Orientation Week: It's good to be Queen

Hey Folks!

So sorry that it's been so long since the last post! I've just completed O Week for Queen's College, which is the residential college that I'm lucky enough to be staying at for the duration of my experience here in Melbourne.

It was definitely one of the more hilarious and interesting weeks of my life, and I'll do my best to capture some of the magic here in a few paragraphs. Our whole week, from 7am to 11pm every day, was planned and laid out by a fabulous group of third year students that we affectionately were commanded to refer to as OWLs (O Week Leaders). These guys were amazingly dedicated, enthusiastic, helpful, caring and so much fun! Their jobs were to make the transition to college life and university life (there's a big difference: college is where we live and university is where we study, either at University of Melbourne or Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) as easy as possible, to indoctrinate us to the Queen's way of life, and to make us feel at home with each other and with our new surroundings.

It's so hard to try and put down in words how wonderful life is when 10 ridiculously uniformed young men and women lead by example in courtesy, consideration, careless-fun-mongering, and community. Throughout the week, these guys were clad in yellow shorty shorts with high socks and brown and yellow v-neck sweater vest kinda deals, they were there to take care of our concerns and answer our questions, they were up on stage shaking booty like they just didn't care, and they were there to encourage us to throw away our insecurities and embrace our new lives as part of an impressively tight-knit family.

We held hands and fed each other fish and chips. We woke up at 7am and danced ourselves awake to the same song (our song: Two Door Cinema Club's Undercover Martyn) every day. We ran through the city of Melbourne dressed in clothing of the opposite gender. We learned chants and traditions that belong to Queen's and made us belong to Queen's. And all along the way, these men and women, our wonderful OWLs, were there to encourage, goad and torment us in a perfect balance of "Shut up the fuck up, Freshers!" and "You are the Queen's Freshers. You are all amazing people."

If I say that Queen's College is similar to what we call Greek Life in the United States you might get a picture heavily laden with negative connotations. Maybe you think of a sense of undeserved entitlement and douche-baggery or superficiality and hedonism. Maybe you think of hazing, peer-pressure and loss of individual and critical thought. I'm not trying to say that all frats and sororities are like this but rather that this is how one might characterize the worst of what those communities might become. I've never been in a frat or a sorority, so I really have no right to comment.

When I say that Queen's College is like Greek Life I mean that when you live at Queen's your life and your identity really becomes pretty engulfed by being a Queener, for better or for worse! You do sacrifice some individuality, but you also gain a whole network of support and community that is pretty rare to find in this world. There is a lot of drinking and a lot of hooking up but there are also aspects that are very cool as well!

Examples:

1. Queeners fill up tables. When we go to the dining hall, we make sure every seat at every table is full before we start new tables. This means that you can pretty much toss out your plans to sit with your little clique! You're meeting someone new until you know everyone.
2. Queeners acknowledge other Queeners. If you see a Queener if that boy a shout!
3. Queeners don't boo. 
4. Queeners don't let other Queeners sit alone or leave the bar alone. 
5. There are no phones allowed in the dining hall. Can't be disrespecting your dinner buddies like that!

Other rules are more reminiscent of hazing, but, all in all, nothing tugged too intensely at my rugged sense of individuality and my need to stand off to the side by myself and stare mysteriously into the abyss.

                                                                    Queen's College

Anyway, these oddly dressed fun-psychos were our older brothas and sistas for the week, and they put us through seven days of serious orienting. A lot of it was ridiculous. A lot of it was fun. A lot of it was purely for their entertainment at our expense.

It's rare that random strangers earn such authority, admiration and respect in such short time, but I think what helped this process along is what makes it so similar to what we have at Cornell in Outdoor Odyssey and why it would never ever work for something like Cornell's O Week (sorry Michael). The first reason is that everybody who is here at Queen's wants desperately to be a part of the community here, to fit in, and to make friends. They signed up for this. This means that if an OWL tells you to get up at 7am, dress like a girl, and run a few k's through the city of Melbourne yelling ridiculous chants and a few more k's through the university where all your friends and peers can see you, you do it!

