USyd Orientation

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Orientation at the University of Sydney

I have spent the last two days in an orientation for all of the study abroad students at the University of Sydney. We have had everything from terribly boring sessions to lots of handouts, to informative sessions, to lots of handouts, to morning tea of bickees and orange juice, and lots of ways to spend money. I’m not going to lie I did find out some interesting things but I was also bored and rude some of the time. I have been much more tired the last two days than I was when we walked all over Usyd and Sydney the previous two days. The worst part is that this type of being tired makes everything impossible to do or get yourself psyched up for as well as doesn’t make it easy to sleep/become rested. Tomorrow we have another walking tour of Sydney planned so hopefully I’ll be able to re-energize myself.

So back to Orientation. There were some priceless quotes like from the Bus transportation officer “It’s the LAW” everything he said was so serious that you could tell he was really really passionate about his job. The leader of the entire orientation really like to talk. They would give us extensive pamphlets about the sessions and what was going on at each session and then she would read them all to us. It was frustrating to sit there and listen to what I just read. I can’t remember any more of the priceless quotes and in fact I think some of them were just beautiful accents, like “Hi I’m Tom” but you wouldn’t understand how beautiful it was unless you heard it.

One big plus for orientation is that I won a trip. It’s a day trip to the Hunter Valley region worth $79 or at least that is what it would have cost if I had purchased it for the deal we were getting. I think there is wine, cheese and chocolate tasting at a local vineyard and some aqua golf, whatever that is.

Also these past two days I had my first sit down meals at the House. They were very nice. The food was good and I really enjoyed having conversations with the other people in the house. So far we are mostly exchange students of different kinds but hopefully soon it will be more aussies because classes start soon. On Monday we had chicken and mushroom saucy thing on some rice with corn and lots of fruit. Tonight we had a tofu noodle stir fry and meatballs and sweet potato wedges. For dessert there was apple crumble and sponge cake with pears and homemade sugar candy.

I think on Monday my schedule will be available online so I can see when my classes are but I have found out that I got into all of my classes. The only catch would be if any of them clash in their meeting times because their system doesn’t work like I’m used to. Oh well I’m sure it will all work out.

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Photos

The Great Hall
This is the Great Hall where we had or initial welcome to the orientation.

The Quad
This is the Quadrangle or four green open spaces inside the Great Hall courtyard.