Sydney Life

AS we dance our merry way into that delightfully disturbing period described as the ‘End of Semester Examinations’, I’d like to devote this delicious diatribe to something, anything that doesn’t involved diastereomerism.

Try as I might, however, the method for turning ethanoic acids into acetic anhydride, the formation of polysaccharides, not to mention the redox reactions of some strangely obscure functional group, all seem to keep coming back to haunt me as I try to sleep at night. ‘OoOoOoO JOHN. We’re the friendly yet somehow threatening nylon (pentamethylene diamine and sebacic acid derivative) Sheep of the Great Chemistry Apocalypse…

Which leads me, as you undoubtedly expected, to the experience of studying Science at Sydney Uni.

You may hear a term being thrown around during the first few weeks of uni... and it’s actually WebCT.

Not too sure what the CT stands for, but here’s the lowdown nonetheless.

So. I checked my timetable.

All my starts were at the same time, quite early. Poo.

But then I looked closer...

Everyone’s disliked a teacher at one stage or another, but in high school there’s usually not much you can do about it. At uni, however...

There are many reasons I love uni. In fact, the number is infinite. And regularly, as I walk past the quad, or into one of my aging yet glorious classrooms, I sigh contentedly, and ponder just how lucky I am to be here. But, in the past week, I had one of those light-goes-on moments, when I really thought “I’m so glad I’m here”. Here’s how it happened.

First year is over!

I know, I know, Keren, Lauren and Cath have dibs on “aaaaahgrhagrhagrhg/%^&@($* uni is over!” but I am still quite shocked at how quickly that went by. So I’m making a little comparison of what I’m doing now, and what I was doing this time last year...

Despite the fact that I’m a serial procrastinator, I always get excited about preparing before each academic year by buying and covering books, getting my pencil case ready and organising my pens, notes, textbooks. In fact all this may be a cleverly disguised form of procrastination in itself.

The only problem this year was that I didn’t know what to bring to uni! So here’s what I’ve found to be the best options for the newbies.

Getting ethics approval for your Honours thesis is serious business. So is finding a solution to procrastinating...

Phew, I survived my first week! Here is my newbie’s run down of the differences between Uni and High School life, though I’m sure there is still PLENTY more to discover.