Loving about uni
07 Mar 2006One thing I’m loving about uni already is the complete lack of commercial intrusion. With the exception of wannabe-activist-emulating advertising (you know the kind… CommBank “Free is Good” advertising in the form of chalked stairways, badges, etc.) and prolific party postering, I can wander around the USyd campus for a day and not feel the need (née ‘want’, the aim of marketing being the transformation of ‘wants’ into ‘needs’) or compulsion to spend money on anything. Well, except books. I’m still feeling guilty I don’t own all the books for all of my subjects yet… but *cries* they’re expensive and if I wait I can get them secondhand!
Stupid English went and prescribed editions but hadn’t really made that terribly clear on the course outline online… so bleh, time to sell some books back! Greek (yes, I’m doing Greek… has this story been told here? Probably not. Whatever. I’m learning Classical Greek right up until when I fail miserably and drop out! Non-Latin-alphabets scare me.) cost… too much. Was about $90 or something I think for two texts… so I can’t quit now, which is good I guess. I’m getting some Classics texts from TextbookExchange.com.au (so good! go sign up!) which is nice. Philosophy, mercifully, only has a reader (but that was like… $32 or something, which is kinda expensive for a bunch of photocopied stuff (I think) but saves so much hassle it was readily handed over).
Then there was an amusing incident with purchasing readings online but not being able to find where the online-only queue was. I saw the line at the UCC was absolutely massive and assumed there must be a double queue for online/prepay (I have a Visa card now, yay. Trying not to ever actually USE it, heh.) and so I joined the line so I wouldn’t be queue jumping. Hah. I got to nearly-the-end-of-the-line and saw a sign saying “Pre-paid/online orders” and quickly switched lanes. Ah well :P Lesson rather decidedly learnt! Mind you, the normal queue is more intimidating than it is actually long. Moved really quickly. So I might pass on the online-ordering next time and save myself 50 cents or whatever the card charge is, heh.
Another really interesting thing has been seeing who’s doing various subjects. Peter (Notarus? I can never spell his last name…), for example, was in the same Classical Mythology lecture as me this arvo. Just didn’t really think of him as an Arts person, I guess… heh, he thought the same of me though ;-) I’m finding myself semi-regularly apologising (in jest :-)) for being an IT person who’s interested in… more interesting things! (another wink here… typing lots of emoticons in blog posts is bad!)
But it’s cool. I haven’t encountered anyone who hasn’t been nice/has been judgemental yet. It probably helps that everyone in all of my subjects seems a little bit lost around the place… up to and including a bunch of third- and fourth-year students in my Classical Greek course whom I encountered whilst equally lost looking for the room for our first lecture. Four of us met in ad-hoc fashion outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office (because that was where–logically–the room should have been! *abandons trying to deduce order from room numbers/names*), and wandered aimlessly around the Quad for a while (we knew what building, just not what section!) before finally finding a sign marked “Greek Room”. It was reassuring to know I wasn’t the only lost one!
Philosophy and English presently feel the most interesting of what I’m doing, but I take it that could be in part because I know what to expect from both (to an extent) and could probably hold my own without too much guidance in both. The other two (Classical Greek and Mythology) I’ve fairly literally flung myself into with a conception that either/or could be interesting and/or beneficial to study, but with very little idea as to either their content or their method. I got to see Tori for half an hour today and laughed inwardly as she expressed her frustration at people who didn’t get stuff in her Chinese tuts, thinking “That’s going to be me as soon as we start tutorials for Greek next week!”. So so completely lost. Anyway, on that note, I should probably go and look over some stuff. My Yellowcard CD re-construction finished… *retreats to bedroom with music and readings and books and stuff*