To describe my experiences of moving to Wellington to attend Victoria University as 'traumatic' would be an understatement. I guess I'll just describe the chronological story of my move-in, I have yet to truly let anyone know just how much of an internet fiend I am but I won't deny I have been desperate, four days without proper internet access has been torture. Mobile internet, that is incredibly temperamental, is not ideal. At all.
So on Saturday morning I was woken up early after furiously last-minute packing the night before. I slept terribly and was sick with nerves, I regret not really even bothering to take a good last-minute look or anything. It's hard to really fathom (why do I always write that?) leaving after living in one house ALL my life. My aunty Jen was driving mum, dad and I to Picton to catch the ferry and, fortunately, she had a big car which could fit my rather exorbitant amount of luggage in it. We stopped in the town of Havelock which was annoying cause we'd only been driving for an hour and I was a nervous wreck and didn't want to "stop and have coffee". Whatever.
We got to the Picton Ferry Terminal and had to wait for about an age (aka. an hour) until the bus shuttle took us down to the ferry. It was a long, boring ride and I didn't really know what to do with myself. It was pretty packed with university students and I was having an internal (and probably external) meltdown regarding everything. Believe me, I still am. My head has been pounding ever since I got here - having NO ONE I know or can properly relate to is driving me a bit batshit crazy. Thank God I got internet today cause, until then, texting and mobile-tweeting had been my only communication with the outside world.
I arrived in Wellington about 3pm on Saturday and fortunately we had pre-booked a shuttle who was waiting for us so on we hopped after loading our (aka. my) bags onto it and off we went. We were staying with my parent's friends for the night as I wasn't to move in until Sunday. However, when we got back and I was all packed I got the most horrific call from the ferry terminal saying I had left a bag behind. Took me a minute to realize what one it was, it was my smaller case and it had my most important possession inside of it! Thank god my dad was able to call the guy (whose house it was, I've forgotten his name, oh wait, it's David) and he was in town so was able to pick it up on the way back from work which was pretty hott. No idea how I was stupid enough to manage that but in all fairness my parents (and the taxi driver) were being incredibly impatient and hurrying me and I was frazzled, stressed and, honestly, scared. Not to mention sad, I'm incredibly sad! I miss my old life already.
Alright, moving on from being a sad sack... So Sandy and David, the people's whose place we were at, had their two grandchildren around, 11 and 13 year old brothers, who were admist a massive fight but after giving in to play tennis with them, they started getting along. God they reminded me of myself, the older one was incredibly sporty and competitive, just like my brother, and the younger one didn't care much for tennis and wasn't very good. I liked the younger one more because he reminded me of myself, a lot. Anyway, I beat them both at tennis (thanks to tennis lessons for the entire year of 2010!) obviously, and went back home and, once again, slept like hell.
Sunday, move in day. I was woken up annoyingly early, 9.30am, to be rushed awoken, force-fed breakfast because everyone had already eaten. Not sure what everyone's rush was, but apparently it was major. By 10.30am we left to Weir and I was dying, and basically, I still am. There were people and parks everywhere and I didn't know where the F I was and I was pretty much dying, especially with both of my parents with me who were equally stressed I think. Anyway, we managed to get ourselves to the office where I got my key and the residential advisor, there's one for each floor (an older student who lives here) showed me to my room and gave me a quick lowdown of what's to happen on the day and then me and my parents were basically left to ourselves. Mum, dad and I made up my room and made the bed, put my posters up etc. I need to a lot more decorating though, things are pretty barren right now still. Need to get things, but I'm afraid to spend, and probably will remain so until I get a job. Which I have now began to understand is going to be the most challenging thing possibly ever, Wellington is crazy and there's a LOT of students about to descend upon the town so I better work on my CV tomorrow, can't tonight - exhausted and this blog is really taking it out of me!
