The One Abusive, Yet Funny Customer.

Location: 8pm on a busy Saturday night at work at the cafe, and we are dangerously low on inventory.

Customer: Could I please have a classic burger?
Me: Sorry mate, we're all out of burger patties. No burgers tonight.
Customer: Ahh serious ... how about a chicken schnitzel dog?
Me: Oh we ran out of those lastnight. Perhaps a sandwhich? Keep in mind we're out of lettuce.
Customer: *bemused* Okay, I'll have a Ham, Cheese and Tomato Toastie.
Me: I'd do that, but we're out out of tomatoes. How about a ham and cheese sandwhich?
Customer: What the!? Okay fine I'll have that !
Customer: Wait wait wait .. don't tell me, you're also out of bread! Am I right!?

One of the more funnier moments of customer abuse I've experienced at work. I make him sound like a dickhead, but it was actually pretty hilarious. All smiles at the end.

The One Long Day.

I'm currently at uni sitting in the computer labs of Building 1 Level 5 trying to recharge my legs after a long day of orientation which consisted of more mingling with students and ushering for assemblies and walking all over the campus helping lost students find their destinations and bla bla bla ... but really you meet a shitload of people fulfilling these duties of a UTS peer networker and its really satisfying knowing you're making life easier for these new students.

Anyways it's now almost 8pm and I've been here since 8am. Now I know the life of Engineering students. I don't think I'll be leaving to go home anytime soon because I really can't be bothered walking to Central Station. There's gotta be some couches nearby that I can sleep on...

The One Single British Unusuality.

British Boy Alfie Patten, 13, becomes a father. Mum is 15.

News header explains it all. Here's a picture of the lovely couple. Is it me, or does the father look eight years old and the mother look 20 years old? God damn. Whatever. The kid's shown that he's taken his child's birth very seriously so that's a thumbs up from me.

Going bowling tonight. Woo.

The One With The Little Silver Sticker.

Today was the actual orientation for new students of Kuring-Gai, and I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed it more than the orientation at the City Campus; probably because this time round us newies (term for new peer networkers) had a more involved and independant role that required more leadership.

I woke up at 5 today, but then I said to myself "just 5 more minutes". Sure enough I wake up an hour later. Don't you just hate that. Anyways a last minute errand forced me to delay my travels, and thus I missed the bus to Kuring-gai, therefore I had to wait for the 9:30 shuttle bus. Now I have no experience in catching shuttle buses in the city. In fact I didn't even know if they were free or not. I made my way to the security office in Building 1 to grab a timetable for the shuttle buses and I must say, these UTS timetables could go for a major revamp. Seriously the timetables don't even have maps, nor are the locations for the passenger pickups even slightly detailed.

For example, it says "Bus stop for Markets : outside coffee shop". Outside coffee shop? WTF? I mean come on ! Seriously? Could the location be anymore vague? There could be 100 coffee shops in the markets for all I know. Anyways, I must have been standing in the wrong location because the shuttle bus drove right past me, despite the fact that I was signalling for it to stop, and thus I had to wait another hour and a half for the next one.

To kill time I went to Ultimo TAFE and picked up HCT bagel, which I must say was too damn delicious. Afterwards I went to Building 10 and picked up concession sticker which is a nice silver sticker that they stick on for you. I was hoping for a new photo altogether but oh well. Kind of funny how students have to travel all the way (depending on where you live) to uni just for a little silver sticker.

I then met up with Toby who happened to be passing by and I showed him around Building 10. I took him to the IT lounge and we had a cuppa noodles which I had been archiving in my locker since last year. Don't worry, they're still good to eat !

After that I went outside Building 10 and waited for the 10:40 shuttle bus to Kuring-gai. I tried standing in a different bus stop hoping to be spotted and picked up. Indeed my plans proved to be a success, however the bus driver told me I was standing in the wrong spot. *sigh*. Even he admitted however that the bus stop locations were all dodgy and aren't made clear on the timetable sheet. It was a good 25 minute ride with me talking to the driver the whole time about rugby league and scabbing chewing gum.

