Uni started today!

Today is the beginning of a new uni semester. And it started with my room phone loudly ringing at 10am.

My friend ALWAYS does this to me. She prides herself on being the more efficient alarm clock even when I don’t need one— 8am on Saturday mornings, for instance. Anyway, this time she needed to gripe to someone about how she doesn’t want to go to uni anymore. A perfect start to my day.

I had two lectures from 11am to 1pm. In true Sarah fashion, I went in about 5-10 minutes late. Hey, I’m a usually punctual person but seriously, living 200 metres away from the university building itself does things to you. After the first hour of politics, Michel Foucault, left wing, right wing, liberal democracies…and the second hour of a rundown of what we can expect in regards to hypertexts, FTPs and Dreamweaver, I started to think; wow, I really need to get a hang of studying again.

I suddenly realized how different this year is compared to the FOB (fresh-off-the-boat…Aussie slang for newbies. PS: please do not use this just on anyone, it can be considered offensive for obvious reasons) first year student I was. I noticed that I bump into someone I know every hundred metres while walking around in campus (Note: this doesn’t happen very often, it’s just that it’s the first day of the new semester). The editor of the international student magazine chanced upon me and promptly summoned me to a meeting on Thursday and to go check my email.

After eager snatches of conversation here and there, catching up with people I haven’t seen for a few months, I had to rush off to a writer’s meeting for the University magazine and Media Club. I had this guilt trip going for the entire meeting because I had been Missing-In-Action for 3 months, and heck, I’m suppose to be the sub-editor. I had ABSOLUTELY no idea what was going on. To add salt to the injury, the editors kept referring people to me and my co-editor for information. One of the editors approached me to sniff up 5 international FOBs for an interview, to set up a new column. “By the way,” he says, “the deadline’s this Friday. Meet me in the office at 3pm later.”

Brilliant. I’m SO loving this.

A disheveled Indian man approached me today. He was carrying a stack of books from the Left Behind series and carried around this placard that said “I’m a Christian missionary. I can’t speak English properly. I need some funds bla bla…” I really hate situations like this, not because I despise the man, but because I don’t know what to do. Is he really what he says he is? Why is he here in Melbourne University? Why does he need the money? Why doesn’t he search for Christian organisations that can help him?

Not to sound antagonistic, but I really wonder what people think of God when they see him. Can’t God take care of His servants? But perhaps the same arguments could be made of Buddhist monks, but it seems that giving to them is like giving to God.

He wouldn’t leave me. And my conscience played tricks on me. So I gave him some spare change and took one of the books out curiosity.

What would you have done?