Adelaide & Flinders Uni elections...

2nd September 2005

Adelaide Uni has always been a tough university for us in getting international student representation and obtaining NUS delegates. Nevertheless, this year we actually managed to get a good team together. They spent quite a bit of time organising their campaign under my guidance and chose to run under the same banner that we at UniSA won the elections with last year. There wasn't much that they could do in terms of securing positions via negotiations because, being new, the other factions didn't acknowledge them as yet. Anyways, they encountered hostility even before the elections when they were putting up posters. Despite that, they kept their cool and managed to keep their focus on the task at hand.

It is very childish for a bigger faction to bully a smaller, newly formed faction. You tend to wonder what they are so insecure about. When new factions in UniSA form and approach me I ensure that I give them as much advice as they need. After all, it's just an election! It's not like their whole career will be gone if they don't win with a landslide victory. Shameful! Some people want to be involved in student representation to actually make a positive difference you idiots! You can milk your student organisation it for all its worth but let others who have genuine interests in representing student needs be involved as well.

Anyways, our Adelaide Uni team managed to campaign reasonably well (so I heard) for the entire week. The results were a slight disappointment though. Our biggest target was to obtain an NUS delegate. Our candidate only managed to obtain 9th place out of the 6 available. Regardless, we were able to obtain representation on the Union Board and the Students Association Council. Well, we didn't get everything we want but you did a good job people! It's always good to see people who are enthusiastic about being involved in student representation. There's always a next time. We'll just have to work towards it!

9th September 2005

Our team in Flinders Uni has also not been that strong despite our NLC South Australia leaders hailing from this university. Nevertheless our Flinders team has always managed to obtain 1 NUS delegate. I'm not too sure how the campaign fared as I was not there for their elections. After the week of campaigning, they went away with an NUS delegate and representation on Union Board if I recall. Pretty good show I must say.

Well, 2 out of the 3 universities in SA have finished with their elections. One more to go. UniSA: my home ground. It's going to be a war this year. We'll have to do our best to get something out of it. Let the games begin...

21...

30th & 31st July 2005

My birthday is on the 31st of July. This year, it fell on a Sunday. Since it was difficult to get people to come out for a celebration on a Sunday, my friends decided to celebrate it on the Saturday night. I woke up late on Saturday morning and had to attend a caucus meeting. Elections weren't far away so although the timing of the meeting wasn't perfect, I had to hold it. I got a call later in the afternoon and was asked to meet everyone at Cafe Buongiorno on Rundle St. Being the demanding person I was, I had asked a couple of days before that my NLC friends would be invited as I have been spending so much time with all of them since I started getting heavily involved in student representation at my university. Anyways, when the time came, I headed down to the venue and lo and behold, a long table with a whole bunch of my friends greeted me. I'm not a fussy guy when it comes to birthdays and I've never really had big celebrations in the past. In fact, I have never been exceptionally excited about birthdays as I see it as just another day albeit being one year older. However, I have to admit that the scene that greeted me on the day was very touching. It didn't matter that some of those I wanted to see weren't there. The important thing was that so many of them were there. In total there were slightly less than 30 present.

That was only the start of the pleasant surprises. I headed to the counter to look at the list of specials and saw that Chicken Parmigiana was on the menu! Normally they only have the veal version which I don't really like. Dinner was excellent but what came next was better. An ice cream cake! What more could one ask for? I can't remember what the flavours were but it's cool because everyone knows I love ice cream and chocolate. After having my face shoved into the cake as per tradition, we all indulged in the Cold Rock specialty. Next came present time.

I was presented with a present shaped like a book amid giggles from those around me. Opening the first wrapper merely brought me to another wrapper. This continued for quite a while. I thought it was just for fun and that the actual present would be much smaller than it first seemed. Eventually I reached the end. It was The Godfather box set!!! I always wanted that! It pays to point out what you really want in a shop in front of your friends no? Just kidding! I was really grateful for the present. It would have cost close to $100. I was also given a small little box from two gals which later turned out to be a cross shaped Playboy necklace (what the?). The guys had another present which was so obviously a bottle of alcohol. I just had to guess which one. I opened it much later to find that it was a bottle of Bacardi 151. That would have cost a lot too.

We moved on from the cafe to the Belgian Beer Bar. The bouncer was being a prick because he wanted ID from everyone and wouldn't accept the ISIC card which most of them had. After some negotiation he went in to ask his boss who "let us off this time". After a couple of drinks we shifted to Piatto. All the while our numbers were progressively being whittled down as some had to leave early. There we had a few drinks and some finger food. It was here that the clock struck midnight and I was given an official welcome into my 21st year of life with a Happy Birthday song again. Most of us were still game to hang out so we proceeded to the Mansions. One of the guys was wearing shorts so I had to take him back to my place and loan him a pair of cargo pants. We still couldn't get in because the place didn't accept the ISIC card. We then followed a suggestion and headed off to Red Square. Again they didn't accept the ISIC card. By then most of us were getting frustrated and we made an ultimatum that if the next place we went didn't accept the ISIC card, we would call it a night. We headed to a place beside Light Square called Tonic and finally got everyone in. It was a typical nightclub and we spent the rest of the night dancing and drinking as you would in a club. We finally left when one of us had a little too much to drink and later caused a small scene for us. Nevertheless it did not detract at all from the great night I had. I got up late on my birthday and spent the rest of the day recuperating at home.

Well, there it is. My wonderful and memorable 21st! A big thank you to everyone who celebrated my birthday with me, even those of you who weren't able to come. Thanks also to those who sent me text messages and to an NLC friend from Perth who sent me a card and souvenir. It was definitely one of my best birthdays and I have all of you to thank.

Time flies...

As you may have noticed, I haven't posted in my blog for more than a month. Almost two in fact. I kind of miss this place. Why have I been gone for so long? Well, the matters of this world have been keeping me occupied and whenever I have enough free time, I do other things rather than blog. Sometimes you have a lot to say but just don't have the motivation to pen it down. Anyways, now that it's the holidays, I might as well take some time and reminisce about the time between my last post and now. The next bunch of blog entries will be back-dated. Now all you have to do is sit back and enjoy the show...