Once I arrived at the Kuring-gai campus (2 hours late) I kicked straight into gear. A BIG THANKS TO ANGELA FOR FILLING IN FOR ME DURING MY ABSENCE!. One of the things I enjoyed doing was the campus tour for the Nursing Students, despite the fact that the campus was still very much foreign to me. Luckily I had remembered all the campus information from training day ! I met people from pretty much all over Sydney again, including this couple who I regularly see bowling at work.

After the campus tour, we took the students to a class room and made them do a scavenger hunt activity. Once they had finished, we talked to them about student life and the important rules and breaches of conduct that they should be aware about. It was like teaching a class ! I'm just thankful we were allocated to a great bunch of kids instead of a bunch of dickheads who couldn't care less. =)

The One At Kuring-Gai.

In preparation for Thursday's orientation, I got the chance to visit our other UTS campus, the Kuring-Gai campus ! For those who don't know, UTS is comprised of two campuses. There's one in Broadway (tall building that can be seen from Central), and there's Kuring-gai. My thoughts on the campus? While it may be in the middle of no where, it is in fact a lovely, serene campus. I love the green carpet they have throughout the main buildings; it's like a golf course ! The atmosphere there kind of reminds you of a retreat since it's surrounded by a lot of flora, but that just means the campus looks fantastic during the summer weather.

Such a shame that there will be major changes done to the campus. For those who are incognizant to the situation, the Federal Government states that a university must operate sustainably or implement strategies that ensure sustainability in the long-term. Unfortunately for the Kuring-gai campus, it is no longer recognized as sustainable and thus changes will be made. What changes do I speak of? From what I know, there are plans to rezone the land to other businesses.

Enrollments in the Kuring-gai campus have in fact been declicing due to students preferring a more centralized location pertaining to the CBD. Don't fret though if you're going to be studying at Kuring-gai. (Pfft .. yeah like any Kuring-gai students would be reading this). If you start your course at Kuring-gai, you WILL finish your course at Kuring-gai.

Moreso there are major differences that separate Kuring-gai from the City campus, and these differences are why I think the rezoning application was sent to the Federal Government in the first place. A major difference is the services provided to students. Kuring-gai offers less services; it has no doctor, no IT support center, no wireless internet, and other stuff which I have since forgotten.

On the same token, Kuring-gai has stuff that the city campus does not carry. It has an actual soccer field, indoor basketball court, tennis court and large training facility. Now that I think about it, Kuring-gai has a lot more sporting facilities than the city campus. They should just keep Kuring-gai the way it is, and turn it into the UTS sport campus !

If I had one complaint about the Kuring-gai campus, it would be the lack of escalators. Correct me if I'm wrong people, but in my time there I didn't see one escalator. We all got tired easily by the amount of stairs we had to walk. Then again we did do a lot of touring and hunting throughout the campus.

The One With The Mingling.

First day of orientation at UTS commenced today. As a peer networker, it was my duty to provide guidance to the new students, both local and international, around the grounds and ensure they attended all the necessary meetings and sessions pertaining to their programme. The first part of the orientation was to mingle with the new students; meaning to start up random conversations with total strangers. What? Ok stop there.

Those who know me would be aware that I have a thing for distancing myself from the crowd. I'm a lone-wolf! Well for that moment I had to throw my lonesomeness out the window and replace it with a totally artificial attitude of excitement and exuberance. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to be at orientation, but for me to make an impression on these new students, I had to turn it up a notch.

So you could imagine there were many "HEY GUYS HOWZ IT GOIN!?!?!" from me. In fact my routine for talking to the new students was:

1. Overexaggerated smile.
2. "HEY CHAMP, HOWS IT GOING? DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT ORIENTATION?"
3. Answer questions to best of ability.
   