The second reason that these OWLs were so effective is that they treated us like adults with respect and peer-itude (if there's a word for this I don't want to hear it). We talked openly about everything from sex to drinking to hookups to drinking and also sex. The fact that they showed us great respect and caring yet held us on leashes of a certain length brings me back to what I learned at the Food Project about the two keys to effective parenting: establishing firm boundaries and showing that you deeply care. They did this well, and put together a fantastically memorable week! I can't thank them enough!

ONWARD TO THE SUMMARIZING! 


Quotable Quote of Just Now: "I've figured out that I don't need to work out anymore; I'll just buy smaller and smaller shirts." --Lincoln Smith.

O Week 


Few things to keep in mind: 

• If we forgot our nametags, our names were written on our foreheads in Sharpie marker
• If the OWLs called out, "Is everybody happy?" Our response in unison was "You bet your ass we are!"
• If an OWL used the siren sound on the megaphone, we had to do squats in honor of whatever song this is:

• If we had a "coffee party" we drank beer and chilled in an OWL's room while they checked in to see how we were doing
• If we crossed a street we had to shout "Pascoe!" over and over again in honor of I think a Melbourne Uni professor named Pascoe who solved an impossible riddle, ran out into the street yelling his own name and was promptly hit by a bus. 
• If an OWL asked "What do we think of _____?" we all answered "He/she's alright!" 

Yup, power corrupts. 

Day 1: On day 1 we moved in and all the moms and dads stuck around until lunch was over. After that we were all gathered into what's known as the Junior Common Room, where we listened to a speech by the master of the college. As soon as that was up, the reins were quickly seized by our O Week Leaders. Doors were shut dramatically and that scary and intimidating operatic song they use in movies that I don't know the name of played for about 15 seconds as the OWLs deftly lined the walls, effectively sealing the exits.

What followed were some pretty dramatic and polished speeches delivered with just the right amount of theatrical panache to make it not too cheesy. Speech one was about how when the OWLs were freshers at Queen's, their OWLs made them sit in a room in silence for 40 minutes to scare them. They even planted an ex-Queener (known as a Wyvern) in the crowd and had his phone go off during the period of silence so they could take out a fake phone and smash it in front of everyone just to show how serious they were. The point of the speech was that this generation of OWLs believed in doing things differently and showing us a respect they wanted to be returned.

Speech two was about what it truly means to be a fresher, which I thought was awesome. The point of it all was that who we were before now doesn't really matter that much. We need to concentrate on who we are in the present time and place and who we are becoming. You can't live off your past accomplishments and actions (for most, high school; for me Cornell). We're all new here, we're all great and amazing people, and we all need to start fresh.

The last speech was about not having mom and dad to pick up after your messes anymore and being an adult by taking control of your behavior and responsibility for your actions. Good stuff too; I just can't remember much from it.

Next up we had a big activity that made us race around the college in groups holding hands. Kind of like the Amazing Race, where a group gets a clue and has to figure out where to go. It was a cool way to pack in a tour of the place without actually getting a tour. After that was a chapel service in the school's beautiful little chapel where we listened to a sermonette about Star Wars and Darth Vader by the college chaplain, heard some scripture, and sang some hymns. Funny to hear our OWLs introductions which were massively laced with sexual innuendo (He's a man of fine taste and all the ladies say he tastes fine! He's very neat but, girls, he doesn't always like it clean!) and then hear the very same people read to us from the book of Revelation. Queen's does have it's roots in the Methodist Church somehow though.

The day closed off with a "Paint Party" where we dressed in white and threw tie dye at each other, drank beer and danced. When that was done, I plugged into a quintessential college moment of busting some shots of rum and singing along to my friend's guitar along with fifteen or so other freshers. Who knew Tenacious D's "Tribute" was so popular in Melbourne?

Day Two


The second day we spent at the beach, which took about an hour and a half to bus out to. On the way, the OWLs had all the girls board the buses first and sit in the window seats. The gentlemen then sat in the aisle seats and we proceeded to "speed date" in increments of a few minutes each round for the entire ride there. Exhausting.

When the buses stopped we had to hold hands with whoever we were sitting with and eat feed them lunch which was fish and chips. Pretty hilarious. Then we broke up into little groups and did some team-building and trust games which were actually pretty fun. After that was up we had some free time where I learned a game called "kick-up" which is basically an excuse for Australian men to throw a ball at each other.

That night we all ate cheese and crackers in the quad and took turns getting tours of the college tower. Pretty chilled out.

