O-Week and poison fish.

I was told to post more relevant stuff, so here are some more words for you to read.  This post is not going to be in chronological order because I would rather type about today first and yesterday later.  Just think of it as a timeline from a Tarantino movie, but not a movie, not interesting, and about me.

 

I really like trade shows and trade-show-like events.  They are a good match for my attention span.  Each booth is usually about three meters long, so while walking by people focus on every display for about 5 seconds.   Having an undeveloped goldfish-like attention span, I normally focus on all things (whether they are 3 or 3000 meters long) for about 5 seconds unless they have flashing lights.  These shows are a chance for me to act and feel normal!  Yaaay!

 

Today was O-Week at the University Of Sydney, which basically means there were hundreds of these little booths trying to get people to join clubs or buy products.  It was great to learn about many of the student organizations on campus and I decided that while I am studying here I might as well get involved!!  Below is a list of organizations I am now a member of and why I decided to join.

 

Wind Orchestra – I like music and musicians!  I really miss playing drums.

Epicurean Society – This is the food eating club.  I’m really good at eating (except poison fish.  See below)!

UniMates – A social group for international students that offers free coffee every Thursday and probably some other benefits!

Photographic Society – This group takes pictures of stuff then looks at the pictures.  They seemed very nice at the booth, and I would love to have somebody show my how to use my expensive camera!

Musical and Theatre Society – I might be able to play drums for the pit.  Who knows, maybe they will let me act!  These pretzels…are making me THIRSTY!

Food Co-Op – This is a student run fresh produce store on campus.  It is near the business building and joining gets me a discount.  It will hopefully pay itself off.

Economics & Econometrics Society - sounds boooring, but I should probably join it.  They do economics stuff (duh).

Chocolate Society – this is a club for people that eat chocolate.  How cool is that????

Captain Planet Association – I used to watch captain planet EVERY DAY!  Finally I’ve found a group of people that share my love for the show!

Bushwalkers – hiking.  Why not.

Brusical – A club for people that enjoy drinking and brewing good beer.  This is a school funded organization, so my uni will hopefully be paying for my hops and barley!

 

Tomorrow I am doing a photographic scavenger hunt around campus with a few friends, then I might join the Legos club, the commerce society, and maybe even the archery society!

 

In total I got 5 candy bars, 19 lollipops, 6 t-shirts, 5 cloth bags, 3 bottles of juice, an apple, an Apple coffee mug, 4 pens, a pack of cards, a pack of chocolate gummy bears, a coupon for a free haircut which I will not be using (for now), coupons for two free beers which I will be using, a pair of chopsticks, instant coffee, a bottle of shaving creme, free hot chocolate with purchase of churros, and more sunburn.  According to the pile of crap in the middle of my room, I had a successful day!

 

I had my first bad food experience yesterday.  I ate some bad fish, which resulted in the quick and forceful evacuation of everything in my digestive system.  Fun times!  This could NOT have come at a worse time because I got a free ticket for a concert that night from a friend in the band Houston Calls (good band!  Listen to them at www.myspace.com/houstoncalls). They were playing with Ace Enders, Hellogoodbye, and New Found Glory!  I did NOT want to miss this again!! 

 

I decided to down half a bottle of stomach medicine and tough it out.  The good news is that I didn’t throw up on anybody.  The bad news is that I missed half of the show was scared to get to involved or drink in fear of throwing up on somebody.  Despite my good behaviour and fashionably late arrival I got carded while there...  TWICE!  People in Australia seem to think I am a lot younger than I am which is nice, but sometimes annoying.  Every time I talk to people in the university or sign up for programs they always assume I am an undergrad student!  Do I really look like I’m in my late teens???

 

One mistake I keep making that does not help is referring to my masters program as “school” or “college”.  In Australia “school” is K-12, “college” is a private high school (I think?), and “university” is…well, a university.  It seems like I will never learn to speak Australian!  This mix up usually causes mild confusion, but I have had a few people believe that I am a high school exchange student (for those of you that do not know, I am 26 years old)!

 

I need to go get some rest so I can collect more free crap tomorrow.  Hopefully I will stay away form poisonous fish!