A Kinda Final Solitare

O-day at Cumberland wasn't, as I had feared, a complete waste of time and effort. The information and tours were very useful, and now I feel more confident at navigating the expanse that is USyd Cumberland. That said, it's still a small campus, and getting lost is almost impossible, unless you have a terrible sense of direction.

I drove to Cumbo and got there at around 8:30am. It was a bit early so I waited until 8:45am before I went in. Then I found out that there were two groups divided based on the courses. So my group didn't actually "start" until 10:30am. I met up with David Vuong (Diagnostic Radiography) and Sophia (Speech Pathology) and we had a quick tour around the campus. My guess was that there were around 1000 undergraduates present. With a total student population of ~5000, Cumbo was big, yet still quite small. The Sefton student population at Cumbo for undergraduates is tiny, compared to UNSW (with all the commerce & engineering people) or USyd main (all those pharmacy people). If I remember correctly...

• Me (Diagnostic Radiography)
  
• David V (Diagnostic Radiography)
• Nishan (Diagnostic Radiography)
• Sophia (Speech Pathology)
  
• Amanda (Speech Pathology)
• Rachel (Speech Pathology)
• Nam (?)
  
• My Hoa (?)
  

Yeah, only eight Seftoners here. But the campus is small, so I guess we'll run into each other. Plus with David V and Nishan with me in Radiography, I guess we can cover each other in note-taking and whatnot.

After all the lectures and information flooding, Nishan, David V, a friend Mike, and I decided to grab some free lunch. Except the line was hella long, and it was certain that food wasn't going ot get into our stomach anything soon, at least not in the next 30 minutes. So we called it a day. The other guys took a bus, while I drove away, still feeling distinctly hungry. I was going to go home, but instead diverted to Parramatta Westfield. Grabbed some food from the food court, and picked up a few new books. I had gone to Parra on Tuesday to buy books as well. My now favourite bookshop is Borders on Lvl 4. It has a massive collection of books, especially sci-fi, my favourite genre. So, including the books bought on Tuesday and yesterday, the list stands at:

• Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
• Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko
• Dis Information (and other Wikkid myths) by Dr Karl Kruszelnicki
• Neuromancer by William Gibson

Night Watch and Day Watch are very cool books detailing the uneasy truce between Light and Dark set in post-Soviet Russia. And contains musings on what is good and evil, the boundary between, and where that boundary exactly is. Highly recommended, very great plot and even greater writing. Dis Information basically refutes a number of myths, like there is no adverse reaction when mixing alcohol and most antibiotics. Very cool and interesting read. And Neuromancer is a sci-fi cult classic. The very first cyberpunk novel dealing with possible technology before it was cool and pioneered the dystopia setting. When I say classic, I don't mean those English canon books written all those centuries ago. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is a classic, along with the Sprawl trilogy by William Gibson (which includes Neuromancer as the first in the trilogy) and the Dune series by Frank Herbert. Cult classic books right there.

Now my only remaining Uni problems are textbooks cost and transportation. Textbooks costs are be dealt with, but I intend on getting that rewards card so I can get discounts. Transportation is different. Since all available and convienient parking is gone by 9am, and I don't have class until 2pm, parking will be a problem. By the time I get there and find a place to park, I might as well bring a bicycle to get to uni. Public transport is a possible idea, but altogether it'll take an hour or so. Not sure how to solve it, but I'm thinking of driving and parking near Lidcombe station and using the bus to get to the Uni. And home time, I take the bus back to the station and pickup my car. Still in progress there.

Until next time, I have reading to do.