FRESHERS WEEK - SEPT 21, 2009

So today was the very first/official day of Freshers Week at the university. I was super nervous about this day as I didn't know anyone and thought it would be super awkward just wandering around. Gotta say today was probably the most hectic day EVER. So my schedule was kinda like this:

9:30 am - Welcome to the University (Induction talk)
1:00 - 2:00 pm - University Registration (online)
1:15 - 2:15 pm - University Health Services Registration
2:00 pm - Medicine Welcome Talk

Now obviously I had a lot of time between the induction talk and registration. Well as you can see Uni registration and health are at the same time....and then there's a welcome talk from the Medical Department right after. The medical school is about 10-15 walk from the registration place...so that means I should be done registering by 1:45ish. Well when I got to the registration place (Sports Hall) the line up was freaking MASSIVE. I knew right then and there that I was not going to make it to the welcome talk on time...or even be able to make it at all. I got to the line at 12:45pm and didn't get registered til 1:40pm. Then I had to go to health registration and their line was SUPER long as well. No joke I was stressed because I really didn't want to miss the intro talk for Med. The coordinator of health registration said that they will be open til 5pm so I literally just jetted to the med school (and got lost on the way). I was about 10 mins late for the lecture and thank god the lecturer didn't mind.

After the lecture, which was 45 mins long, I decided to go back to health registration (and got lost AGAIN). The line was much shorter now and I had to fill out some forms. Nothing too hard. After health registration I met someone who was in my course. Right after that I seemed to have found a bunch of other medics from my year which was really neat. I've met some of them on facebook already so it was neat to see them in real life. They all seemed so different from their fb pictures so I was a bit surprised. So once I met a few people we all decided to go to the library to register for our email accounts. That was really fast so we decided to take a tour of the library. Every floor pretty much looked the same - no wonder the library is known for an excellent place to play hide and seek.

Once all the registration stuff were done it was about 5pm so I decided to head back home to rest/organize my stuff. I managed to pick up loads of flyers and booklets/welcome packs and my bag weighed a ton. So far it was a pretty exciting day and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Overwhelming but fun. Finally feels like I am at university!

Gotta say I've never lined up for so long to do something...and walked so much. Got home and my legs were aching. I decided to skip out on partying today as I was wayyy too tired and I feel a bit overwhelmed by everything. So far I'm only planning to go to the Medics Fresher Fever party on Thursday.

Oh and some good tips about freshers: MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT LINE! I saw a few people lining up for an hour plus and didn't realize they were in the wrong line. They were so pissed to have found out that they wasted an hour + of just waiting for nothing. Make sure you follow your schedules and bring a map along if you aren't in a campus university. Also don't be afraid to ask people where things are. People generally are pretty nice and will help you out. I think the best way to get to know a place is to get lost and figure out your way back. You learn the roads better. Also try and meet some people. Say hi to everyone and you'll surely meet someone from your course! It is a lot easier to get around when you know someone.