anyway, that was Tuesday. Now onto today.

Took the train up with Jackie again, and dropped her off at her building, which was pretty far away from the rest of the buildings. Went to my building which took a good 5 minutes to find, with many rotating bodies and maps.

Caught up with Spanna, who I hope doesn’t mind but from now I’m going to call Annie, her actual name. Then the Asian friends she made the previous day arrived, so I introduced myself. Thus I met Kristie (Christy? Christie? You know what I mean) and Josh. Josh, who was from Scotch, turned out to actually have many mutual friends with me. Also saw Pris, who looked really tanned, still.

Fast forward through a rather boring lecture, and we were lined up for the free BBQ (I love Uni having free BBQs all the time. Apparently later on they’ll have more, but with alcohol instead of soft drinks). Jen and Mai appeared, and smoothly we let them cut in line with us. Introduced Jen and Mai to Josh.

There’s a Facebook event called “Make things sexually awkward” so I decided to bring that up. It resulted in Annie asking Mai to hug Josh, because Mai has…rather…well…endowed assets. And Josh’s response was bloody funny (Let me clarify now that it was all in good humored fun, good humored and platonic fun, there was nothing there and it was all a joke):

“Wait, why are you hu-…WOAH!”

It was fantastic. And. Very awkward. So, mission accomplished.

As we were eating our lunch later, Dom and D.P. came along. Dom ditched us to hang off his MHS buddies (literally), so Josh was the only guy sitting with us. Had a pretty good lunch (I also remember an instance where Mai was holding my sunnies, and Josh pointed at them saying “Woah they’re HUGE!” But Mai was holding my sunnies around her chest area), and thank God we sat in the shade.

Went to another lecture thing later on, and it was so boring and patronizing. After that, Jen and I went to a final lecture, and I nearly fell asleep, or I did fall asleep, I can’t remember. Afterwards caught up with Annie and Josh who’d ditched us for something else. Jackie found us again, and then we took the tram back down to Melbourne Central.

At Melb Central, I managed to bump into Catherine and all, and it was fantastic to see them again! They were coming back from their Swimming Carnival (haha high school carnivals). Got home with a blister on my foot, from having to walk so much. Yes I am complaining.

So that’s my first 2 days of O week – two more days after this. There’s something happening with the Arts camp I think but I don’t know what. It’s rather confusing. Maybe I should rephrase: Arts “camp”. Yes, that does sound more suss. Good.

Will keep you posted.

Alex.