Its Freshers Week again. Tell stories of your first week at university here

I was a fresher's helper in the second year, and that was ace. I got pished with Curiosity Killed the Cat who gave me a pineapple (I have no idea why), snogged a lot of impressionable freshers, fell in love about five times, woke up in strange places with huge blanks in my memory far too often, and generally had bucketloads of fun. I can't remember anyone I met on either of those years remaining friends. Possibly because the first year I was shy and boring and the second year I was an obnoxious drunken slob.

The first person I remember meeting and liking was Nei1 R0berts0n, now manager of Belle and Sebastian.

Lowlight of my own fresher's week: too much boxed white wine at a dramasoc party leading to me snogging the official Ugliest Man On Campus (and a pervy THIRD year at that). Subsequent heroic vomiting including during my very first seminar.

Other lowlight: sudden epiphany/fear that I was NEVER going to fit in with these people and didn't want to, while at a poster sale (unsurprisingly).

Highlight: soooo much cheap booze! So many deep and meaningful conversations! No parents! Own room! Own shopping responsibility (although in fact I lived off Marmite sandwiches in my room for most of the week). Ducks! A new city to explore!

Sheesh, is a theme developing now? I never remember beginnings, only endings.

i had a great week. lots of drinking and house parties and dancing and a boat cruise and silly games and general mayhem. most of which took place while i was in coveralls (we wore them all through our 'frosh week' as it was called in canadaland). i even kissed a couple of girls.

my posters on my residence wall?
-new order (blue with yellow leaf)
-joy division (love will tear us apart - statue)
-depeche mode (101)
-the smiths (the queen is dead)
the year was 1989 by the way...

'Entertainment'-wise that week I was uh, priviledged to see -in no particular order- Roachford, Transvision Vamp and Julian Clary w/ Fanny the Wonder Dog. Passed up a ticket for Doolittle-era Pixies to go to the Ball where the Men They Couldn't Hang played and I got my glasses smashed-up and my face squished-in among the whirling throng. Walked all the way across Manchester by myself in the rain to see Thin White Rope play, only to find it had been cancelled and I had to walk all the way back home again. Yep, a throroughly dismal week.

Mind you... that was the year that they went to England for the summer, leaving me alone with the house, the car, and several hundred dollars which I promptly spent on drugs and booze. No WONDER I can't remember the first week at University.

I just remember my parents coming home and wondering how I managed to nearly wreck the front axle of the car...

The university had been overfilled with freshers and there were people (I shit you not) being given makeshift rooms in stationary cupboards. Somehow, miraculously, I got one of the few single rooms. It was like gold dust and made me feel better about watching the comically mismatched roommates bitching about each other. It all felt very Brideshead Revistited, possibly because half the people there were swanning around pretending to be in Brideshead Revisited.

I didn't click properly with anyone really other than a group of people in the furthest hall away from me (about half an hour's walk across campus) and we hung out and talked about which indie records we were into (this was 1997, they were almost without exception rubbish). I bought Urban Hymns and a Trainspotting poster. This shames me more than everything that will follow.

Then we drank several bottles of wine and went to the Fresher's party. I watched in polite horror as a rugby player drank a pint of his own urine. The nicest of the girls talked to me almost exclusively all night, but because I didn't know what to do with a girl then I completely failed to read the signals (like having her hand on the inside of my leg). We walked back together to a non-existant party. I saw her precisely twice over the next year.

The following week I drank far too much free bouze before the poncy Fresher's Ball and woke up in a hedge with vomit all over my new dinner suit. It took me three days to ascertain whether or not I had actually made it into the ball in the first place. I should've known I was setting myself up for 14 months of misery after that.

Last month I bumped into two of the people I met on that first day. They are now fully-fledged City boys. We went for a drink. One of them pointed at two African women in traditional dress and said "they look very 'exotic', don't they?" I don't regret leaving for a second.

Also, the freshers' helper people with their happy happy "come on! Let's go! Yeah!" attitude were DUD DUD DUD

While we got on very well (entirely platonically), I ended the first week feeling I hadn't actually bonded with anyone apart from her. It turned out to be an unnecessary worry, by and large, but I remember the emptiness well.

