27 February, 2009 in Engineering, University by Aonghas

Engineering Welcome

After our morning lecture with David (our last one, might I add) the engineering students walked across the road to the Fisher & Paykel Appliances Auditorium at the Owen G. Glenn building for the official Engineering welcome for first year students. It was supposed to start at 10am, but luckily we all made it in time. When we arrived at the auditorium, I was shocked to see how many first year engineering students there were! Seriously, there were hundreds packed into the enormous lecture theatre (around 620); it was hard to even spot an empty seat!

I was shocked at the large number of First Year Engineering students

The official welcome got underway as we sat through presentations given by various staff in the Engineering faculty, as well as some different clubs associated with engineering. One of the speakers talked about the dangers of crossing Symonds Street for nearly ten minutes, urging us to cross the road using the underpass. He even showed us maps of where the underpass was and everything. Although there were a few presentations that were quite informal, one of the messages that echoed in my ears for a while was the need for us to concentrate on our studies if we were to be successful in engineering. We were told that we were the top students in New Zealand, that Engineering is for the elite, and it made me wonder how I was going to cope with all the pressure I am likely to have this year.

After all the formal stuff was finished, we were taken across the road to the Engineering buildings to the ‘Circle’ (I think that’s what they call it), where they had a free BBQ lunch ready for us. As you can imagine, feeding over 600 people meant the queues went for ages and we ended up waiting in line for a good 20 minutes before being served a sausage and a vodka jelly shot drink thing. Since I don’t drink alcohol, I just gave my jelly vodka thing to Luke, as I’m sure he would consume it without any hesitation. Over our lunch break I met up with a few people I knew, including Mengyun and Menglu, Josh from the trip to America last year (from Westlake Boys), Julian Lees from Science Camp, Michelle Ye and Zac Preest.

An AUES advisor telling us about the activities for the afternoon

We were spilt into three groups for the afternoon activities after lunch. Luke and I joined the group that was heading over to the Recreation Centre across the road to play indoor soccer. When we arrived at the rec centre, we had to get into groups of around 10 for our indoor soccer games. Knowing barely anyone apart from Luke, Michelle and Zac, I didn’t know who to group up with – though I was trying to look out for any buff guys or sporty Asians who might be useful in an indoor soccer team. We managed to get a group of 10 in the end, fortunately including a couple of buff guys AND some sporty-looking Asians. Since they could only have two teams on the court/field at one time, the other teams went upstairs to play some ‘ice-breaker’ games. The game we played in our group was called “3-6-9″. The rules were quite simple: we stood in a circle and went around counting up from ‘one’. At every number that had any of the digits 3, 6 or 9 in it, the person had to clap. So it would start “one”, “two”, *clap*, “four”, “five”, *clap*, etc… it sounds easy I know, but believe me it gets confusing when the speed picks up and you have to think fast (for example, the number 33 would be a double clap).

My indoor soccer team

Our team was called down to the court to play soccer soon after, and our team was getting hyped (or at least I was anyway). However, when I saw our opposition, I felt a little uneasy. We were up against a whole team of huge Indian/African guys. They looked like they could squish us without even trying! Luke decided to be our goalie, but within the first 30 seconds of the game the big gigantor Indian/African surge powered through and scored. One goal down I thought, it’s still good it’s still good. A couple of minutes later, they scored again! Grr.. they were really asking for it after that second goal. That’s when the tables turned. Those Asian sporty-looking guys in our team unleashed their soccer skills and started creating gaps in the defence. It only took a big lob kick over the top and a couple of chasers to finish it before our team was on the scorebaord! It was like a comeback from the dead. Despite our efforts, the other team managed to score another goal and that was how the game ended. Final score 3-1. It was fun nevertheless though.

We then headed back across the road (using the underpass, tick!) to the engineering building where we had a quiz game led by some guys from Auckland University Engineering Society (AUES). There were multiple rounds of 5-question quizes, and each table had a team name. The table I was sitting at became team “Clueless”, purely because we didn’t know any of the answers for the first 3 questions. Luckily one of the rounds had questions about television shows, an area we were strong in! We didn’t win any prizes, but given a lot of the questions were about drinking and alcohol, I wasn’t expecting to know all the answers!

It was a fun day overall and very well organised. If my first year at Engineering is going to be anywhere as near as fun as today was, I’m sure I’m going to have a great time!

