Culture disbelief

Monday morning. 8am. Cold, gusty winds. (Still no snow yet?) Wraps jacket tightly around myself. Forgotten to bring scarf. Nyeh. Reaches my lecture theatre (Quad 2). Goes up stairs. Sees Critic (weekly student magazine) on side table. Glances at it. Cover of Critic shows a huge hand-drawn penis, with "Men's issue" written ON it. Goes "Errr. o-kay." Glances away. (If you really wanna see the front cover, click this. Only if you're above 18!).

Walks into lecture theatre. Sees Ron, sits next to him. He looks even more groggier than I am. Guest lecturer walks in and introduces herself. Scottish accent! Gah, darn annoying. Pays extra attention and scribbles notes furiously while trying to pick up one of the world's hardest to understand accents. 50 mins over. Phew. Walks past table with Critic magazines again. Ron looks at me, I look at him, we laugh, thinking "How much more pathetic can this get?"

I'm quite open-minded. I think. Being here for more than a year now has made me immune to these kind of stuff. Yet, sometimes there are still happenings that made me go "Ew. Gross". Sometimes too much is just too much. For example, when I first arrived at Studholme Hall and came into my room, there was an orientation pack on the bed. Inside was a study calender, student handbook, orientation parties info, lollies, a magazine with condoms drawn on it, and (why am I not surprised) 2 Durex condoms. My flatmates had enough humour to fill the condoms with shampoo and hang them on my doorknob. Of course la I threw them away, but who knows what the cleaner might think when she emptied my rubbish the following day...

Another incident that made me wonder what the heck are the Kiwis thinking is the mayhem at Castle Street on Saturday night. What happened was around 400 drunk and extremely drunk students threw beer bottles and set couches on fire on the street, and the police had to arrest 30 students for their quote: "disorderly behaviour". Normally you would only see these kind of so called riots happening in the middle east, but believe it or not, this is a common sighting in Dunedin. (More info?)

Further examples protraying the seemingly weird lifestyle of NZ uni students:

• Few weeks ago, when the world cup was still on: A drunk guy in our hall peed in the dining room. Eww, right?
• Boobs on Bikes parade in Auckland. Read?
• Stealing supermarket trollies is regarded as a heroic act.
• Drunk? Let's steal those road/street signs! Even better, bring them home and hang it somewhere in your room.
• Running for Health Science rep next year? Get a Baywatch video with Hasselholf in it, then using your incredible graphic skills, put yourself in the movie itself. Remember not to have any tan at all. Brilliant!
• Running for women's rep? Not to worry. Stick posters saying "Do you pee sitting down? I do too! We have so much in common, that's why you should vote for me!" and "Do you do stuff? Me too! Vote for XXX!" in the women's toilets. Simple as pie.

And a whole lot more unmentionable examples.

Of course, there are many relatively NORMAL students in Otago too. So what are you waiting for? Come study in the University of Otago, when normal isn't normal at all.