"O" Week

I want to apologize for not posting for a few days. It is surprisingly hard to keep up with this thing because I feel like when I am writing about what I am doing here, I am missing doing something else. Anyways, orientation week. Last Sunday was as cheesy as I was expecting it to be. Awkward ice-breakers and get-to-know-you games. All of the fossils (upperclassmen) are basically allowed to do anything they want to the freshers; hazing is not illegal here in Australia like it is in the States. It is tradition to make the freshers wear bibs throughout the entirety of the week and you are not allowed to take it off. So they made us stand up based on what animal we had on our bib (I was "H is for Hippo") and made all of those people do something. Some groups had to dance, some had to clean up the dining hall, the hippos had to sing the Australian National Anthem...which by the way I don't know the words. All of the RA's and fossils I knew had a pretty good laugh about this because I was sort of just standing up laughing while everyone else was singing.
My first days of working in the kitchen were on Monday and Tuesday. Being honest, I am not a fan. Monday was rather excruciating; the "chef" I was working under did not tell me how to do anything and it was just an overall stressful and angering experience. Tuesday was mildly better because the guy actually showed me what I was supposed to do and was patient and understood it was my second day on the job. There was a toga party on Tuesday night that I skipped out on. Not that I planned on getting shwasty-face or anything, but I wanted to get some rest before skyping home Wednesday morning for the ASG Presidential Debate.
Technology amazes me. I was able to skype myself into Allegheny's Campus Center from over 9000 miles away (15 hours) and take part in a debate. We had decided not to set up a video screen or anything, we just used audio. All-in-all the debate was a complete success and a lot of fun. Jamie and I ended up winning the election and I could not be happier.
Wednesday evening was the slab party. The slab is the grassy area in between the two St. Paul buildings. Basically, the event is created to be a mess-fest of alcohol. It was fun. Boyd and Maddie told me not to go bed because the fossils wake all of the freshers up at 4:00am and make them push the Bongo. The Bongo is a minibus and is our mascot; the freshers have to push it to all of the sporting events. So, at 4am, I put on my running shoes and helped push this bus (mind you, all of the fossils sit on and in the bus) around JCU. It was rather tiring, partly because I push myself and partly because most of the other fresher were to drunk to walk let alone push a bus and run.
I slept in until noon on Thursday and then just watched movies most of the day with friends. Both Wednesday and Thursday were rainy days so it was pretty easy to be lazy. Thursday evening was the first Uni Club Night, which is the night club on campus. I went with a group of people from college. I am not a huge fan of dancing/night clubs but it ended up being a really fun night; the music sucked but the company was good.
There was supposed to be a freshers vs. fossils touch football (rugby) game on Friday that I was looking forward to so much. But, the fields were to muddy and wet to play. They still made us push the Bongo around but when we got back, I ended up just catching and throwing the footy (the ball in rugby) with Sean. Good times, and I am not half bad. I can catch but the throwing is going to take some work. Friday night was "fresher keg." In a nutshell they bus everyone from the college to a place called Alligator Creek. This place ended up being a farm, the seat were made out of straw bales, and there was a mechanical bull...I felt very close to home. Without going into details, there were about 150 people there and as a college, 8 kegs and 60 bags of boxed wine were consumed. Both disgusting and impressive. Before you ask me how I was that evening, I am going to end this post, and pick up with a new one dedicated to Saturday.