Thursday-Sunday: Making A Memory

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So Thursday came, and with it came classes. Somehow in all the madness of the first few days I’d managed to forget about the whole work side of Uni; the real reason why I was here. Every building at Mac has an acronym so asking for directions made me sound like some sort Bond girl. My Thursday timetable said I was in TSH, BSB, MDCL and PC. Not only that, but every building has a ridiculous number of rooms and apparently very little logic to them. (I’m still trying to work out how BSB340 isn’t the room immediately above BSB240.) Luckily enough my first class was with Sarah, one of my flatmates who’d not only been to the campus before, but also had a map. We set off in search of TSH120 a good half an hour before class, but being geography students (and therefore good at map reading) we found it in under 10 minutes. Still, we got a good seat! The rest of Thursday was spent searching for buildings and rooms, attending lectures, discovering that the student centre is NOT a good place to be at lunch time (unless you like queuing and being treated like cattle), and generally trying to find the quickest route between classes. Basically like my first day of lectures at Leeds.

That night however, was faculty night. We were told that our trip was to a beach on the lake where there’d be a BBQ, volley ball, and some really really good bands. Well we were kinda near the lake, there was a load of sand with volley ball nets on it, a buffet with BBQ flavoured chicken, and a couple of ok bands. However, it’s the people that make a party; so we left early, went back to next door’s flat and had our own shindig instead. And Friday was more of the same. More lectures, more getting horribly confused by the acronyms, and more bonding over games of Uno.

Saturday night we had another free concert from another (apparently) huge band. This time they had security guards, a huge metal fence, even people patrolling the woods behind the stage; this was an event for Mac students only! Unlike Tokyo Police Club, the band I’d been converted to on Tuesday, Alexisonfire are a Metal Band, and I’m not a metal fan. However, they were ok (they’d be better if they lost the guy who shouts) and a gig is a gig after all.

Sunday we were meant to do something called an “Amazing Race” around Hamilton. Based on a TV show we were to go around completing tasks and basically learn about the town and where everything is. Unfortunately it was cancelled due to “bad weather” but I’m not sure why seeing as both drops of rain fell on me. So I went to church earlier instead, had a wander around campus looking for next weeks lectures, went to watch Ming’s rugby game, and generally mucked about all day. I mentioned before about how it seemed like I’d been at Mac forever and a lot of this was down to the welcome week activities. Yes the cheering was a shock, and at times it physically hurt our throats, but it was so much fun and just a great way to meet new people and get to know the university. It’s not something I’d ever have experienced staying in Leeds and not something I’ll ever experience again, but I’m so glad I did. Seriously guys, if you get the chance to go somewhere else take it with open arms. That was just one week, but it’s a week I’m going to remember for the rest of my life. And there’s very few weeks I can say that about!

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