Orientation Wrap-Up

Hmmm, okay, so where did I leave off with Frosh Week. Here are some highlights from the remainder of the week …

Wednesday morning consisted of manning the Freezie and pizza booth. Team Tsunami was first, so they received this nutritious 9 am snack and it was a chance to meet some of my frosh in a quieter setting. I had a couple of shifts during speaker presentations, basically babysitting a walkie-talkie and doing some crowd control. Professor Brown gave one of the ’scare’ talks, so I was able to chat with him briefly before he took the stage. I had him for a course a year ago, and he was also one of my references for NSERC & grad school; he’s teaching my biostats & epidemiology class this term which I’m really looking forward to.

I was able to rejoin with my team to catch this year’s edition of Single & Sexy. Funny as usual. In a good move the scavenger hunt was bumped up earlier in the week this year because it tends to have a lower turnout. It was strange being on the operations side of things this time around, but getting bribed was cool. I think too many of my items were obscure, though. I did get an awesome ‘mathematical rendition’ of Michelangelo’s The Creation; it used only numbers and math symbols. The software engineering team provided some great Simpsons songs, supporting dialogue included.

Thursday *should* have been a great opportunity to sleep in, but I had my own grad orientation to go to. The morning session wasn’t all that informative, particularly to people who have been at the school for a number of years now. But we got free food, and the Dominoes was a nice change from Campus Pizza. I had also the chance to catch up with Leslie, Jenny, and Anthony who are all starting their Master’s in AM this fall.

There were department specific sessions in the afternoon. Again, not much of importance as it was mostly stuff I already knew and introductions to people I know. In fact, I was able to answer a few specific questions that arose. We got info about STAT 698, which is a research and teaching seminar course that we must all participate in. It’s just a milestone, pass/fail kinda thing, so nothing too major. It covers software that students may not have seen, and there’s a presentation component. It horribly falls on Friday afternoons, but luckily many sessions can be skipped if we provide evidence of prior experience. I have since been excused from all but three classes: one about TA duties later this week (not that I have any myself), a lab about LaTeX (which I was asked to go to in order to help, since I’m already up to speed), and finally a lab on SAS. I could have skipped that last one if I wasn’t doing biostats, since I have experience with 2 of the 3 programs to be covered (Matlab & R/Splus). But it’s all good, SAS will be very useful to learn.

Ugh, in less than stellar news, Luke had a horrible accident in the CS grad session while welcoming new students to his department in a soccer match. Some new guy got him with a nasty kick, and he suffered displaced fractures of the tibia *and* fibula of his right leg. I was dumbstruck when I found out the next day from someone at Tie Guard, passing along a message from Jos. He had surgery the next night and was able to leave the hospital Friday night. He’s toughing it out in KW, although his mobility is severely limited. It was shaping up to be a busy term in the first place, with his supervisor encouraging him to finish his thesis before the xmas break. I can only imagine how frustrated I’d be to lose so much independence.

But carrying on, Thursday night was the cross-campus Monte Carlo, a night of gambling, dancing, games, and entertainment all over SLC and the PAC. My first shift was at one of the main entrances, as a bag checker/greeter/hander-outer of gambling tickets. Many females were hesitant to have a guy inspecting their bag as they came through the doors, but them’s the rules. I liked the shift rotations and regular breaks; there was some good planning going on with security this year. Only a couple of my shifts were really out of the way, so generally I was able to catch some part of the activities or chat with a fellow ’security guard.’

I was able to sleep in a bit the next day, but not too late as I met up with fellow Tsunami leaders Donna and Diana to do grocery shopping for our team dinner. That turned out to be really, really fun as we ran around the store creating much of the menu on the fly and thinking of things we’d forgotten. Budgets were very generous this year, and I think we did great: pasta and difference sauces, with meatballs on the side, garlic bread, cookies, chips, salads, and drinks! We planned for around 30 people, and including leaders we were pretty close to the target. We hosted the dinner at Diana’s, where the backyard borders the parking lot behind the Mel’s plaza, and I think it went really well. I actually had the chance to talk to some of the frosh and learn some more names.

That night was the lower-key-than-previous-night ‘Big Bang’, a Math/Engineering event at SLC. More dancing, plus lots of games and activities. I had another night of security, and this time we worked in pairs. I was with another mathie named Mike, a kinda quirky guy but still very normal by relative standards. Because of the way shifts worked out, we always relieved Donna and a guy named Calvin (sp?), while in turn we bumped by Sophia (who I first met at the pre-leader retreat and who knows Sakina) and Josh (another Tsunami leader). I seem to remember enjoying the night, although as with many that week all that clearly stands out is how late it was when I got home and quickly fell asleep.

Saturday: Black & Gold day, another cross-campus thing. This usually revolves around the opening football game and I’m proud to say I’ve never seen a UW game. This time the team was on the road, so various games and activities were set up at the Columbia playing fields to be followed by a Rugby match against Laurier. I had a sunscreen carrying shift, but there was none on hand when it was my turn, so I basically just wandered around, sometimes stopping in at info booths to find some. I ran into Greg at one of the indoor basketball courts, and we chatted for a bit. I also remember lots of sun and heat.

For the game, I found a spot with Meg (another Tsunami leader, and one of my Aries frosh from last year), Donna, and Dylan. It was kinda entertaining, in that I think we were winning (and did eventually win) and didn’t really know what was going on. Good times.

Saturday night was the infamous Toga night. For the first four hours, I was on BoardGameSafe … i.e. DriveSafe, but since no one ever needs driving that early, we just sit and play board games. Donna had the same shift, so that was cool. We broke out Cranium and got a game going with others … very reminiscent of last year, introducing a bunch of people to the great game while sitting around having nothing to do!

Afterwards, I checked out Toga briefly, had my fill within a few minutes and then wandered back to SLC then Tie Guard to see if there were random assignments to be done. I was very tired from the week … must be showing my old age.

I got my first good sleep in a week that night, being able to sleep in until noon. I went to MathSoc day, which as expected was a lot of sitting in the sun and listening to other people talk. But it was a good winding-down few hours, Craig and Yolanda put together a great show of pics from the week, and just standing around chatting with folks.

Heh, even leaving out many details I still manage to ramble on. Oh well, this is all mainly for my own benefit anyway.