...And Anticipations Arrive Acutely

After reading Relgin's most informative essay of a blog entry it inspired me to write up another post, though I'll never be as catchy and entertaining as Sir James. I usually write my blog titles prior to writing the actual post and as untraditional and unorthodox as that may seem, it works for me. This time however, my mind is running blank at the moment so instead I'll write the post before I create the title. Like you pathetic people care anyway.

Well one week of uni has elapsed considering I have no uni on Fridays. My thoughts?

I'm enjoying it thus far. Obviously the amount of assignments and homework spat at us by the lecturors and tutors is an almighty atrocity, but that's life and life sucks. Whinging aside, I'm enjoying the commuter's life. Actually, 'enjoying' may not be the most appropriate word. Perhaps 'adapting' is a more suitable term. The routine of waking up early and driving to St Marys in time to catch the 8:30 train every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday was the life I didn't eagerly anticipate, but to my surprise I'm tolerant about it.

Think about it. I'm sure sitting on a train 45 minutes or so minutes twice a day isn't everyone's cup of tea. I cursed at the prospect of having to sit on a train for 90 minutes each uni day all year, but it's not too bad. I'm aware that only a week has passed, but as long as you have an mp3 player combined with a train buddy, the world still revolves joyously. If one thing must be admired, it's the approachability of my fellow students. Everyone seems very relaxed and in the mood for a chat. I'm yet to see any 'scene-makers' or people looking to cause unwanted attention.

New addiction readers. Daytona USA ! Most of you will be familiar with this great racing game from Galaxy World or any other good arcade. Seeing as that I'm in the city quite a bit now, it only makes sense to spend some time at the arcade and thankfully, UTS has an underground arcade ! I usually play Daytona with my friend Adrian who I am yet to beat. We must have had 10 races by now. We've had many exciting races, particularly yesterday in which I almost had him until I fucked up the last drift and he won by 2 milliseconds.

Overall, this week of university has been very pleaseant. If you subtract the boring 5 hour gap I have on Mondays from the picture, university is great. Since there is so much more to blog about, I'll just list some highlights of the week at uni:

• train ride home with the boys and watching those two Japanese girls slap each other
• running in the rain countless times, especially on Wednesday.
  
• lecture for 'Introduction to Information Systems' - who the heck pronounces Google as 'GOOGOLL'?
• the many daytona races with Adrian and losing by a hair length
  
• getting owned by Nikki at almost everything, and getting owned by Ivan whenever I talk about 'Queer Space'
• meeting up with my old friend Jessica and catching up
• catching up with Shirley - here's to being unemployed !
• meeting randoms at the co-op bookstore
• freakishly running into Denise right after I txted her
• 30 minute crash course of Unix with my old mate Simon (thanks again man!)
• witnessing all the babes in my business subjects. DAMN !

I'll conclude it here folks !
Do keep reading in future !

...And (Perpetual.Torment.Commence)

Like most of my friends, today was my first day at university.

I actually had trouble sleeping lastnight. I don't know whether it was my nervousness towards a fresh start or my irritating illness driving me insane, but luckily enough I was able to wake up early today in time to meet up with Nikki and catch the 8am train. I started the day with a lecture at 10am for 'Communications for IT Professionals'. In this lecture we had to read an article about the dying music industry and then write a summary about what we read. Personally I wrote 120-150 words which was what we were asked to do, but some people weren't obviously content with such an amount. Instead they had to write a bloody essay *cough*. I saw this one Japanese girl who covered her entire page with writing - not a hint of white was to be seen on the paper. Was I intimidated? Heck no. I actually like to follow instructions.

After my first lecture, I had a whopping 5 hours to kill before my next class. I spent 2 or so hours with some friends at Market City eating lunch and checking out chick jeans (HAH!) and then I went off on my own for the next 3 hours. The amount of boredness I was experiencing drove me insane to a point where I started calling randoms on my phone. Particularly I talked to Shirley for a good 20 minutes which was a great catch up seeing as I hadn't talked to her in ages.

I still had a rough 2 hours to consume, so I made my way to Building 4 to check where my next class would be. For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to send a text message to my friend Denise to see if she was around (keep in mind that I had no idea whether she was at uni or not). Freakishly right after I txted her, she came walking out the lecture room that I was outside of. Major coincidence right there.

