JsAPP
Got up early this morning as I wanted to pop by St. John’s College’s main office to settle my phone pin number and internet connection with Maureen. Unfortunately, she wasn’t in just yet, so I made my way to Steele Building for the Academic Preparation Program (APP). Apparently, they call it the JumpStart Academic Preparation Program (JsAPP), but let‘s not get started on that.

By the time everyone had registered for the program, it was close to 9.30am. The course overview was done by Miss Jamie Saunders (?), Manager of Student Services. The overview was followed by high tea just behind the Steele building, facing The Great Court. Before that, I had signed myself up for the library and campus tours on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning respectively. With Miss Saunders’ permission, I had excused myself from afternoon classes - all two of them, due to the Science Sign-On Presentation, which was originally scheduled to finish its run today.

So, back to where I was. The Great Court is a massive courtyard of sorts, but I wasn’t presented with an opportunity to take pictures as I was talking to someone. Lawrence his name was, a Brit who resided in UK and Portugal before making Brisbane his (current) port of call. It was a little difficult to understand his accent, so the poor guy had to repeat himself a couple of times. There were times I just pretended to understand – not because I’m being an ass. While we were talking, I helped myself to a bun (with strawberry jam), a strawberry jam pastry, and orange juice. And since I’m on the topic of food, breakfast was hot cross buns again.

Lawrence seemed mightily impressed when I mentioned that Singapore was unlike Australia, in a sense that even at midnight, one can still walk from the train station to home without having to worry much about his/her personal safety. He was also impressed to learn that every part of Singapore is easily accessible by public transport. By the way, his residence is a 3 hour drive from Brisbane.

The next lesson was time management. Pretty basic stuff, and I got a little bored mid-way through. And for those who are wondering, contrary to what people say, the Australian accent is pretty easy to understand, even if the speaker has a thick accent. St. John’s College’s operations manager, Mr. Nightingale, has a thick Aussie accent, but I understood every word he said. It’s probably the slang one has to get used to. When you apologize to someone, a typical response would be, “You’re right/alright”.

Commonwealth Bank
The end of time management class marked the end of my academic day. As Commonwealth Bank was just opposite Steele Building, I rushed over to open my bank account. The process took about 45 minutes to an hour, and all of 3 minutes to deposit the bank draft.

Here’s a little advice for those planning to study in Australia – when opening a bank account, bring your passport and certificate of acceptance. Students are usually recommended to take up the Streamline plan. One of the perks when signing up for that plan is that the bank will waive the monthly account fee of $4 (e-Access) or $6 (Unlimited). Here’s the downside - on its own, the plan offers an interest of only 0.01% (paid quarterly). What you can do is request for an online bank account called NetBank Saver. It costs nothing to set up, and is linked to the Streamline account. As compared to the Streamline plan, it offers an interest of 6.75% (paid monthly, if the brochure is anything to go by). The thing is, if one wants to have the full 6.75%, he/she must have a tax file number, which can be applied for online. If not, he/she will not get the full 6.75%. I’m not sure what the rate of interest would be like then, but it’s definitely better than 0.01%!

Just imagine this. You deposit $10,000 into your Streamline account. With net banking, you can transfer all, if not most of the $10,000 to your NetBank Saver account. Should you use up all the funds in your Streamline account, you can transfer some of the funds from the NetBank Saver account (which has been steadily earning interest) to the Streamline account. Neat deal, huh?

For now, I’ll have to wait for about 5-7 working days before they send my card, account number and password via mail. After which, I would have to make a second trip to the bank to activate my card.

Of Telephone Lines & Internet Connections
Now that I had cleared the issue of opening a bank account, I headed straight for St. John’s College to activate my phone line and internet connection.

It was still early (student services at St. John‘s resume at 1pm), so I headed back to the flat to drop off my laptop and the FsAPP goody bag. It was close to 1pm, so I ate the strawberry jam and butter sandwich I’d packed earlier that morning.

