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.