Finally at 6pm, my business lecture for accounting commenced. I met up with my friend John who fortunately has the same timetable as me. My lecturer left me the ultimate first impression. I think I can speak for all students who attended that lecture that he is one hilarious bloke. I'm glad to see lecturers with a great sense of humor.

Anyways, that's it for today. I'm feeling very ill at the moment; thankfully there's no uni tomorrow.

...And Acknowledgements Among Amigos

It's 4am and I am reluctant to hit the sack. This is probably the final chance I'll have to stay up all night/morning before the autumn semester commences. Uni starts tomorrow. YIKES.

In other news, lastnight was Donnie's 18th birthday celebration. Using this blog, I'd like to take the opportunity to wish Donnie a happy birthday. Despite the fact that the chances of you ever reading this blog are one in one trillion, I hope your birthday celebration was everything you dreamt it would be and I wish you all the best for the future.

Meanwhile I just got back from Brent's place with Kiye, Dazz and Ashwin. I've been seeing these boys a lot lately; hopefully there's more moments to come seeing as we all have Friday's off. It was good sitting in the middle of the road at like 2am talking about university/tafe and the future despite the sub-zero temperatures, however standing half an hour outside Ashwin's house waiting for him to sneak out is something the boys and myself could have done without. There must have been around 20 cars that drove past in which I thought bottles would be thrown.

It's almost 4:30 in the morning and I'm slowly falling asleep.

... logging off.

...And Aggravation Attacks Anatomy

Ladies and gentlemen, I don't catch the train very often ... but my train ride home this afternoon was the worst ride ever. My extensive position of awkwardness with my face against the train door and various strangers breathing closely behind my neck was an experience to forget. From Central to Parramatta station, I could feel myself sense of irritation proliferating; the urge to inflict grievous bodily harm on a random was skyrocketing. The only thing to keep my sane was listening to Minus the Bear songs on my PSP. You know what the problem is though? Crowded trains that replicate Japanese subway trains are a part of Sydney city life and there's nothing you can do about it.

Sooking aside, today was UTS O-Day or in my case, get-all-the-free-shit-that-you-can day. The freebies weren't 'all that', but I managed to snag some razors, a coin box, a 'Fantastic Furniture' voucher of $50 off when you spend more than $500 *eyes rolling*, cans of zu energy drink, bottle openers, bunch of bags that I'll never ever use, deck of cards and a packet of mi-goreng. There really was no point in me going though.

But hey, I have to back there tomorrow.

...And Assembly Awards Archived

Today was the academic assembly for St Marys Senior class of 2007. Just driving to school and parking my car in the school carpark returned so many memories. It was great seeing everyone and even better realizing how good our class went. I would like to congratulate all award recipients, especially Evan's achievements gaining a whopping UAI: 99.985. (I think that's right?) A massive pat on the back for him and a big thanks to his inspiring speech. I also got to talk to some of my old teachers including my business studies teacher Screech, and my mathematics teacher Chris. I would have liked to have seen my IPT teacher Simone, but it was not to me. No matter, congratulations on your newborn child.

After the assembly and pigging out on refreshments at the library, I kidnapped Det Det and went shopping at Officeworks. I spent over $100 on school related supplies, and all she bought was blue tack, not even. After that we went to Denise's place and just talked about university and ID cards for 30 minutes. If you are reading this Denise; the fact that you still do not have your drivers liscence is something I cannot fathom.

Since Det had work (I need a job ...), I went to Brent's place to hangout for a bit. We played poker with Dazz and Empz - blaardy crackup. Going all in on the first go without any cards being flipped is the way to play people.

...And Orientation Complete, Almost

With this week being the last before the autumn semester commences you'd think I'd be taking it easy this relaxing on the couch, but I have a lot of train catching to do this week. I'm sure most of you undergraduates do as well.

Today I had my orientation for uni - woke up at 6am but didn't start getting ready until 8am. I spent 2 hours on my bed half asleep listening to music on my PSP because I am that lazy. Anyhow, when I arrived at the uni for the welcoming message I was anticipating the usual boring 3-hour talk, but to my surprise these speakers have a genuine sense of humour. I really hope my lecturers and subject co-ordinators are as open-minded as these people. If you were there to witness the powerpoint presentations given, you would know what I mean.