Maureen recognized me immediately. I have no idea how she knew who I was, or that she was Maureen until she greeted me with a “Bernard!”. After exchanging pleasantries, I paid $10 in exchange for my pin number. With that, my phone line was officially activated. Whether I can now call mobile or international numbers remain unknown as I can only make 30 outgoing calls per month. Anything more than that and I will have a bill presented on a silver platter. Incoming calls were apparently not part of the deal, so I guess they’re free. Father Howard, who was in charge of my internet connection, was busy with another student, so I was advised to return at 3pm, just after my Science Sign-On Presentation.

Science Sign-On Presentation
It was 1.32pm when I arrived at Building 69 (a 5 minute walk from the college), which was where the presentation was to be held. As I had plenty of time on my hands, I went up to the main office and took a course brochure. I’m pretty sure that Drug Design and Development will be one of my majors. Nanotechnology is a favorite for second choice, but I’m keeping my options open. I had a talk with one of the staff, who set me up for an appointment with the enrolment advisor on Thursday morning. I almost panicked as I had left the FsAPP timetable in my room, but I accepted the appointment anyway. It turned out to have no real consequence as I had planned for the last event of the FsAPP, which is the campus tour, to end by 10.30am. My appointment with the enrolment advisor is at 11.30am. The only thing is that I would probably miss out on the special lunch promised by Miss Saunders. Then again, to forgo that “special” lunch in order to choose my modules and plan my timetable is definitely a worth-while sacrifice.

Having settled yet another issue, I made my way down to the computer lab, which was the venue for the presentation. I had a talk with a student, who was apparently the in-charge for the day. He said that due to the poor attendance, they had not been conducting any presentations for the past couple of days. The program will also be running until the second or third week, so it was a huge relief, as it turns out that I would have to talk to the enrolment advisor prior to planning my timetable, which was the purpose of the sign-on presentation.

Internet Connection
It was almost 2.15pm when I returned to my room, so I started on this entry. Besides, my appointment with Father Howard was scheduled at 3pm, so I took the time to rest.

Just after 3pm, I made my way to Father Howard’s office, and just in time, for he was just about to step out.

He quickly printed an instruction sheet and told me to set up the internet connection as directed. Out of curiosity, I asked what the monthly download quota was. His answer - 150MB. Like, who survives on 150MB these days? He even said that it was common for students to consume the 150MB quickly, and if I wanted, I could purchase a $10 card from UQ connect (refer below for location) and I’d have an additional 1GB at my disposal. Seriously, since you know 150MB isn’t going to be enough, surely you could offer the students more? Even Lisa is getting 3GB per month at Melbourne!

So, assuming that I would be on a wireless connection, I returned to my room and tried to set the internet connection up. Zilch. After countless attempts, I returned to the office. My intention then was to provide feedback to Maureen, but I bumped into Father Howard instead, so I raised the problem to him. Apparently, I was supposed to purchase a 2 meter cable from UQ Connect, which is a turn before Commonwealth Bank.

So just like I did in the morning, I had to scale Mount Everest - and all for a 2 meter cable. Purchased it for $5.50, and seeing that it was almost 4pm, I decided to take my chances and walk to St. Lucia Village - without a map! I needed to get ‘em groceries, if not dinner and breakfast was going to be bread again.

St. Lucia Village
Surprisingly, I managed to find St. Lucia Village with relative ease. I didn’t get lost, though I nearly made a wrong turn. The only proper map I had then was that of UQ, and the roads did not have any signs leading up to St. Lucia, so I was naturally apprehensive when I set off from UQ Connect. All I had were verbal instructions from Maureen - a giant mush of “left”s and “right”s.

So, to cut a long story short, I recognized certain roads from the post-shopping drive on Saturday evening. When I spotted the main UQ buildings, I turned into Hawken Drive, which was a long stretch of residences. On the way, I made one key observation which led me to conclude that I was on the right track. I passed the occasional student with a bag of groceries in hand, so I felt comforted. Even if St. Lucia Village wasn’t up ahead, at least there was a place where I could purchase groceries.

