Sydney Life

Yes, O week is a lot of fun, but a lot of effort goes into those 3 days.

So you’ve stumbled across my humble blogging site. There are so many different blogging sites to choose from, and I feel honoured that you have chosen mine. Welcome and thank you. But this means I have to stand out from the crowd. I have to be funny, entertaining and dazzle you with my dazzling smile (oh if only you could see me grinning away!)

Ok, so it's not exactly the most glamourous of subjects, but let's face it, actually getting to uni - safely, cheaply and quickly - is important. 3 years on campus has taught me...

No, I’m not referring to anything indecent involving a higher than PG rating, but rather the unnerving thought that I have to pack my bags tonight and head off to live on Campus in the Women’s College tomorrow morning for the next 5 years of my life…

Every year in high school my friends and I would moan about how old we were getting, and how close we were to having the whole safety bubble of secondary education popping from around us, forcing us to stumble blindly towards the mysterious world of “real” life.

Welcome, welcome, welcome to our new bloggers! You all sound so cute and fresh-faced! I hope this feeling lasts at least for a few weeks....

It's the question on everybody's lips...no, no, not 'Are men necessary?'

What we really want to know is, what happened to good old-fashioned manners? You know, like saying 'excuse me' when you're in somebody's way. Or thanking someone for a job well done. Or smiling when somebody is talking to you.

Is chivalry dead?

That’s right girls and boys, it’s less than 24 hours until I become a genuine, bona fide, legitimate UNI STUDENT! It all begins on Monday. First of all, we have to enjoy (or endure, depending on your perspective) the incredible and amazing experience that is “Arty Starty”.

The last few weeks of these holidays I’ve been enjoying my last vestiges of freedom; seeing crappy and overpriced movies (why oh why didn’t I read Cath’s post on Just Friends?), making money any way I can, having staring competitions with my bedroom wall… the usual.

If you're like me and you:

- are about to move to Sydney for Uni
- don't know anyone in Sydney
- don't know Coogee from Cronulla, and can't even find your way around the CBD...

then first things first, DON'T PANIC! Although it might seem a little redundant having a newbie write a guide for other newbies, let’s establish one thing: we interstate first years are of one breed and, at least during O-week, we’ve got to stick together...

Usually my gut instincts are right.

I had a feeling Tom Cruise and Penelope Cruz were having an affair while filming Vanilla Sky, I really did.

I have picked the last 7 Melbourne Cup winners, despite knowing nothing about horseracing.

Call it sixth sense, call it luck...generally if I go with my gut reaction, I'll fare pretty well.

And so it is with mixed feelings of satisfaction and desperation that I've discovered yet another of my instincts has been right on the money.

Thursday 2 March, the second day of O-week. If you're a nostalgia crazed freak like me you'll be putting this date in your brand new Union-sponsored O-Week diaries because this is when the 90s DANCE PARTY IS ON AT MANNING!

Fat-filled aortas, blackened lungs and rotten yellow teeth - it seems they’re back in vogue with the National Tobacco Campaign’s latest advertising onslaught.

I don't mean to alarm anyone, but there i sless than three weeks until the start of semester. The good news? It's less than two weeks to O-week!

Workin' nine to five, what a way to make a livin', barely gettin' by, it's all takin' and no givin'....want to move ahead but the boss won't seem to let you?

It's probably because you didn't do any work experience at uni, silly!

Mmmm...for all those who were sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting for me to write something of note (or even something merely helpful), I'm sorry. After a long summer, I'm exhausted. I need a holiday to recover from my holiday.

Which is why I've become something of a Bree Van De Kamp (for all you people who have lives, this is a character from Desperate Housewives) and taken to cooking like Michelle Leslie took to wearing the burquah.

So here is my recipe for Brilliant Blueberry Bran Muffins. They are healthy and yummy, but most importantly, they will fit inside your Humphrey B. Bear lunchbox and you can take them to uni!!!

This movie isn't in the top ten films for this week. It's not very good. I wrote some more things about it.

I must be the only person in Sydney who hates James Blunt.

Everywhere I go, I can't escape him! I hear his moaning songs, I see his face on billboards, I occasionally catch grabs of converstion that invariably begin with, "Oh my God, it's like he's singing about my life."

I am taking a stand.

What could be hotter than studying at Sydney Uni?

Studying in the summertime, that's what...

Yep, it's that time of year again for many people. Time to do the Share-House Shuffle...

Remember that feeling of exclusion and rejection you felt when you weren't picked immediately for the netball team at school? (For those vertically-blessed and athletically capable people reading, spare a thought for the rest of the world.) Remember the sinking feeling you experienced when you knew that everyone else had been invited to a birthday party, and it seemed like you were the only one who hadn't been?

That's just how I felt when I sat down for my first Media lecture at uni, and began chatting to a girl named Claire...

As you stand under the Clocktower at Sydney Uni, you are privy to a wonderful view. Ahead of you is the city of Sydney - you can even see Centrepoint. Behind you is the magnificent Quadrangle. And to your right is one of the ugliest, but most useful, buildings on campus.

Welcome to Fisher Library.

All good things must come to an end, and well, this is it for me!

Dear Brendon,

Hey Charger! What’s the 4-1-1? What the blazes are you doing leaving us bloggers here alone in the interwebs to fend for ourselves? I’m a bit worried about how things are going to pan out on Sydney Life when we no longer have your good self to churn out page after page of useful uni info. I’m expecting some guest posts from you now and again to let everyone know how you’re going in The Real World (gasp! The Horror!)

Not content with harassing eager first years, the sandstone block five from the bottom says goodbye to one of Sydney University’s newest graduands…

Stay tops forever
We’ll catch you on the flip side
Ford Mustang C Code

Ahh, never before have song lyrics so accurately described two people.

And thus, in the tradition of Laverne and Shirley, Butch and Sundance, and Will and Grace (he's going to shoot me for that one), our friendship was formed.

So you have just left school, complete with Careers Advisor and Counsellor, so who can you go to at Uni? We also offer these services, and a whole heap more. Part 1 or 1