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.

I Love That Thing You Do

[That Thing You Do – Busted]

Might have used the song already. Anyway, I’m writing this on the eve of my first University orientation day. Am I excited? You bet. Am I slightly nervous? Actually, no. I’m not nervous about the Orientation stuff, I’m more nervous about actually starting Uni. I suppose going to those Orientation lectures about how to deal with lectures…will help, hopefully.

There is a blog for first year Melb Uni students to write their adventures. I tried logging in but um, apparently, you have to register properly. I got a bit annoyed that I might have to go with 2 WordPress accounts. Still. Wouldn’t hurt to keep a track on both blogs right? It’s just THAT one won’t contain stories of my personal life.

Whenever I mention that I’m about to head off into Uni, whoever I talk to, granted they’re older, all say “Oh Uni was a crock.” But I’m pretty set on doing well in Uni so I can get a good head start into the career path I want. Is Uni really that much of a bull?

I wonder how I’m going to fare, making new friends tomorrow. From what I can gather, all the people in my host group are strangers – and looking around on AAD I would guess that all of them will be strangers of the white ethnicity. I might be the only little tiny Asian girl walking around with them. I hope they’re all strangers to each other, otherwise I’d have no friends! Oh come on, cheer up Alex, you’ll make friends.

Who said that?

I suppose I’ll have to get to making that new category called “Uni” and start blogging more frequently now. My holiday of slobbing out in front of the computer is pretty much over. Time to kick my brain into gear again (although something tells me that this might take a while).

Alex.

P.S. I somehow managed to edit my subject timetables early. So. Because of some stupid full classes I have to go in 4 days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and on Friday only for 2 hours in the morning.

Oh hello Med students.

Breathe In So Deep

[Fall For You – Secondhand Serenade]

(I’m pretty sure I’ve used this song already.) Yesterday was the Melb Uni AAD and my audience participation in TAYG! So it was a long and very tiring day.

I got up at 7 so I could be at the Glen by 8:30 (it takes a while for Mom to get ready even though she seems to be okay to go back to work now). Why would I want to be at the Glen at this ungodly hour, you ask? Yes because Jenny said she’ll meet me there at that time. In the end she was 40 minutes late.

Took the train up to Melb Central with Jenny and walked around Borders while she tried to find the book that she wanted for her birthday. Couldn’t find it (I think if Borders didn’t have it…then…I mean…seriously…).

Waited under the clock for Pris who was 10 minutes late and made me worry a lot because I didn’t want to be late to our Info Session. Saw MacRob girls already, which was a prelude to how many we’d see throughout the day. Said bye to Jenny, as she was going to RMIT [insert giggle here…just kidding!] so Pris and I went up.

Saw some Brentwood people upon arrival, such as Huey, Swin and Jonga. Looks like the 2 parts of my life is going to join at Melbourne!

Then went on to Redmond Barry hall, and said morning to Mai and Jen. Went into our lecture theatre and there was greeted by the surprise of the month.

Spanna yelled out my name as I walked in. I had not known (despite apparently everyone else being clued in) that she was going to be in course, so you can imagine the speed with which I bounded up the steps to hug her.

The Info Sesh itself was pretty boring, and the lady and the guy more or less told us what we already knew. It was strange to see Esther from the previous year in our Info Sesh though. Asking around later I found out she’d deferred a year which is why she is now in our “year level”. It’s quite weird to think about that!

After the Info Sesh Spanna stayed in the Redmond Barry hall place, and Jen and I went to Union House with Pris. Pris left when we got to Union House and I met up with Mai and Jen again, and sat with them. Failing to remind me that there was a free BBQ, I bought lunch.

Oh, this is the point where I gloat that I managed to make one friend! (Yes, one.) There are probably around 6 Asians in our course, two of whom are males. So it was easy to notice the other Asians in the room. I saw a girl who was sitting by herself two rows ahead, and later on at Union House when I saw Sab- and Esther (different to the one doing my course) I saw that girl tagging along too. Her name is Anna, and turns out we have mutual friends! So there. I made a friend.

We saw many many MacRob girls there (and I saw Clare there too. I’d forgotten she was doing BA as well). So many, in fact, that we took up two picnic tables with our awesomeness (there were numerous MHS guys as well).

After lunch Jen went to a Diploma of Languages lecture and Spanna and I went to this lecture for Chinese. Saw Pam-, Andy, Theresa and many many other Chinese folks (duh). The guy who was in charge of the lecture was, as he reminded us many times, “only an ACTING consultant” as the real guy was on some “China Trip”. So in all senses he had no idea what any of the details were.

For example, when asked a question regarding which sort of classes to be in: “I really am not the person to ask that question. If you ask me I would probably say go to the website.” Pause. “Did that answer your question?”

No.

After that I found Jen again and we went to Brunetti’s near Lygon St and met up with her friend Martin. We had a drink, and talked about university, and then I had to leave to meet up with Swin so we could go to TAYG.

It was stressful to make sure that Mani and Michelle were at Southern Cross properly because, when I asked Michelle where she was, as I saw her train pull up a few moments ago, she replied, “the station.” Well d-fucking-uh.

Took the tram up to Docklands and went to the Channel 10 Studios. We waited outside for a bit, then got ushered into the audience foyer. Everyone was dressed very colorfully as the invitation suggests.

As we were going into the actual recording studio, we had to pair up, and since we were a group of 5, Wilson didn’t have anyone. So one of the security guards grabbed Wilson and shouted out to the rest of the audience: “THIS GUY DOESN’T HAVE A FRIEND! HE’S ALL ALONE IN THIS WORLD!” (Or something hilarious along those lines.)

The filming itself took over 3 hours. There was a guy called Michael who warmed up the crowd with some jokes and stuff. Then all the cast came out and greeted us. We cheered, applauded, whooped and pretended that we heard some jokes for the first time. I won’t give away what happened; you’d just have to watch it (it’s the 3rd episode of the new season). They threw lollies at us (and missed) and tried to get our cheer maintained so we were an awesome audience.

The show ended filming at around 8:30, and we stayed outside until Michelle got picked up by her family friend. Then we took the tram and trains back to Glenny. On the way back, Swin kept on making fun of me because I couldn’t hear her through my music. I COULD STILL TELL SHE WAS LAUGHING AT ME!

Today I went to Spanna’s house for her birthday, but that would be a different post which I am too tired to write right now. Tomorrow I have an interview at a Telemarketing company for a job (yes I know the irony is many layered), and going to one of Jenny’s friend’s house to hang out and have dinner. It will be a hectic day tomorrow as well.

Wish me luck!

Alex.