24 February, 2009 in University by Aonghas

Familiar Faces All Around

Today was the official opening to Orientation Week at Auckland Uni (I think?) and they started with a Powhiri and Opening Ceremony in the morning. On the morning bus, I was pleasantly surprised to see Craig get on at Te Atatu Road. Because the bus was already quite full, I was sitting in an aisle seat next to a random guy, so Craig sat across the aisle from me next to some random lady. On the way to town, I got a text from Rose asking if I was coming into uni. Apparently she was with Chen and John Kim at the clocktower. I couldn’t go to watch the powhiri anyway, because I had my maths lecture to go to. Craig and I parted our separate ways when we reached uni and I didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

After our morning lecture, we walked past the ASB Bank spinning wheel again. It was being run by different people so I thought I would try my luck at something better than a high-five. I was feeling lucky right from the moment I touched the wheel to spin it, there was definitely a strong vibe of prize-winning running through my veins. I spun… and won… a can of Gourmet Baked Beans!  I was pretty stoked with that actually, they weren’t just baked beans, they were Gourmet baked beans! It even says on the side “They’re not just beans, they’re a status symbol” and it has one of those pulley-ring things on the top so you can easily open the can. In fact, they look so good that I don’t know if I want to eat them. I’ll probably give them to Calum though, since he can’t really eat much else at the moment.

Lunch time popped up really fast today. It may have been because our morning lecture was an extended one and a half hour session, or perhaps I was just really eager to meet people I knew at lunch time. As soon as we got to the quad, the change from yesterday was immediately obvious. There were so many people everywhere. Uniguides in red t-shirts were taking groups of students on tours and the atmosphere was very lively! Rose sent me a text telling me to go to the quad, and when I first saw Rose coming up the stairs I almost didn’t recognise her! She now has a fringe and her hair looked straighter than I remembered. Chen was also with her, going along with her tour. Luke, Marianely and I decided to tag along with Rose’s tour group up the stairs to the Student Health Centre. A lady there gave a quick speech about health services at uni while she distributed paper bags with more information, a free condom and a tube of toothpaste inside. I’m sure I can put that toothpaste to good use (the condom has an expiry date of October 2010, so go figure…). While we waited inside the Kate Edgar building, quite a few people I knew walked past and stopped to say hello. I bumped into Eugene by the stairs; she was waiting for her friends to arrive. Lydia Rayner and Persis Samuel walked past just after. Other people I met today included Caleb Moses, Nancy Jiang, Cresilda Cross and a girl from Avondale College (her name was Lisa) who recognised me from the Avondale Ball.

My luck changed today with these prizes I won from ASB

Our afternoon lecture was a two-hour session today. We were taught about Echelon form and how to organise a linear equation into a matrix. It was quite interesting, despite the fact I started to feel tired by the end of it. After the lecture I walked down to ASB Bank at the Owen G. Glenn Building with Luke because he wanted to sort out internet banking for his account. After he set it up with one of the guys there, he collected his prize from the spinning wheel from this morning. He could either choose between an ASB Bank drink bottle or an elephant money box. He chose the drink bottle. I asked the ASB guy if there was any other way I could win the elephant money box (because it looked cool) and he said I could get it if I set up KiwiSaver with ASB Bank. He gave me some information about KiwiSaver and said that I could take the elephant too. Score! That pretty much made my day. After that, I walked to Sky City to catch the bus home with Calum.

23 February, 2009 in University by Aonghas

Overdraft with Bank Applications

I didn’t exactly have the best start to my morning today. You know how I nearly missed my bus on Friday? Well this morning the bus didn’t even come! Either that, or I actually missed it this time… I was standing around waiting for 7:45am bus until past 8 o’clock before I started to get a bit worried. I called my dad on my cell phone to tell him that the bus hadn’t arrived yet, so he said he would come and pick me up. Just as we hung up though, lo and behold! The bus comes around the corner.

In the end I didn’t manage to arrive at uni until just after 9am. I sorted out my student allowance forms out at Studylink (thank goodness!) and as I was walking back to uni I saw John and his wife from church. AUT seemed to be having an Introduction Day or something because there were heaps of “fresh-looking” people bunched up in the AUT quad. I noticed a few little tents being put up in the quad at Auckland Uni as I walked past. I was approached by one of the guys who was standing at an Overseas Christian Group table. He told me he was from West Auckland and we talked for a little while. He also gave me a lollipop which was quite nice.

My luck on the spinning wheel won me a high-five!

At lunch time today, Luke, Marianely and I walked around the quad to have a look at all the different clubs and organisations that were set up. We saw that the ASB Bank stall by the recreation centre had a spinning wheel with what looked like prizes on each of the wheel segments. I decided to try my luck at the wheel (you could even win movie tickets!) so I went up to the lady and gave the wheel a good spin. Unfortunately for me, the ticker landed on a picture with two hands slapping. My prize – a free high-five with the ASB lady! How rewarding! The lady told me to go sign up for a bank account to get free transaction fees etc. as part of the tertiary package so we followed her directions to find the ASB caravan behind the General Library. There were two guys sitting at a table with a laptop by the caravan; they didn’t look like they were doing very much. Since Luke already had an ASB Bank account, he switched over to the tertiary account. I filled in an application form however, and signed up for a new account. On the way back to the quad, we were stopped by yet another bank – this time it was BNZ. The lady told us that if we signed up for a BNZ account, we would get a free Student Card! I thought, what the hey, I may as well! So again I sat down and filled in another application form. That’s two new bank accounts in one day! I really hope they don’t start charging me for not using my bank account, or else I’ll probably find myself in a whole lot of debt!