4. Maintain overexaggerated smile.
5. "WHAT COURSE YOU DOING?" ... "OH YEAH THAT'S AN INTERESTING COURSE".
6. "ARE YOU A LOCAL STUDENT? WHAT SCHOOL DID YOU GO TO? OH YEAHHH I KNOW THAT SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!"
7. "ARE YOU AN INTERNATIONAL STUDENT? WHAT COUNTRY HAVE YOU FLOWN IN FROM? DO YOU HAVE ACCOMODATION? SICK!!!!!!!!".
8. Talk about random stuff and then stop talking if conversation is dieing.
   
9. "NICE MEETING YOU MATE. I'LL SEE YOU ROUND. IF YOU HAVE ANYMORE QUESTIONS, DON'T HESITATE TO ASK !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
10. Stop smiling and scout next unfortunate student. :)

After all the mingling, I got the opportunity to take some international students to lunch at Marigold Yum cha. I got to try cows lung for the first time which was surprisingly tasty ! Unfortunately, the names of the people I met were much too foreign for me to retain in my head, therefore I'd just like to say it was nice meeting you Chinese, Austrian and Bangladesh students !

On the subject of mingling, more of that was done at the gym today, which is unusual considering I don't talk to anyone while working out. This guy who I regularly see at the gym decided to come up to me out of no where and break the ice. What I learnt? He's a bodybuilder of 9 years. Born in Holland to a Scottish father and Malaysian mother and raised in Australia. What a mix.

Then there were these two bodybuilders who got my attention by saying "hey don't you work at AMF in Castle Hill?". Apparantly I served them on Saturday night. Isn't it nice when strangers recognize you or recall past events associated with you that only lasted for briefs amount of time? Anyways, it turned out that they were also students in the grade above me at my old school Emmaus.

Well I have to wake up at 6 tomorrow and head to the Kuring-gai campus for training ! Blog you later! In the mean time, I'm going to enjoy a nice glass of milk.

Cheers.

The One Hottest Day.

The scorching temperatures lately have been bloody ridiculous. Crickey ! This afternoon after work I decided to take a nap, but that was made impossible thanks to my room which resembled a furnace. Even with the electric fan turned up to maximum, I just kept turning over and over, and don't even get me started with the sweat. Definitely time to change my pillow cases.

Unfortunately these temperatures are just something we'll all have to adapt too, with the bureau predicting much warmer temperatures soon. That's there is the scary thing. I mean already, there's been so many victims of heat stroke and other heat-related incidents, not to mention all the trees that have collapsed on our roads and houses, and damn ... can't forget about the 100+ fires. If temperatures really do rise, I guess the worst is yet to come.

If only we could all be as cool as the great Thich Quang Duc.

I'll end this post with something random. On the way home from work, I encountered an intersection where the traffic lights on all 4 sides had been blinking yellow. As we all know, a blinking yellow lights means you have to proceed through with caution. Kind of hard to do so when there's cars coming from all 4 sides.

The One With Self-Promotion.

To evade the scorching temperatures in Western Sydney, I went to the Royal Botanic Gardens to lie in the cool breeze. Other than that, we celebrated the return of Jasmine (Cairns) and the departure of Adrian (Hawaii). The day also involved climbing trees and getting told off by park rangers.

I could just sleep there for hours.

Today I had to go to uni for Training Day 2 of Peer Support. Thankfully I didn't have to mingle too much as I recognized some of the people I met from Training Day 1, but at the same time met some great people. Anyways we signed up for the orientation tasks we would participate in, therefore for those of you who are attending the UTS orientation, look out for me ! I'll be providing you a tour of our city and Kuring-gai campuses plus other stuff !

Other than that, I ran into Rheanne today in the Tower Building. It's always funny when people you haven't seen in a long time just pop in your face out of no where. Thanks for telling me you got into UTS woman. Sheesh.