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.