On a more serious note, I really should start looking for work again. My friend Isabel suggested her place Dick Smith Powerhouse and that there were positions available in the computing department, but I'm more comfortable working in movies. Even so, I should follow it up. I need cash urgently. Here's an idea of how cheap I am these days. Today Nikki had to give me coins for a train ticket, and Christine had to shout me lunch at Market City. Unbelievable. It is kind of my fault though, since I decided to leave my wallet at home. But still, thanks guys.

Like I said previously, I really should be enjoying this week since it is the last before uni commences, but there's a lot of school related events happening this week. Let's see:

Tuesday - St Marys Academic Assembly
Wednesday - O'Day and my opportunity to sign up for any clubs + free BBQ !
Thursday - Session on Microsoft Excel (I do IT, I need this !) at 9am -11am, ELSSA workshop at 2pm
Friday - Library tour at 2pm-3pm
Saturday - Donnie's 18th - I still need a mask. :S
Sunday - Freak out because its the day before uni starts.

I should be complaining, but I need this. I need to get out. I need fresh air.

...And Alterations Are Apparent

As some of you folk may have realized, I have changed the layout of the blog a tad. I really wasn't happy with the idea of the navigation and links being restricted to one side of page, therefore I added a 3rd column with the regular posts being in between the two navigational columns. Do I make sense?

I also changed the top banner. Technical wankery in photoshop really wasn't doing much for me, and thus I've just uploaded a picture of me posing in Santa Monica.

Enough of the blog talk now. Let's discuss my weekend.
Fairly average if you ask me. Spent Saturday morning at Penrith and then Saturday night driving my mom and her friends to Bankstown. I happened to pass the Chinese New Year Festival (I think it was that ... ) I eventually dropped by Salih's place and watched Bourne Ultimatum for the 100th time; great movie on every watch. As usual Sunday was my day of rest and lazyness, though I'm about to leave for Kellyville.

Au revoir !

...And Back From The Mountains

I'm back home guys. For those who aren't aware, I stayed two nights in the Blue Mountains with other UTS IT students as part of our orientation. As much as I'm glad to be home, I'm also very glad to have been affiliated with one of the most enjoyable camps ever. Originally I was very doubtful as to whether this camp would have a purpose, but I praise the IT faculty of UTS for organising such a memorable experience.

On Wednesday, we all met up in the city to depart for the mountains. It was a good workout carrying both my luggage as well as Nikki's from Central Station to the meeting place. I met my first friend on the bus ride; a guy named John from East Hills. It turns out we'll be taking the same course and even better; our timetables are pretty much the same.

When we arrived at the camp, we jumped straight into the activities. To start things off, all 196 of us students were taken to a hall where we were distributed a questionairee containing questions such as "Name a person you've met who is wearing red underwear" or "Name someone you've met who has more RAM than you". So as you can imagine, all 196 of us were walking up to each other randomly trying to get answers to those stupid questions. I must have went up to 30 random kids asking what color their underwear was for the sake of completing the questionairre. Great way to meet people nevertheless. We were then taken to our cabins where I met my roomies Ivan and Adrian. (there was another guy but I can't remember your name. All I know is that you brought a hair straightener to camp ! )

Afterwards we started the team building activities which were very reminiscent of the activities you would do in kindergarten. Things like that tunnel-ball, over-and-under, basketall passing and the bean-bag game. The bean-bag game was bloody hilarious because of the lebos on my team who kept cheating. Afterwards, we were taken the hall where in our groups, where we had to wrap an egg using the supplied materials in such a manner that the materials would protect the egg from breaking from 2 metre drop. Our group broke the egg before we even finished wrapping it ...

To conclude Day 1, the camp held a trivia night where we were put into teams competing for camp cash and prizes. Camp cash is similar to monopoly money, which could be used at the end of the camp during the auction in which you could bid for iPods and other neat gadgets. The trivia had 7 rounds, each round based on a certain topic such as movie quotes, geography, history, etc. There were also bonus rounds such as nominating someone from your team to do a certain task such as whistling with wheat-bix shoved down their throat. In the end, my team came 3rd, though we were only 2 questions shy of 1st place.

