| I don't wanna be told to grow up; and I don't wanna change, I just wanna have fun... |
[Feb. 16th, 2006|05:56 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  good | ] |
| [ | music |
| | My Bloody Valentine, Good Charlotte | ] |
People have been asking (or haven't, but anyway) where I've been the last couple of days. I haven't really given them much of an answer, from a combination of being busy, exhausted, sick, and probably some other similar things. I make no guarantee that this will really be much of an improvement, because most of those 'things' are still there. But due to my obsessive personality (or something), I feel oblidged to report happenings to my DJ. And if things go moderately to plan, it may well be another couple of days before another opportunity to post arises, so I'd better explain what I've been doing and what I will be doing.
From Monday to Wednesday was the UTS Faculty of IT Orientation Camp. It was a long couple of days, and I think I came away with a cold or something - either my head aches, or my nose is blocked. I made a handful of friends, met a lot of people, and even remembered some of their names.
It's interesting to go to an event where you quietly consider every single thing that happens to be a private joke. I laughed far more than most of the rest of the crowd, because I got more of the jokes - something that Creepy Guy noticed, but I'll get to him in a moment.
FIT Camp has something they call Camp Cash - basically universal bribery for the students, in order to get maximum co-operation, both with the staff members around, and the older students known as Yellowshirts. The Yellowshirts are second year (or later) students, who have volunteered to run the camp for the staff; to aid the population in identifying them, they are given bright yellow tshirts to wear. Each Camp Cash bill has a photograph of one of the staff memebers printed on it - if the student manages to get the lecturer/whatever in question to sign it, its face value doubles. It's a ploy to attempt to familiarise the students with the faculty and vice versa.
Since this camp spanned Valentine's Day, there were the special edition $69 Camp Cash denomination notes, featuring some of the male Yellowshirts.
A lot of the camp was spent being talked at by official-type-people. They attempted to convey messages such as "Please don't plagarise. It makes us feel bad to fail you." - they might even have succeeded. There were also a lot of 'team-building exercises'. Grargh. Can you carry this lolly between these two bowls, using only chopsticks? Silly tasks.
On the morning of the second day, some guy asked to borrow my book. I didn't catch his name. He found out what he wanted to know, and then chatted to me. In that brief five minute conversation, he managed to creep me out immensely for some reason that, even now, I can't put my finger on. I spent the rest of the time trying to avoid him without making it looking like I was doing so.
I generally got on fairly well with most of the other guys and girls I met. Strangely, a large proportion of the ones I spoke to seemed to be Asian.
* I managed to sarcasm my way through an entire day in the company of Lisa, without really being conscious of it. I don't think she's used to people like that. For some obscure reason, she reminded me of Steson - I think it was the habit of squinting down the glasses.
* Andrew is amusing, because he's moderately effiminate (apparently without realising it). He seems nice, though. And he has the same attitude I have about sport - wander around the court in the general direction of the ball without ever actually accomplishing anything.
* Kate's signiature greeting is to stick out her tongue at you - an interesting concept, I'm sure you'll agree. She had a bet going that she'd stay up for the entirity of the camp; there were differing views as to whether she won or not.
* Justin, the guy that I believe to be her boyfriend, probably would have been a more interesting conversationalist if I hadn't caught him at the tail end of that selfsame bet. He was eating sugar packets by the handful when I chatted to him on Wednesday morning.
* Richard, or as he prefers - "Itch", is one of the Yellowshirts. He tried to call me a number of nicknames, so I threatened to call him Richard. He seems nice enough, and he was just as enamoured of the dance party as me, Lisa, Andrew, and Adeline were - we sat outside and spent as long as possible drinking our cordial/whatever in order to spend as little time on the dancefloor. We wondered what would happen if a group of like four people went into the centre of one of those circles that inevitably forms at these events - and just stood stock still; but we decided against finding out.
* We were always being confused by Adeline and Bonnie as to which one was which. There isn't even any real apparent reason for it - they don't really look much alike, though on the first day, they were both wearing bright red shirts, which can't have helped. They're both pretty quiet, but are probably fairly intelligent.
* Ros, another of the Yellowshirts, spent a lot of time guarding the cans of drink they were selling to anyone around, so I chatted to her a fair bit. I can't really remember much of what was said, but I remember laughing a lot.
* I initally mistook Doug for one of the Yellowshirts, partially because he'd misplaced his nametag somewhere. By first appearences, I took him for a stoner, but he said that he disapproves (of pills, at least), because he's seen what they do to you and it isn't worth it. He has a strange kind of quiet leadership about him; he joined our group for "Project Humpty" (protect an egg when dropped from a height using only straws and masking tape) and took charge - admittedly, we had little clue of what we were going to do, but I think he was just wandering past and decided to help.
