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I've finally got internet up in my room! The tech guy LITERALLY walked away two minutes ago. And here I am, posting a new entry in my journal for the sole purpose of your enjoyment, enlightenment, and overall mental well-being. How thoughtful of me!

The wait is over

Andy Tew
2007-05-25 19:53:41

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ten times the size. I thought I had it so sweet over at my room! Oh
well, I'll just have to spend a lot of time with friends on their cushy balconies. The horror. Went to bed pretty early in order to get up for more orientation meetings on the morrow.

Tuesday July12th:
All day orientation-fest. All the international students (from the States, Norway, England, Germany, Singapore, Zimbabwe, Canada, etc) met in a big lecture hall for most of the day, going over procedures for class enrollment, health coverage stuff, academic expectations, blah blah blah. At the beginning of the day they assigned us to random tables in a large conference room where we were served breakfast. Then, an Australian professor of anthropology gave a very entertaining talk about 'Strine kulcha (Australian culture) in which Pat Rafter, Vegemite, and the expression "howyegoan" played prominent roles. There were about fifteen tables and each had twelve kids- mine had a girl from Austria (who I later learned is focusing on psychology, like myself), two guys from Norway, one from Germany, one from England, and about five from the states. At the end of breakfast each table was given a batch of paper slips with pictures of various Australian things- kangaroos, Don Bradman, Rottnest Island-and instructed to write
a story as a group that involved all the things. The table with the best story would win a prize. Well, we were about halfway done with our tale (involving Bradman and Slim Dusty having a vegemite eating competition to win the heart of Dame Edna something, a famous Australian cross-dresser) when they said "Time's up! Now assign one person from each group to read the story in front of everyone during lunch!" You can guess who the group nominated as reader. ME. Ugh. Our story was pretty lame, and half-finished at that. My group told me to ad-lib the rest of it; I also threw in some Australian phrases that I could say with a slightly ridiculous accent. So when ...