Day Three


Day three we had to wake up early once again and grab someone's hand. We held this person's hand for the duration of our first activity which is known as the College Run. Just as schools have a selection of frats and sororities, Queen's is not the only Res College that has a spot on the strip of road across from the Uni known as College Crescent. There's St. Hilda's, Ormond, Trinity, Whitely, University College, St. Mary's, Janet Clarke and maybe more. The College Run was an opportunity for the OWLs to give us a tour of our neighboring colleges and let us know what they really thought about them. Basically they made us shout things at buildings full of sleeping people. Also we passed a pub that Queeners like a lot so we all bowed down to it as if we thought it were a Golden Calf that just broke us out of Egypt.

Some of the things were pretty funny. Trinity is supposed to be the college with all the rich, privileged kids that went to boarding school (yeah, what are we then?), so we stood outside their gates and yelled, "Thanks for the Range Rover, daddy!" Pretty funny. Ormond College had a sex scandal a few years ago that forced their Master to step down, so when we passed their gates we took these saucepans that we brought along for the entire run and covered our sphincters yelling, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" Also funny.

                                                                   Thanks, Daddy

The rest of they day we had to do our Uni Orientation stuff. I went to my academic advisor dude who enabled me to enroll in classes which was sweet. We also had Gender Talks which I thought were smashingly well done. The genders split up and OWLs gave briefings on sexual health and hygiene and stuff and even outlined practices of common courtesy and respect. "Good blokes prevail" was a common theme. Don't spread gossip about the girl you just hooked up with etc. There was also a hilarious presentation on the Seven Wonders of Queen's, which is seven places that we're challenged to have sex at including: laundry room, Master's doorstep, the chapel, the tower, the elevator, the library and the Master's chair (a $30,000 throne that sits in the dining hall). Another hilarious presentation was about a term that I think is unique to Queen's called "laying Gary" which basically equates to picking up girls. There are all kinds of techniques and we learned a good deal of them. Can't remember most but here are the ones that I do remember:

• Classic Gary: You're a nice guy. You complement her on her shoes and hold the door open for her
• Reverse Gary: You get her to do the work for you. Maybe mention that you played a game of footy today, and when she presses you on how you did let on that you kicked 400 goals or something. She won't be able to keep her hands off you apparently
• Investment Gary: Perhaps the girl isn't where you'd like her to be just yet but you see a lot of potential. What you do is sort of like investing your money. You put in your effort to reap a reward later. 
• Inception Gary: You enter her dream state. You can also apply different Garys in concert with inception Gary. 

That's all I remember. Quite humorous. Good fun. 

That night we had a pub crawl and then went bowling. The pub crawl, down on the schedule as a "culture tour," was actually really scary because the OWLs introduced a few drinking games that were downright terrifying. The first was if an OWL dropped a twenty cent coin in your glass you had to "scull" (we don't say chug) your whole beer. And the nature of people just dictates that they'd only do this to you if you had a full pint. Not fun. The other game involved a clothespin. For some odd reason, we were all forced to wear garbage bag poncho type outfits and shower caps on the pub crawl. The game was that if someone put a clothespin on your bag and you didn't find it in ten seconds you had to scull your beer. Also. Not. Fun.

The worst thing was that everybody is in on it and they all countdown from ten to someone who doesn't have the closepin on them. This means that they guy who's pinned doesn't even know he needs to start looking until everybody turns around and laughs in his face. And he loses. 

Bowling was fun. Lots of Skrillex going on.

Day Four


The day during Day Four was pretty tame as well. The majority was spent preparing for what is known as the Fresher Exam. Basically, all week, the OWLs psyched us up to study these little handbooks they gave us about Queen's history and rules and resources and whatnot. After every little speech that we got from IT or from facilities management we were told that everything we just heard was examinable. Then they got us all to believe that this test determined our housing preference for the next few years. If we did well, we would get massive rooms.