* Steph was apparently on the roll as a male, in a clerical error - which was interesting. She's chirpy, and kept trying to offer marshmallows to everyone. No one took her up on her offer; less because we don't like marshmallows, than because we were never hungry when she suggested it.
I discovered that embroidery is a great way to meet people. I'd sit on the top step of our cabin, doing tapestry, and chat to people as they passed. Often, the conversation started with "How can you have the patience for that?", but it was a good ice breaker. I read a bit as well, but that requires more mental concentration and places a silent 'Do not disturb' sign around your neck, defeating the socialisation aspect.
The camp food sucked. Big surprise there. It could have been worse, though, I suppose. The worst bit was the water. There was no clean water. There was drinkable water; but that is different to clean, in that (theoretically) clean water should have no taste, whereas this had a distinctly unpleasant taste (and sometimes also colour). Thus, you had to add cordial or something to make it drinkable; expect that cordial, being largely sugar, doesn't really cure thirst. I was suffering fairly seriously from dehydration by the second night; and I still haven't managed to drink enough liquid to stop needing a drink every couple of minutes.
When we finally got back home, I basically collapsed into a heap. I took an hour's worth of nap, which made no appreciable difference to my state of being. And because of said hour's nap, as well as random lack of sleep from previous nights, my sleeping patterns are hacked to hell and I didn't get to sleep until late. I think I've contracted a cold or something from pushing my body in strange ways; my nose is clogged, though I only notice it when I'm lying down - when I sit up, it converts to a slight dull headachee between the eyes.
Today was Speech Day. Yay. I sat through it, drinking from my water bottle close to continually. I received the prize for top of Y12 SDD (and there was a quiet taste of victory in that, since it meant that I had beaten Black - though he may well have not actually been in the running, for all I know).
After it finished, I got changed into clothes that actually made me look like me, and then Stevie, Richard, Darcy, Treffyn and I went to lunch at Pitt Street Mall. Darcy left not long after we ate; the rest of us hung around in the centre of the plaza, reminiscing about our comparitive primary schools and trying to decide where to go next.
I eventually suggested the Art Gallery of NSW to see ArtExpress ("If nothing else, it's free..."), so we walked over there to see what we could see. We cloaked our bags (I took my water bottle), and wandered through ArtExpress, making whatever comments seemed appropriate (though I don't think we held the art in quite such high esteem as we were supposed to). On our way out, we encountered the "Focus Room". I don't know what the room is normally used for; but when we passed through, the walls were painted white, and the only thing in the room (aside from a sign affixed to the wall announcing the 'Focus Room' title) was a large, empty, display case. We spent a good ten minutes trying to determine what was supposed to happen in the room: "Do you suppose the viewer is supposed to be the artwork?", while Treffyn worked very hard at his pretentious English Extension 2 skills.
We wandered out of the gallery. We considered collapsing in the shade under the Domain trees, but it was too humid; so we started wandering back towards the city. As we passed the State Library, a virtual exclamation mark appeared above my head.
Mm: Oooh! Pretty pictures!
*Mm runs up library steps
*The others look confused
*Mm points to the sign above her head, which shows that a David Moore photography exhibition is on display
Mm: Pretty pictures!
*Mm walks through door
*Rest look at each other
Mm: *From opened door* Well, are you coming?
*Rest follow
They had some really nice black and white photography on display - David Moore chose out one hundred of his favourite photos that he had taken throughout his career, and put them into one set, which were printed after his death. I ended up buying the catalogue (at the price of "Your donation is appreciated", I figured that I could afford it). We then hung around in there for a good half hour or more, just sitting and chatting about things in the air conditioned cool. Stevie's mother rang him and was evidently concerned to discover that he was in a library, which amused the rest of us no end.
Eventually we managed to rouse ourselves enough to continue our wander towards the city and home. Richard and I left Stevie and Treffyn at St James station, and wandered along. He checked the bus timetables at the stops, but didn't see any that were within a short enough timeframe to convince him to wait around. We walked to my bus stop, and chatted about random stuff until my bus finally turned up. Unfortunately, it was an old bus, and the rain came in through the windows. I had to carefully protect my new book.
Assuming Richard gets his act and enough people together, I might be going down to Gerringong with whoever's around. It should be fun, if it happens. :).
-Mmaster |
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sleepy
calm
cheerful
I proceeded to meander back to Railway Square. Wandered into the Civic Video on George Street, and spent fifteen minutes or so trawling their poster collection (they sell off old posters for fifty cents a pop) - I ended up buying one for a film that I haven't seen (and have no intention of doing so), because it was just so cool - 
random
I always used to wonder why my Sims would flip out if their Social Meter was on low - after all, "It won't kill you! Now go and clean the carpet!". Having a spent a week where, aside from MSN and Thursday night, essentially the only social interactions I've been having were with my dog, I begin to understand. And Sims don't lose the ability to deal with people when they've spent a week as a hermit - I do.
lonely
okay
bored
indescribable