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Here we go again, another fun weekend of doing no homework and
partying way too much. Good to see my tuition money's been going to
good use. Now, on with the show. Here's what happened:
-Everyone is sick. Disease spreads
through the dorms like wildfire. For the first time, I'm glad I don't
live in residence. One guy came down with strep throat, the next thing
you know half the dorm's got mono and the other half has West Nile
disease. What the hell? Are they all just making out in there when I'm
not around? The 4 people in the university who are still in good health
are walking around with gas masks. Unbelievable.
-I'm happy to report that I'm still in
perfect health. For everyone in university who wants to know my secret,
here's a two-pronged solution to physical and emotional well-being:
Prong 1: A glass of orange juice every morning (not to suggest that I
actually own any juice, but I've made a habit of going to breakfast at
one girl's house and stealing her food). Prong 2: Don't make out with
the guy in the dorms who has strep throat, mono and/or West Nile
disease. Good advice any day of the week.
-More good news: I have yet to skip a
single class. There was one close call early in the week. I had an early
class (2:30pm) and I woke up a half hour before class started. I said to
myself: "I should just skip class. It's not like we ever do anything
anyway. It's just theatre history." Then I thought about all the money I
paid to come out here, and I dashed off to class. Sure, I didn't shave
or shower or put on clean clothes or eat anything or remember to bring
my textbook or a pen, but gosh darn it, I made it in the nick of time. I
smelled so bad the people beside me had to change seats. Also, we didn't
do anything. Big freaking surprise.
-What the hell does "the nick of time"
mean? I assume that there was a guy named Nick who was always on time
(or maybe he was never on time, either way works). But why does he get
an expression coined after him? Why not "in the Herman of time"? I know
a guy named Herman, and he's always on time. I don't know how the hell
he wakes up early enough to get to a 2:30 class.
-I am officially the only person in the
university to not have a cell phone. I think I should get a plaque or
something. True story: I needed to make a call, so I asked someone where
I could find a pay phone. He gives me this look of concern and says
without irony: "Why? What happened to your cell?" Of course, I told him
I had to sell it to help pay for my sister's operation, so he let me use
his.
-When you're 20 years old and surrounded
by 1st year university kids in B.C., going out is a lot like being a
parent and taking your kids to the zoo. First of all, it takes 5 people
3 and a half hours to get organized. When we finally leave, somebody
inevitable remembers that they "forgot" their ID. What the hell? Ever
hear of a wallet?
-Then, of course, you're standing in line
to get into the "hot" club and everyone's freezing their ass off because
they "forgot" a jacket and complaining that the lineup is so long
because it took us 3 and a half hours to get ready and they're all
worried that their ID isn't going to be good enough to get them in. I'm
like: "It's a FAKE ID. It's not SUPPOSED to be good enough to get you
in." Meanwhile, I've got my real ID in my wallet and I'm like "Gosh, I
hope I get in. Being 20 years old kind of ruins the suspense."
-True story: My friend Eve got a new ID,
but she was afraid that it wouldn't work and the lineup was an hour and
a half long and she didn't want to waste her time. So as we were
standing in line I walked up to the bouncer and said to him: "Listen, my
friend over there isn't 19 and she doesn't want to waste her time in
line, so I was just wondering if you're actually going to let her in
with a fake ID or if we should just leave now." Eve was pissed that I
embarrassed her, but we all got in.
-True story #2: My friend Joanna lost her
ID (because she doesn't own a wallet, apparently), so she went up to a
bouncer who wasn't busy and asked to buy an ID he had confiscated from
someone else. I'm like: "If this bouncer went through the trouble of
confiscating someone's fake ID, what the hell makes you think he's going
to turn around and sell it? He's obviously an upstanding citizen." Well,
turns out there's no justice in the world, since he parted with one for
$20. I don't know the exact details, but apparently the next day that
same bouncer had mono.
-More on there being no justice in the
world: We were standing in line at a club (we spend way more time
standing in line outside clubs whining about how long the lines are than
we do inside the clubs, which is probably good because the clubs
themselves really bite) and I noticed an interesting phenomenon:
Bouncers would walk up and down the lines and pick out attractive girls
and escort them right in. So what you were left with was 200 angry drunk
guys with mono jostling to get in to a crappy bar while all the
attractive underage girls got in with fake ID. If I ever go on a
shooting spree you'll know why.
-The buses here stop running at midnight
every night. Cabs can pretty well charge whatever they want after that
time, because they know you're not getting home any other way. Being the
only one of my friends who owns a wallet, I always end up paying the
parasites their cab fare (when I think about it, how do my friends end
up with drinks at the bar? I'm pretty sure they don't accept fake ID as
payment). My friends are always like "I'll pay you back for the cab fare
tomorrow morning, I swear!" They owe me $11,000 so far.
-One afternoon I had a 3 hour break
between my morning and afternoon classes, so my friend Arthur and I got
randomly drunk at 11:00am. 5 minutes before my class starts, I'm
teetering to the bathroom and falling over backwards, and then I
remember where I'm supposed to be. So we stagger up the giant hill to
the school, Arthur pausing along the way to throw up, and basically
making giant hobos of ourselves. But the important thing is that I
didn't miss class.
-Before I left, everyone kept telling me
about all the rain on the west coast. I haven't seen a drop of rain
since I got here. I'm afraid that at any moment this place is going to
turn into North Vietnam and it'll rain for weeks and weeks. Also, the
gunfire might get unpleasant.
-Now playing: In the spirit of B.C.'s
apocryphal weather - "It Can't Rain All The Time" by Jane Siberry. Buy
the CD. Download the mp3. Collect the vinyl record and minidisc. See if
I care.
-The university was built around a road
shaped like a ring (called, for no apparent reason, "Ring Road").
Theoretically, this makes it so every building in the university is
close to every other building. In actuality, all it does is ensures that
nobody knows where anything is. You need a friggin' compass to find your
way. You look at a map shaped like a ring (NOT called a "Ring Map") and
you realize it's impossible to orient yourself (the fact that I'm
usually looking at the map drunk doesn't help). So you ask someone for
directions. They invariably say something like: "Take a left at the end
of the ring road." Are you kidding me? You must be in my math class.
Remedial math for dummies.
-A friend of mine named Steven got really
drunk the other night. He doesn't look like the type who would drink, so
he gets my nomination for Intoxicated Quote of the Moment: "Claire, I
wanna go to a (slurred expletive deleted) nightclub. Can I borrow your
fake ID?"
-And, finally, we went to a keg party
Saturday night. Apparently, you could hear it from the university... We
had 400 people in the house (and on the lawn, and on the street, and on
the neighbour's lawns). The cops came by 5 times before they finally
broke it up. I know this is going to sound biased, but it was the
greatest party in history. Only problem is, now I'm on a first name
basis with Victoria police and I'll probably wake up with mono.
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