Also I just popped across the hall and realised two others gave the quiz night a miss, haha, we were all hiding out in our rooms. There's one girl across the hall, whose name I've forgotten right now, who is quite a good laugh and doesn't seem to mind me wondering into her room for a chat so that's good. Anyway, so the rest of Sunday. Honestly, I can't even remember. The last few days feel like a week, it has barely been two days! God I literally can't remember WTF we did on Friday. Well each floor (how the place is separated, but it's pretty disjointed so the floors are all pretty random and unevenly numbered) sort of has been doing their own thing and I haven't really left my floor, let alone my own pod. Our floor has foor pods which is basically a corridor with everyone's rooms, and there's there's a door to the stairwell, another door, another corridor with rooms, another door, stairwell, door, corridor etc. I'm on F Floor, which is at the bloody top and there is an elevator but it takes an age. I worry about exercise, but on Monday I assure you we had enough.
Monday literally seemed to go on FOREVER. I can barely even remember, first and foremost we went on a bus tour around Wellington. I think the point of it was to help orientate ourselves by taking us up the top of Mt Victoria (at least I think that's what it's called) and you can see a view of the whole of central Wellington, and here's a picture I took on my cell.
Not the best shot but you're welcome regardless. From there we went to some random beach and a van of food was brought to us which was nice, although it was our 'lunch' for the day but all we got was a sausage roll, a biscuit and an apple. Not exactly what you'd call nutrition. Thank the lord, at the start of the day I was having a nervy-b about whether I should bring my water bottle or not, fortunately I decided to bring it and my god was it a life-saver. We didn't go near the opportunity to get a drink for too long.
The big 'kick-off' to Orientation Week for all Victoria University students was held in Civic Square, or whatever's it called, which is near the central area of Wellington's waterfront. There was thousands of people and all us Weir kids had green shirts to wear and we chanted stuff and clapped and listened and most of all, burned. It must have been the sunniest day in Wellington ever and my arms, face and legs got crazy sunburn and have a bad-ass watch tan which is pretty sick. Gawd, thankfully I have a good stockpile of fake tan to even it out. Assuming it doesn't peel, which it probably will. I don't wanna get melanoma and die. It was stupid of me, but it didn't even cross my mind. Better buy more sunscreen actually just incase for future reference.
So after all of this tiresome activity, believe me it was, barely got a wink of sleep the previous night, we went to Kelburn Campus, the central area for Victoria University and I signed up for 'campus coaches' which was basically a mature student took on a group of people studying similar things and off we went and she told us lots of little tidbits, took us on a pretty cool tour and we're all going to meet up a few times over the next few weeks to make sure we adjust and know what's happening and stuff.
After that, which went on for about three hours, we came back, had dinner. Oh, let me stop here, forgot if I mentioned earlier but EVERY meal time is horror. Picture this, you walk into a hall with about 200 people seemingly all adjusted and know each other, they probably don't, but it looks like it. You sit down with them and try to make small-talk amidst an enormous racket and it's just awkward, scary, nightmarish, the food is different and... ugh, it's just crazy.
Anyway, I am just going to gloss over what we did in the evening cause I will never be able to justify just how torturous it was. It was called 'operation relocation' and basically the residential advisors were dotted all over Wellington, and I mean ALL over, we walked/ran for fucking hours, carrying goddamn soaking-wet mattresses with teams of people and we had to go to locations that no one really knew and answer riddles and do all sorts of other ridiculous challenges. It was insane, and was about 3 hours of complaining, lifting, carrying etc. I was very proud to be the perhaps fittest one of the lot though.
So today I woke up distressed, exhausted and beyond sunburnt and we had quite a bit of free-time. All we really had to do was go to a big talk about how much study we were going to have to do (8 hours a day apparently, christ!) and then a really funny lecture which I could go into, but can't be bothered. But basically we were all fooled by this guy who was all dressed up and he was just a really good sort and he pretty much described how I was feeling and it was the only time over the last few days that I felt like someone cared about just how hard all of this was, because I have been having a meltdown!
Alright, this blog's been going on for a painfully long amount of time and... yeah. I must say though, everything seems like nothing compared to the latest Christchurch earthquake that has happened today. I can't be bothered going into it, selfish I know, but I have tweeted a lot about it and basically it is devastating and... I don't really know what to say. I'm thinking of you Christchurch, all the best! Makes my struggles seem miniscule when your city is destroyed and your families are lost, injured or dead. The high-rate of fatality is so crazy for New Zealand! The city is literally in ruins, what can people do in such times? That town will never be the same, fortunately my family are all safe but I have yet to hear from my friends. God knows how this'll affect their start to university and stuff, hopefully nothing too major.
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