>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 2 – September 23, 2002
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.