As mentioned in one of the earlier entries, certain parts of Brisbane are very hilly. As I neared a downward incline, I inwardly let out a whoop of joy. Subway came into view, with Coles just further down.

St. Lucia Village was right before my eyes.


St. Lucia Village

At Coles. A 20 minute walk can leave one sweaty…

It was almost 4.20pm, so time was of the essence. Since I still had bread, I purchased spreads - butter, strawberry jam, cheese spread and cheese slices. I wanted to have more options, so I purchased a box of chicken caesar’s salad, thousand island dressing, bite-sized biscuits, a cup of instant noodles (Sham said instant noodles in Australia are not fantastic, so I thought I’d try one before I buy in bulk), cereal, milk (highly-recommended by Sham), grapes, orange juice and something the older brother would love - chewing gum. I contemplated purchasing a box of instant cheeseburgers and a pizza, but I haven’t figured out the oven in my flat, so I decided against it.


I finally have the luxury of having to make a choice. What shall I have for breakfast tomorrow? Cereal (oats)? Sandwiches and hot milo?



The Chicken Caesar’s Salad could be on tomorrow’s dinner menu…

Seedless grapes! Plus the orange Uncle Brian’s wife gave me after the CNY dinner.

I didn’t feel very bread-y or salad-y, so I walked across the road to a Vietnamese and Chinese restaurant and ordered something to take away - fried rice for $5.00. I was getting hungry, especially since I was amongst half a street’s worth of restaurants, but I knew that Brisbane in the evening is unlike Singapore, so once again, I had to make tiny sacrifices.


Dinner!

The walk back home was excruciating on the hands and back. The hands because I was carrying at least half a week’s worth of (mostly) breakfast, and the back because I was carrying my sling bag (you’ll never know when you’ll need ‘em personal documents).

By the time I got back, I was sweaty, my hands sore. Finally saw my other neighbor. No introductions, though we did exchange pleasantries, as I was in a rush to get the groceries in.

In between two calls from the Dad, I ate dinner. The fried rice was actually not bad - it was gooey - similar to glutinous rice, but other than that, it was great. I’m guessing the reason it tasted great was because the guy put in a month’s worth of cooking oil. Washed the box - it’s going to be a lunch box for future packed lunches.

The time now is 9.20pm. I’m ready for bed, just waiting for the calls to come in.

The plan for tomorrow is to find Father Howard during whatever spare time I can afford. I just hope that he’s not the busy man that he was today. And here’s some points for all at home to note:

Most stores in Brisbane close at 5pm daily, but if you want to do night shopping, Coles is an option. I’m not sure about those in the City, but the store in St. Lucia Village opens all the way until 9pm from Mondays to Fridays, and closes at 5pm and 6pm on Saturdays and Sundays respectively. Oh, and get a car, or at least find a friend who drives, especially if you intend to do night shopping.

When you‘re still in Singapore, do as much shopping as you can. Even if you don’t intend to, just stay out and walk around the shopping malls - obviously before the shops close. Once you’re in Australia, you’ll definitely miss all these, especially in times of need. And don’t ever take the MRT or bus for granted. We don’t have a train system. We don’t even have trams, unlike certain states like Melbourne. And buses? They’re punctual, but if you miss one, be prepared to wait. And, the route cards at the bus stop are pretty useless, unless you’ve been in Australia for a fair bit of time.

Should you plan on getting a bicycle, make sure your surroundings are not plastered with steep inclines. Going down isn’t an issue. Going up is. Even in the City, the roads are insane.

Rain in Brisbane is unlike rain in Singapore. Whenever it drizzles in Singapore, chances are a heavy downpour would follow. If not, the rain comes in intervals. In Brisbane, when it drizzles, it really drizzles. It was drizzling all day today. I was worried that the clouds may suddenly open, but that only happens in equatorial places like Singapore - I think.