Particular people ...

Yesterday, I ate lunch with some people I met on orientation. They were all between the ages of 17 and 19. I felt so old. One girl was even a little pretentious. They were all lovely people, don't get me wrong, but I was a little uncomfortable around them. They were discussing books they'd read over the holidays after their HSC. The list included The Marquis de Sadde, Plato, Gabriel García Márquez. I admit I was a little intimidated.

My day started at 7. I caught the (late) 8 o'clock train and headed cityward for the Arts Program mentoring day. I met my mentor without too much confusion in the quadrangle, after peering intently at all the girls' name tags along the way in search of her. I always feel uncomfortable staring at girls' chests to read their name tag--I feel like a lecherous pervert ogling their tits in my search for someone specific. We headed down to a building on the other side of campus for small group discussion. No mentoring program is complete without small groups. Our small group consisted of three (female) third year mentors and a small gaggle of first years. I forget exact numbers but I suspect it was in the order of four guys and six girls. Of the four boys, one was cute, one was a little odd, one was handsome in a clean-cut way and the other was me.

The mentors thankfully forwent the suggested ice-breakers; instead we did the whole "Hi, I'm Dan, I'm 23" thing. Such a variety of people. All of them lovely, to be sure, but a variety nonetheless. We all went to a "Yay you got in! Welcome!" lecture-style thing before morning tea.

During morning tea I went to get my timetable. It was a little lopsided: on Tuesday I had a 9-3 day, Wednesday was 1-2 and Thursday 2-3. I wandered with Mentor down to the place where changes are made. The line extended to just outside the door. It was sprinkling rain by this point. Right--I thought--. Fuck this for a joke. I meandered down the crowded corridor, Mentor in tow, to the doorway from whence the line sprang. A "semi-cute" blond boy was waiting at the head of the queue, printed timetable in hand. Excuse me mate--I said--. Do you mind if I push in here? It's just with my leg I can't really wait around. I describe him as "semi-cute" because he was scowling the whole time. He gave me a flicker of a smile and nodded assent. His eyes were dark blue. Thanks so much--I said, relieved and took my place in line. No less than a few seconds later I was inside the computer room telling the guy what I wanted done. He didn't have enough security clearance to change my timetable (go figure ... security clearance for a timetable) so I had to go to a second little door and have someone else do it. Finally it was done, just as the scheduled morning tea time ended and the heavens opened, bucketing cold water upon us as we huddled beneath Mentor's tiny umbrella.

Next on the agenda was the photographic scavenger hunt: we were given five more-or-less cryptic clues to landmarks around campus, which we had to find and have our photo taken with them in the background using a disposable camera. The campus was lousy with small groups of people, lead by white-shirt-clad mentors, sporting all manner of mascots. A neighbouring group's mascot was a bright yellow stuffed snake; another's was a hot pink sombrero. Ours was the abovementioned tiny, navy coloured umbrella.

And so ends this tale of my day, in the food hall, eating lunch and being slowly intimidated by a bunch of kids five years younger than me.

I certainly met a lot of interesting people.