Had an OK first week at Uni

No, I'm not going to LJ-cut this, as I want you to read it as well. :P

This first week of university I've been having is the Induction week, where we freshers are introduced to all the available services and what we do in our chosen courses. If I haven't already mentioned, I'm doing the BSc (Hons) in Computer Games Programming. So far, we've had talks in our lecture theatre about the usual stuff (services, activities, safety regulations, etc.), we were given a small challenge whereby we were split into small teams and we had to build a bridge made primarily out of straws that could withstand a model car, and yesterday there was a Freshers' Fayre at the Huddersfield Sports Centre, which primarily involved petitions and applications for things such as various activities, possible prize draws, possession insurance, retail discounts and methods of "skintness evasion" (i.e. preventing yourself from wasting your money). Other highlights included a karaoke singer, two people on stilts and people practising juggling, but one thing that really caught my attention was two dudes dressed up in animal costumes, but they didn't have the heads on at the time. I could've taken a few pics of them, but I forgot to take my camera. D'oh! Anyway, if you want to know, one was supposedly dressed as a lion and the other as a kangaroo. They were most likely acting as mascots for one of the nearby stands/booths in the usual attempt to draw all the customers (especially the kiddies) they wanted, and when I was there, their shifts were probably already over, even though they were still hanging around. (Come to think of it, I do recall seeing a few Madagascar posters at one of the stands. It must've been theirs)

Also yesterday, a very strange incident occured. Some complete stranger came up to me whilst I was looking for the sports centre, and he asked to borrow as much money off me as possible, for the mere purpose of bus and train fares. At least, I think he's a stranger, unless he recognises me from somewhere previously, but I seriously don't remember ever meeting him before. By the sounds of it, he was pretty desperate (and for all I know, he probably isn't a Huddersfield local, though I wasn't paying attention to things like that), and I ended up lending him £85 which, in hindsight, was a bit too much, considering I don't know him, and he only needed money for travel fares. He said that he'd get payed today for whatever he works in, and out of his £300 wage, he'd give me £100 back, so I'd end up with a £15 profit. I didn't understand what he said about where to meet up, but I assumed he meant the entrance to the university, and at something like 12:30 p.m. today, so we agreed and parted. Then, today I was at least somewhere within the entrance, pretty much at the allocated time, but to my sheer disappointment he didn't show up. He either forgot about it, thought that I was at some other part of the entrance or somewhere in town, or simply got away with not giving me my money back. So now I'm £85 worse off, all because I was being a good soul and helping someone in need. It's a shame, really - he came across as being quite friendly as well. He even showed me how to get to the sports centre from where we were walking.

However, all is not lost. I'm not completely mad at myself for this misfortune. For a start, I found a £1 coin on one of the buses I took to Huddersfield, but then of course, it's only £1, and that means I've still got another £84 to scrounge. Not to worry, though. I've got a few, shall we say, plans to replenish the money I lost. They include the following:

- If I have any time left at Huddersfield tomorrow, I'll see if I can try and find that guy (provided I can recognise him amongst all the other townsfolk) and remind him about our little wager...and hope for the best that he has the £100 on him. Chances of this happening are quite risky, though. He could be anywhere and I doubt that anyone would carry that much money around with them anyway (OK, so I carried £95 with me, £10 of which I have left, but I can learn for my mistakes. Trust me).
- If the above plan fails, I could always go to Ladbrokes and bet the £10 I have left on a racer with the odds of 10-to-1 (I don't know whether they bet on horses and race cars, or just horses). Either that, or I bet a safe amount of money on whoever has the best odds, and I slowly build up my winnings until I reach £100+.

I don't want to withdraw any money from my back account at the moment because I'm expecting Barclays to change my current account to a student account (which might invlove adding a substantial amount of money to my account but I don't know for sure), and I want to play it safe by not meddling with my account until it's been changed. I did have another plan in mind a few minutes ago, but I've forgotton it now. Rest assured, I won't let this thought of losing all that money escape my brain until I've got that amount (or between £85 and £100) back from whatever means I happen to use.

That's all for that "strange incident". Back onto the main topic. It's been OK so far. I was a bit worried about this morning, though, because the traffic was going ever so slowly. I was to be there by 10:00, but I ended up getting there a few minutes afterwards, and even then I was confused by what was on the induction timetable. Luckily, there was another fresher who was in a similar situation, and I basically followed him in the right direction since I found that to be the safest way to get round things. In the afternoon, I tried to find where all the freshers had to go for this health centre event, but to no avail. It probably doesn't matter, since the only people who would need this health centre would be locals and those who live on campus, and I'm neither of those. Needless to say, you have to register for it.

That brings us to now. Tomorrow is optional, but I've been told that those doing computer games-related degrees get to do a bit of free gaming. I'm so there! (EDIT: I've actually heard that we find out our timetables on Monday at 11:30, but we need to be in by 9:15)

Finally, that's this post finished. Let me know what you think. :)