Macquarie Orientation

I was wide awake at 6:30 this morning and couldn’t fall back to sleep for the life of me, so I got up and watched the Jane by Design episode that I had downloaded in Fiji. My orientation this morning started at 10am, so I decided to walk around campus and get my bearings until then. I found the campus store, which doesn’t actually have that much of a selection. I also walked through the campus hub, which is like a student center, but mainly consists of food places and the campus bar.

Random stream on campus

Orientation was kind of overwhelming. Our morning session had a variety of speakers come in and talk to us about various elements of the university as well as aspects of safety. I was particularly incensed by the Global Leadership Program, which consists of seminars and a meet and greet with “global citizens.” If you complete 5 of the seminars and go to the meet and greet, you receive a certificate. I think I’m going to sign up to participate because it sounds relatively interesting.

I’m also kind of excited about the clubs offered on this campus. Being at a big university (Macquarie has about 30,000 students) is very new to me. They have a chocolate appreciation club, among other things. I’m hoping to join a few at the club fair – MacFest – next week so that I can meet people. I already feel kind of left out from the AIFS group and it doesn’t help that I’m living alone. I always miss out on the information and invites to go out and this is only day two in Sydney.

They gave us lunch before the afternoon session started. Our afternoon was filled with scheduling and registration. Apparently, the university took it upon themselves to enroll us in classes so I was only scheduled for two of the ones that I wanted out of four. I’m going to try and drop the two and add the two I wanted, but it might be difficult because the class I was most excited about is only offered at one time. The timetable (schedule) they drew up for me also sucks. I end up with class every day of the week and most of them are early days. I really have to do something about it tomorrow when they’re in their office.

The rest of the session instructed us on how to set-up our e-mail address with Macquarie and use their online webpages. I can’t figure out how to set-up my e-mail forwarding though, so I guess I’m just going to have to remember to check both accounts every day.

One exciting thing though is that I found out anyone can attend class lectures, so I might pick a few courses that I’m interested in and just sit in on their weekly lectures. I might as well, if I have time, especially with all the gaps in my schedule as of right now.

After the orientation sessions, Sarah, Christine, and I looked around the school store for a little bit before heading back over to the shopping center to pick up groceries and browse some of the stores. I found a really cheap cookie sheet, so I’m going to make some cookies. I also picked up the fixings for tacos and made them for dinner. As I was cooking in my new apartment, one of my housemates walked by and introduced himself before quickly ducking out the door. It happened so fast that I don’t even remember his name. That’s when it really set in though that I’m going to be here for awhile. I was wondering what it would take.

The tacos were rather different because the grocery store didn’t have any of the normal cheeses I would use. In fact, a lot of the packages didn’t specify what kind of cheese they were. I also had to get a different kind of seasoning because they don’t have Mrs. Dash over here. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t what I’m used to. Another item missing from the grocery store was applesauce, so I’ll have to make plain chocolate chip cookies too. I don’t understand how Australia doesn’t have applesauce. When I asked a staff member, she asked me if it was a juice.

After dinner, I figured out the laundry situation. It’s $4 per load of laundry and $1 for the dryer. You have to pay in $1 coins though and there isn’t a change machine in the laundry room. It’s a good idea I had the foresight to stop into the recreation building on my way to class this morning or I wouldn’t have had anywhere near enough change. I luckily live right by the laundry building though, so it wasn’t difficult to drag my suitcase of dirty clothes over there and stuff them in the washers. I wanted to dry all of my clothes in my room, but drying racks were in the $50 range when I looked at them today, so that isn’t really feasible.

I want to get a job while I’m here now that I’m realizing how expensive things really are. I spent $80 on groceries today and that didn’t even cover the other toiletries and cooking supplies that I bought. I don’t know how I’m going to manage to eat much more than pasta for the next couple of months.

I need to buy some sweatshirts too. It’s absolutely freezing here. I don’t think it helps that we went from a tropical environment to the Australian winter. It’s not as bad as the Midwest by far, but our townhouses don’t have heat, so I’m glad I have the extra blankets to curl up under otherwise I might freeze.