Tuesday was the day to put the training we had been through into practice, as we would be taking our groups of 1st year students on a tour around uni.
I had to get to uni at about 7.30am, which meant catching the bus at 6.30am, the earliest I'd ever caught a bus into the city! When I got there we all had to meet up in the Library Basement Lecture Theatre. We were given our Uniguide t-shirts, caps, stickers, cards, bags and other stuff.
We then made our way out to stand by our banners outside near where the powhiri for the first year students was going on. It started to spit, so we tried sheltering under what little shelter we could find. Once the powhiri was over though, we lined up along the driveway near the marae and started calling out for students who would be studying in our faculty, the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences!
There were a few who came over to us. Most were health science students, while there a handful of pharmacy students and some nursing students. We lead them all to one of the Business School lecture theatres where they sat through an introduction lecture, which we had to introduce ourselves!
Once that was all done, we were assigned our groups. I was given six people and lead them outside to the couches where I got them to sit together and sign a registration form. I initially asked them to turn to the person sitting next to them (they were all sitting in groups of two) and get to know the other person in two minutes. I would then get them to introduce the person beside them. Well...each pair seemed to know each other except for one pair, so they ended up introducing themselves! That was fair enough.
I was looking at the registration form though when I recognised one of the names of the guys in my group, and realised he plays the accordion! He's one of my accordion rivals! What a coincidence!
A 'special event' was about to start at 11am with 15 minutes to go, so I led them to the Maidment Theatre where it was held and showed them to their seatsi inside the theatre. The 'special event' was this guy who presented a lecture on making sure you balance your uni life, don't drink and drive, make sure you get help when you're down or lonely and don't turn to booze, don't drink and have sex....you get the picture! Well for a start, he started over half an hour late, at about 12pm and it finished at nearly 1pm which was when we were supposed to finish our tour! I was sitting through it constantly checking the time and hoping he'd wrap it up soon!
When it was finally over, we were told we were allowed to run our tour till 1.30pm, so I led my group around the Info Commons, all the way to the Clock Tower, the chapel and back to the General Library where the tour ended. By then it was 2pm and most Uniguides had left the Library Basement Theatre, where we were supposed to meet afterwards. They were already at the Function Room and by goly there was so much food! It was so depressing that I couldn't eat much of it! I just took a few things that I could put in my bag ;)
I soon left to power-walk to Grafton for a meeting regarding helping out with Orientation on Friday. I had to do a take-two after I was halfway there when I realised I left my ID card and the badge necklace thingy in the Function Room!
It was pretty cool being a Uniguide though and helping others out. It was a little funny how I'd have random people come up to me to ask me for help. I had some older woman ask me where the nearest restaurant was (I misunderstood and thought she said restroom!), a man who asked me where a lecture theatre was, and a couple girls asking me where I got my bag from! My Uniguide t-shirt was like a people magnet! (Yes yes I know how geeky that sounds!)
I've organised for my group to meet up again next week, I'm not exactly sure when, now that some can't make it to the time I told them to. I have to meet them each week for the next three weeks just to check they're all doing OK. Hopefully they are!
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