O Week

It has occurred to me that I have been here for over a week now and the only post I have put up was the one about my journey. Well, now O week (orientation week) is over and it is time for another post.

If I had to pick one thing to tell you about Australians after being here for a week and a half, it would be something to the extent of "wow, can they ever drink." I mean, I heard that they could handle their alcohol, but I feel like most people would be dead of alcohol poisoning by now. Perhaps it isn't even the amount they drink in each sitting, as it is the amount of sittings they have, that amazes me. Every night I have been here so far, there has been a party. A very, very drunken party. I went out twice before deciding that I was done for the week; and I didn't even get smashed! I don't know how they do it. Maybe I'm just a lightweight.

Despite my culture shocked ramblings, the past week and a half have been, for the most part, good. Last Sunday marked the beginning of O Week; a time when all "freshers," as they are called here, must wear clothing to show their college pride every day, as well as a "name tag" of some sort everywhere they go (unfortunately, international students are considered freshers as well, even though most of us are in out third year!) A college here is not the same as a college at home. Rather, here there is a University, and within a university there are several colleges, which are the buildings in which people live. So essentially, a college is a dorm. The biggest difference between a U.S. dorm and an Australian college? The competition between the colleges. Certainly people in the U.S. have loyalties to their places of residence, but that is nothing to the college spirit here. I believe, however, that a large part of that difference is due to how the sporting events work. In the U.S. university teams play against other university teams; there are extreme rivalries between certain universities for that reason. Here, however, there is no competition between universities; instead, the competition is between the colleges within a university. My own college, University Hall, is bitter rivals with George Roberts Hall, who stole the Fisher Shield from us last year (I believe the fisher shield is won for being the best at several different sports rather than just one.)

Regardless of what college one lives in, though, all freshers were required to wear fresher items for the week. For Uni Hall, each fresher had to purchase a Uni Hall t-shirt ($15) with the following commandments printed on the back:
1.) Thou shall respect Saint George thy first Dragon Slayer.
2.) Thou shall embrace the spirit and the ways of the Uni Hall Dragon Slayer
3.) Thou shall worship fish 'n' chip day.
4.) Thou shall take a knee before thy GOON bag.
5.) Thou shall shag The Reaper then pass it on; deface The Lion; and steal The Bus.
6.) Thou must 'SLAY' before claiming thy fair maiden, knight, princess or peasant.
7.) Thou shall not pike before the sun rises over The Tennis Shed.
8.) Thou shall honour thy FOSSILS.
9.) Thou shall bleed GREEN and GOLD.
10.) Thou shall bring the FISHER SHIELD home in 2010.

Incidentally, the Uni Hall mascot is the dragon slayer; far more awesome than any mascots I know of at home (our colors are green and gold). Goon is the nickname for really cheap boxed wine here; I believe that The Reaper, The Lion, and The Bus are rival mascots; and Fossils are upperclassmen. One of the requirements of O Week was that we wear either that shirt or an item of green or gold each day, as well as our "name tags," which were not so much name tags as they were paper chef's hats that we had to wear everywhere. I suppose it could have been worse, though; one of the other colleges had their freshers wearing bibs.

I must admit, O Week was pretty much about drinking and hazing. This whole experience is about new things; new people, new hobbies, new ways of socialization; so I tried at first to join in. I went twice to a tavern, and didn't mind that atmosphere at all. It was very relaxed, nothing high energy. I tried a drink called the Illusion and was, for a short while, convinced that there was absinthe in it (what other kind of alcohol is bright green, after all?) - however, after three glasses of it and zero effect on my sobriety, my resolution was not so firm, and upon looking it up when I got back to my room I learned, no surprise, that it was not. The drink, however, was delicious, and as I am one to drink for taste, not for alcohol content, it worked out perfectly for me. I went to a club with some American girls and a few Australians one night, too. It was fun - the boys here dance much better than American boys. I was impressed. They actually dance, rather than surprise-grinding-against-your-ass. But those three nights were plenty for me, and those were probably the calmest ones!

I haven't minded sitting in my room, though, and I certainly haven't minded missing most of the hazing (though they claim that it is not hazing as it is not forced, in the U.S. it would TOTALLY be considered hazing.) I was only subject to 1.5 hazing events. The first was on the second night of O Week. All of the freshers were on our way back from a presentation, but as we reached Uni Hall the Fossils rounded us up to "teach" us the war cry. I'll put it up here when I can find my copy of it. Overall, that experience wasn't too bad, though it was rather intimidating. The other event was one that I escaped the worst of. Wednesday night/Thursday morning at 4am it was apparently a good idea to run screaming through the halls, waking up all the freshers and dragging them out of their rooms in order to march them around campus and have them shout the war cry at the other colleges. I woke up for this, but refused to go, choosing instead to pretend not to be in my room. I'm rather glad of my decision, especially as, at the end of their march, the fossils dumped flour and water on all the freshers.

In the long run, I was more nervous about O Week than I needed to be. I met a lot of people, though a surprising amount of them are actually Americans, and there were a few events that were fun. Two days I skipped the planned events entirely, though, as I had my own agenda to go to the beach and Magnetic Island, respectively. More to come on those trips later, though; this post is already too long.