Day 4

12:45 am - Fire alarm goes off in building, forced to wake up and spend 30 minutes outside waiting for the fire truck to come find out that there is nothing wrong.

*Good thing happens, meet Alex who encouraged me to try arguing my way out of SUV. Lent me his fan because my stupid fan was damaged and there were a lot of bugs in my room.

12:45 am to who knows when > Toss and turned thinking of a way to argue my way out of SUV

7:45 am - Wake up tired, had a simple breakfast, went to econs class early so I could make a phone call to Ron de Hann director of stupid university village. Argued with him for a good 20 minutes and managed to put myself at top of waiting list to get the hell out of SUV.

Trudge through classes...

3:15 - Find out that Beverley my saviour to be from International House had to give up my place for someone else.

Must now find alternative accommodations.

Have yet to do FA tutorials for week 2, 3 and 4.

Have FA lecture in noisy class with disgruntled lecturer at 4 pm.

For some reason am surprisingly not angry and frustrated as I have slowly come to expect this sort of problems in Australia. Yet again adding more 'cons' to migrating to this country.

But have given me ideas.

I am starting to become comfortable in the depths of hell.

21

It is going to be a sad day on my birthday.

Day 3

12:33pm - Part 1 of teeth repair completed. Don't really want to talk about it coz it just hurt. Talked to Sally Ward about termination, 3 more rooms before my room, pretty sure I won't be able to leave in 2 weeks.

Going to the gym to get rid of some stress, then try and complete the readings for FA this week.

9:15 pm Day 2

Finished microeconomics readings, finished INFS readings and contacted Lily. Tomorrow will start on FA readings from latest to oldest. Must finish at least the readings for this coming tuesday.

Pros and cons

1. SUV
Pros
1. New Room is relatively quiet
2. Good spot, right at corner, no noisy neighbours
3. Nice view

Cons
1. Still must self clean room
2. No catered food
3. No friends around
4. SUV is far from faculty
5. SUV is far from Broadway

2. International House
Cons
1. Room is might be significantly smaller
2. Room is uglier
3. Chance of noisy neighbours
Pros
1. IH has more asians
2. More chance to meet people
3. Games room for entertainment
4. Closer to classes
5. Closer to Broadway
6. Catered food
7. Cleaning
8. Cheaper laundry


I think International House wins hands down.

Commerce/ arts vs Commerce vs Commerce/law vs Comerce/Science

1. Commerce/ arts
Pros
1. Get to complete psychology
2. Get to do one easy and interesting major and a bunch of fun units
3. Still can get my CPA
Cons
1. 4 years left
2. Cannot finish finance or econometrics

2. Commerce
Pros
1. Get to do CPA, finance and econometrics
2. Finish in 2 more years
Cons
1. Very dull and boring course

3. Commerce/Law
1. Get to do CPA, Finance, Econometrics and Law
Cons
1. 4years? who knows 4 and a half?

4. Commerce/Science
Pros
1. Get to do CPA, Probably Finance, and Psychology
Cons
1. Longer
2. Have to do some extra math units probably

Figure it out some other day...

Sun goes down on day 2 of crisis recovery

Dear Blog,

Second day of solitude is nearly at it's end. Finished CLAW Tut. It's down to finish reading the prep stuff for INFS work, making sure Lily is on the same track, reading chapter 6 of micro economics, then I can start on the dreadful part of studying 2 odd weeks of accounting.

I had an awful dinner of a 5 dollar kebab, stood on the nice balcony of the fifth floor and just silently mulled over my week.

I always believe that what does not kill you can only serve to make you stronger. After surviving a month worth of living above a noisy pub and a techno playing neighbour who has a really strong subwoofer, having to move out of that room with my amount of stuff into another room which has a broken fan/ lots of mosquitos and is directly above the intersection of SUV where people like to meet at 2 am and chat, changing course and units 3 times in 3 weeks, having to catch up with 3 weeks of accounting homework, while trying to keep up with my other units, living alone in a new place and still having to search for new accomodations is really pushing the limits of my tolerance.

Only I can pat myself on my own back and say you've done a good job solving your own problems and encourage myself by saying that from here on out, life can only get better.

Regards,

Ben

How nice it would be to go out and enjoy this warm bright sunny day.

Day 2 of Hell

2:15 pm - Finished CLAW readings for next week. Finished prep for INFS as well as readings.

Need to finish Econs chapter 6, CLAW supplement readings, CLAW tutorial, Accounting tutorial 1,2,3,4 and readings for those.

Need to think about how to memorise accounting material.

Captain's log: Hell on studyiing

Saturday 2am, party goers come home and gather below my window chatting and shouting.

Saturday 9am, wake up and begin studying chapter 2 of 5 units of Accounting 2201, the unit which was the result of a credit error.

Saturday 12 noon, run out of energy and slept till 2:30 when woken up to phone call from mum calling to say that dad and grandma's operations had gone well and no problems.

2:30 pm. Finished lecture 2 of Accounting 2201, thought of starting on exercises but brain screamed cruel and unusual punishment so moved on to microeconomics readings.