As you can probably guess, this too was a brilliantly orchestrated hoax. They even told us one hour beforehand that the Master or someone had had a stroke of sympathy and would allow us an 8x11 cheat sheet. We all had to be in our academic robes and our little O week shirts and all the OWLs were super serious. The exam was in two parts. The first part was legitimately about things we studied (I should say "they" because I spent about -5 seconds studying for the exam), and it was reasonably difficult. The second half of the exam was hilarious. Not only were the questions completely ridiculous ("who is the hottest O week leader and why?" "which two O week leaders are getting it on and why?"), throughout the exam, the OWLs never broke character, but instead of making us keep our heads down and shut up they went around trying to make people do the most distracting things possible. A few people had to write on the underside of the table only. One guy had to sing the Star Spangled Banner then read aloud from an erotic novel. The guy next to me had to make orgasm sounds and then pretend to be laying an egg. All in all, a very ridiculous experience.

Probably the coolest part was when the president of the college introduced us to a few seniors (anyone who's not a fresher is a senior) by pulling back the curtain on the giant glass wall on the dining room's east side to reveal a hundred or so eager young men and women cheering and slapping on the glass.

Afterward we ate dinner with the seniors in nearby restaurants and had a party on the Queen's campus, which are called "turns" in Queen's language. The theme of this turn was fluorescent stuff which they abbreviate as "fluoro." The "turn room" at Queen's has a blacklight so it was pretty cool. Drinks were cheap, but it was still kinda scary because seniors were taking guys aside to introduce them to the beer "octobong" and making guys scull and shotgun beers. Not too good.

Turns are cool though because at the end of each turn every class's song is played and everyone in that class gets on stage and goes nuts. Apparently there're also songs in Australian college culture where you take off your bra if you're a girl and drop your pants if you're a dude. Also if you hear Ice Cream you take your shirt off no matter who you are.

Day Five


Day five was the last day we had with our OWLs. In the morning we we were once again awoken at 7am but this time we were told we had to show up in the quad wearing clothing borrowed from members of the opposite gender. After loading up on a tram and eating some pancakes by the Yarra River (again holding hands for some reason) we then proceeded to run around the city and the university like a bunch of weirdos. Pretty entertaining. Running in a tight floral skirt is hard work. The afternoon was occupied by learning the Fresher Dance. Basically a senior Queener choreographs a dance every year that the freshers learn the chorus of. Then during the year a team of freshers is assembled through auditions and they learn the whole song and compete against all the other colleges in a dance off. As in most cases, Queen's has a strong reputation to upkeep in the Fresher Dance-off.

The night of day five was also known as Transition Night: the night when our OWLs transitioned from OWLs to our friends and peers. This of course means that we went to the pub together and the OWLs finally drank with us and, yes, hooked up with us in some cases.

Camp Rumbug: 


After five day of alcohol, hooking up, waking up at 7am, and running ourselves ragged, we were shipped off to a camp in the Victorian wilderness known as Camp Rumbug for the weekend. Yes, the walls were plastered with pictures of twelve-year-olds. Yes, the canoes had a weight capacity of like 160 kilos. Yes, we slept in bunk beds. Yes, there was a talent show.

Basically this was a time for the OWLs to rest up at Queen's while the show was run by the masters and graduate students that are our mentors. The whole weekend was dry and we did nothing more exciting than sitting around a pool, watching movies, and eat a lotttt of candy. The afternoons were full of possibilities for "activities" (we watched Step Brothers) like walking up and down the ridiculously steep hill that the camp was perched on or archery, canoeing etc. There was a funny game involving super heroes which could be cool for youth organizations that I'll definitely keep in my back pocket. Watching She's the Man made me miss Amy, who loves that movie, and watching The Departed made me miss Boston. There were also some useful things like an academic panel that addressed everybody's concerns about Uni and a few talks on physical and mental health. Good things for first year students. Tough things for third-year students to hear again.


That brings us up to today! It's been really fun running around like an invincible cockroach this past week but I'm really excited to get to classes, which start tomorrow morning, and establish a routine.

This is what my schedule looks like:

I'm taking:

• GEOG20010 China in Transition
• UNIB30002 Global Health, Security and Sustainability
• PPMN40001 Policy Design
• GEOG300101 Sustainable Development

Also, look what I found when I logged on to Melbourne Uni's "Learning Management Systems"

Yup. It's some kind of demon-spawn of Cornell's Blackboard system. Not the slice of home that I would hope to find here.

Anyway, sorry that this post was so gargantuan and that these are coming in so infrequently! I'll do my best to get you the info faster and with greater entertainment value! 

Thanks for reading and definitely let me know how you've been! 

Peace,

Geoff