The next day (Day 2) myself and the other students doing my course were provided an insight to the nature of our course and the specifics such as subjects, majors and industry work. A lot of useful information was obtained from that session, though everything else I already knew from prior research.

At around 2:30 we seperated into our respective camp activities that we had signed up for. If there was one disappointing aspect of the camp, it would be the limited choices of activities you could sign up for. In fact out of 6 or so activities, you were only allowed to sign-up for one. I decided to go with 'high ropes' since I've never done it before. Good workout, especially the donkey kong net. Thanks Adrian for your patience in spotting me. Sheesh !

Later in the day, we had a modelling contest where your group had to design a costume for two nominated members of the group. Since it was Valentines Day, that was also the theme. In the end, our group won. Go team !

Day 3 we had to wake up early to clean our cabins, thought I kind of missed the alarm. Eventually the camp auction was held where people could trade in their camp cash for prizes such as iPods, keyboards, clothes and other neat items. After that, it was time to go home ! Thankfully we weren't required to go back to the city; instead you had the option to be dropped off at Penrith or Parramatta if that was more convenient. It was good workout carrying luggage from Penrith Station to the Plaza foodcourt and then to the carpark. Justin, Nikki and myself looked like asian tourists waiting for a 2 o'clock flight to Japan because of all the luggage and sleeping bags we were carrying in the Plaza. Thanks again Salih for picking us up !

That's all I'm bothered to write about the camp. There's so much I didn't write about but perhaps I'll update this post later. Overall, I can honestly say the IT Orientation Camp of 2008 was superb. I'm more confident going into university now that I've met most of 'to-be' classmates and lecturers and tutors. I also obtained a great deal of information about the subjects and material I will be absorbing in the next 4 years.

EDIT: Pics of the camp: http://utsedu.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7853144573&ref=mf

...And Off To The Mountains

As part of my orientation for university, I'll be heading to the Blue Mountains with the rest of the first-year students for an IT camp organised by the faculty. I guess the purpose of this camp is to get an outline on university life and meet the people I'll be sharing classes with for the next couple of years.

I've seen photos of previous camps and it looks like a lot of fun. Regardless, I'll be bringing my PSP so I don't get bored on the long bus rides. I can't go without technology for 3 days, sorry.

Be back on Friday !

...And Something Different, Yet Legit, And For A Good Cause

Hey readers, been a while since I've posted something, so here goes...

A while ago I was browsing my MSN contact list and I was intrigued by one of the personal messages on one of my contacts (Ghelo). It mentioned of an upcoming event and how volunteers were needed ... so I asked about it.

The event is called "Spare Change" which is part of the Fred Hollow's Foundation. Basically the event aims to raise funds for the foundation which looks after the hearing impaired and disabled. The event will be held off Broadway Hotel on March 14th and will contain DJ lineups and musical and dance performances. It is an over 18's gig and is basically clubbing with performances. It runs every couple of months for different charities, so this is one of many events planned this year.

Volunteers will be needed on the night to assist with different parts of the event, such as giving free hugs, welcoming people, promotions (which is what I'm sort of doing now), etc. If you're interested in any of that, please send an e-mail to: delacruz_ghelo@hotmail.com

Since the event is more than a month away, not much info has been released, but I'll update this post as more information arrives. Check out the myspace for last year's event at: http://www.myspace.com/brokenwingsent

...And Then There Was No Light

At some stage lastnight, the people of ghetto St. Clair were struck down by a blackout. The residents of uptown St. Clair were fortunate enough to remain powered though. To kill time I just played minesweeper on the laptop. Eventually the laptop ran out of power, so I kept myself occupied with Ridge Racer on the PSP. And what would a blackout be without picture taking?

Other than that, I've officially enrolled in UTS ! Got my timetable and my Student ID yesterday. Not too happy about my ID though, especially my picture. If you look at it, I'm not even in the center of the picture; I'm way to the left. Timetable isn't that good either. Mostly afternoon classes, and on Mondays I have a 5 hour gap in between classes.

Not much happening today. I'm going to the orthodontist later to get my plate, and then I'll drive up to Castle Towers to get my jeans.