6:00 pm. Finished 1 and a half chapters of reading as a result of accidently doing too much of chapter 5. Now attempting to finish chapter 6.

Sustained on microwavable meals, supplement pills and fruit juice. Hope to complete chapter 6 of econs book, move on to law supplement readings 1 and 2 and finish off with next week's INFS readings and ACCT readings for lecture.

Tomorrow, 9:30 am meeting Michael to go to church. Allocated time till 1pm. Start studying again by 2pm. Run through INFS study material for first 3 weeks, read and understand all INFS projects, ACCT tutorials 1 2 and 3 to be tried.

21 Years Old Baby!

It's my 21st year on this little planet orbited by a tinier moon part of a universe made by a creator who has a very high probability of existing.

At age 16 wanting to have a simpler existence in a far (well 5 hours by plane anyway) away island of Australia, I descended into Perth. Spent a fun year of non-study and enjoying a relatively good pair of legs. Did relatively well (totally ignorant of the fact that it would dictate the rest of my tertiary career) and flew back to Singapore to serve in our glorious conscription army (Think Russia).

What do I think of that year? It was fun and stupid and enjoyable all at the same time, if I could say which year in my 21 years on earth was the most enjoyable, it would be that single year when I was almost completely cured of my multiple exostosis (Bone problem which makes walking hurt).

At age 16 1/2 in December of 2002 I joined the wonderful Armed Forces of Singapore. For the time of basic training, my closest friends were still in JC worrying about the 'A' Levels, having no one to bitch with made the first few months of transition difficult, not to mention being the youngest person in my company.

In retrospect I think the reason it was difficult for me to adapt in BMT because I have a problem with authority and respecting older people unless I believe they deserve it. Bad idea when in the army.

For the next year I was sent to certain units which I am not supposed to talk about. I'd talk about them but our army has a habit of finding things out. (If our intelligence branch finds my website *again please don't send me any more messages I am overseas)

After a few operations in hopes of curing my bone problems, I lost the nerves on the top of my right shin and weakened my legs considerably. A large mistake on my part.

The rest of my army life will remain a mystery to everyone but myself.

Till now I have not fully recovered from my operations and in pushing too hard have torn a mensicus in my left knee. This year I hope to slowly achieve a certain amount of strength.

I returned to Perth with the intention of leaving after my service in the army. It had been a tough 2 years (I owed them another 4 months) and I had actually hoped for some relief but after 7 days of leave, school started.

From day one I knew I had made mistakes in allowing IDP Singapore to handle my accomodations. Arriving at my lodgings, I was met (not greeted) by a curly haired Korean girl by the name of Joo who obviously did not appreciate being taken out of bed at 12 noon on a weekend to open the main door for a freshie to UWA, she had dyed her hair bright red in that typical way that us asians enjoy and had the posture of a rebellious teenager who thought that the world revolved in a slow orbit around her skinny frame. Upon reaching my new room, being the spoilt rich kid who had a huge room, a huge balcony, huge windows and a huge attic (All of which I have never appreciated till that very moment and in fact I had never used the attic or the balcony in my entire life), was shocked by how tiny it was, the horrendous pale vomit coloured walls and the walking space the width of which was about the size of my frame and the length of which was about 10 paces. Note here that my parents and I were not used to living "small", the room was soon filled to the brim with things which I now know I do not need and have brought them all to Sydney only to pack them up into boxes so that they won't get in my way, but that is a story for a later time. I remember my words exactly the moment Joo opened the door to my new wonderful room:

"Wow it's damn small!"


She gave a blank look, passed me my keys and wandered off to her room, probably to get more sleep from whatever hang over she was recovering from.

And as it goes I met more people from the floor and the good part of living in a new country flowed in it's typical fashion.

Then administrative hell occurred.

I always seem to set myself up for hell on earth as I very much wanted to persue psychology as my career but having parents who stated very clearly that I will live with small amounts of money as a psychologist. I should follow my heart but I should also know that I should do business so I can make money.

Trust me just thinking of my future career and my decisions to study things in uni makes my chest hurt and fills me with frustrative anxiety.

University in first semester was hell for me, I was not ready to have to sleep in a noisy environment. Student admin was a horrible place to be.

Then school went on and first semester finished. Second semester came along and was much better in my new room and there was peace. It was a relatively good semester.

Then I figured, 4 and a half years in Perth, no...way...

In short, after researching the other universities, I ended up in Sydney.

As of today, the trial of adapting and solving to the life in Sydney has slowed down and reached a pace which I can work with.

1. The wonderful decision of what degree and majors to persue
2. Accomodation hell thy name is SUV administration.
3. The great credit error of Usyd's International Office

To make a long story short, most problems have been solved and now it is a matter of follow up.

The uni will pay for my new textbooks.

I have to catch up 3 weeks worth of second year accounting

I have to set up an appointment with careers centre

I have to wait for SUV to terminate my contract so I can move out to International House and if they do not terminate in 2 weeks I have to take the matter up with both accomodations

I still have to study the 3 other units which is starting to pile up

Here's to a great 21st year on this glorious planet.