Orientation Week

Hihi friends,

Dunno if u are keeping tabs on my blog posts... nevertheless, I will paste my writings from my emails here in case some of you might want to know what's going on my side..

"Here's the update on what's happening on my side. This week, I think I have told some of you before? is Orientation week, I must say it's pretty interesting. Let me see my timetable for this week.

I attended the formal dinner a few days ago... that was a part of Baxter O Week program, its not bad though except it was sooooo hot in the night, kept sweating.. That formal dinner was not same as the formal breakfast, it was like a valentine's day date, every baxter guy brought flowers and knocked on their dates' doors. They went to dining hall. Ah.. I thought I didnt have a date hence didnt really change into my formal (eh.. not so formal, but smart causal.. :p). but in the end, i got a friendly date with one of the O week leaders. thank goodness that he didnt seem to mind writing lots of things to me - i dont really understand what the australian people say. they speak way too fast!!! The food was ok, the only nicest food is the last course - dessert!

Oh yes, i live on the highest floor which is actually the 7th storey!!! i actually exercise unintentionally by walking down, up and down and up whenever i am going out or going back to my room! No lifts at all! On my floor there are 14 other asian females... two girls from singapore, one for taiwan, one from iran, one from china, one from HK, two from sri lanka (but living in aussie for more than 10 years). the rest, i dunno. they all are nice. oh yes i just found out the other floors, there are rooms for the boys and girls, even have an unisex toilet! which means any guys or girl can enter the toilet to wash up, ease themselves or even shower! reminds me of that unisex toilet epsiode in 'Ally McBeal'.

Everywhere at UNSW, I have to take stairs... panting panting... hence i dont think i will ever grow fat as i thought i might be... haha...i also had to walk here and there to get to places at UNSW, yeah so big that i sometimes got lost.. luckily there were some map stands... there were beautiful green lawns in some areas of UNSW.. someday i can go down and read my books under the trees. also i had to be familiar with buses and sydney central... there were two kinds of bus services: limited stops and express. the same applied to trains.. but trains in singapore are better, at least at every stop the driver will automatically announce the name of the station. unlike here. my sister told me she also had to watch out for the names of the stations coz there were announcements on some stations or never at all!

last two days, went to darling harbour with some of my baxter mates. went rock-climbing at sydney university! at 1st, couldnt scale the first rock wall (actually that was one of the hardest rock walls), then i tried to scale another one and it was a success although i was slow! now i know why some people like to rock-climb, when i was stuck at the middle of the rock wall, i wanted to give up but somehow i didnt want to. i somehow pushed myself to the top and savoured the achievement feeling, really a great feeling! also learnt how to pull the rope and let my partner scale the rock wall. now my arms are aching in pain thanks to rock-climbing (5 times! but 3 successful attempts).

also went to COFA for some orientation programs, learnt how to familiarize myself with using a mac, quite fun and user-friendly. had to sit for a few hours to listen to the lecturers talking about facilities and services... didnt really understand what they really were talking about.. *shaking my head* but the good thing is that i read the points from the slides and was able to guess what they were talking about.

regarding the intepreters, i didnt have one for now but yesterday, went to the disability office with my sister to ask for aids that can help me in my studies. the officer was nice, she says she would get me a note-taker and intepreter next week.. that's when my school starts. I really look forward to having such kind of things soon. the service is free! also learnt that UNSW is also willing to buy some technologies such as door alarm, TTY (a special phone machine for the deafs) etc; I dont have to pay anything for them. Maybe Singapore should have a law like this!

Talking about politics, I am not much into such stuff.. but even if i am not interested, somehow i happened to learn about student union organisations. the student union organisations here at COFA and UNSW are actively voicing out their rights to leave things as they are. The Federal government is trying to make these student union organisations as voluntary student unions (VSU) which means every student doesnt have to pay a fee to the unions as a part of their enrolment automatically. The students dont think it will be good for their student unions - it will render the student unions useless coz there might be no more students in these unions. I think the government hates anyone from those unions to speak up against them- they dont want the students to become another political parties against them. i am not sure whether to support VSU or not... but i know 1 thing... i love freebies! COF gave me free lunch at one of the orientation program and it was superb delicious - it was indian food! (not spicy), reminded me of the local food in singapore. i also got loads of freebies such as free movie mags, snacks, student diaries and loyalty cards etc from both COFA and UNSW."

okies here's my much anticpated mailing address (that's where i live for now):

Andre Ng
The Kensington Colleges
University of New South Wales (or UNSW - the staff says its faster in this way)
Sydney NSW 2052
AUSTRALIA