(Posters: Surfer Rosa, Mudhoney, The Orb all bought from the poster sale. It got a bit more personal over the next few weeks and months, but then it felt pretty much like an obligatory uniform)

I was the very antithesis of this when I was a freshers' helper. I was more "nah, don't bother with that, I can show you where the pubs are, you handsome young boy, mwahahahahah".

In that first week, I felt like THE MAN. I knew where all the good pubs and bars were, I knew my way around the town, I sat there flirting with student barmaids who I'd known anyway for six months and the other Fresher's didn't know any better. In retrospect this gave me an artificial air of confidence that propelled me through the next couple of years. Girls admitted to fancying me! We played pool until 4am and hung out at a mini rave in the woods. It was like everything I'd dreamed about since I was about 13. I borrowed lots of Warp albums to impress people and hid Urban Hymns in a draw. I also danced up on stage with my gay best friend and the Weather Girls. He maintains that was the pinnacle of his life.

I still didn't get on with my corridor mates - only two of 'em, both utterly dull, self-obsessed, closet Tories with major social problems. But one of them copped off with a girl upstairs and we hung out with their corridor a lot (about eight of them), and they were fantastic. Two of them are still close friends of mine to this day. The new 'couple' had split up within weeks, and that was where the battle lines were drawn for the next two years.

Thinking back, I met all my closest university friends a year later, but that week still stands out as a pretty amazing one.

I guess that sums up my entire attitude to people in my college.

i forgot that i spent a night with my 'gael' (the university is very scottish-themed: frosh group leaders are called 'gaels', university songs are sung in gaelic, even the sports teams are called the 'golden gaels'. go figure.). there was no sex but it was a good night of grope'n'tickle at her house. all of this was pretty exciting and seemed so 'grown-up' to me, considering my love life prior to this was pretty much non-existent. anyway our frosh group sussed the rendez-vous between me and our 'leader' and were shocked since she was pegged as a real brittle A-type personality goodie-two-shoes sort. i was kinda a hero too for whatever reason.

Its just occurred to me that the key to my future is to walk into the next party I go to and pretend that its Fresher's Week 1999 and that my happiness over the next three years depends on making friends with as many of them as possible.

Music collection mostly consisting of pre-Britpop indie. Pixies, Curve, Ride, Pulp among the faves I think. I had a huge Ned's Atomic Dustbin poster on my wall. Those were the days.

matt, why are you so obsessed about this?

(xpost to carsmile)

i was embarrassed and didnt want to um, disturb them, i wound up going to clean the bathroom. [i am sure there is tons of psychoanalysis to be had there] she came into the bathroom and said, "its OK, my parents watch us all the time" and all i could think was "OMGWTF?!" but declined anyway.

needless to say i did not last in that room for very long.

day 1 met up with a pretty waiflike indie-girl at the first days freshers thing.

day 2 Met her at an Indie night the next day and danced to the indie hits of the day.

day 3 Took her out the next night to see Pulp wowed her by taking her to the aftershow party

(thought it would all last forever)

day 4 we met up to go and see the Chemical Brothers after about an hour she felt ill and collapsed. I took her home and put her to bed spent the night on the floor and looked after her, next day she went back to her halls,

day 6 She broke up with me, spent most of the day in my room listening to Mellow Doubt (felt so very alone). Went out in the evening, got drunk, hooked up with another waif-like indie girl.

My side of the dorm room was covered in posters, mostly Smashing Pumpkins and Pixies, with a dash of Veruca Salt and Garbage. My roommate (who kept on with me all 4 years) was very stoic and had nothing on the walls, no decorations anywhere. So her side of the room was like a jail (we had cinderblock walls).

i'm pretty certain i bought slanted and enchanted on my first week at college.

i remember the saturday of the freshers ball, walking back to my digs (with a marvellous family who had 6 kids anyway, so i was just treated like the rest, except i was allowed to get pissed and stay out 'til 2 in the morning), in the rain, thoroughly miserable, having received letters (them were the days etc) from my school friends and feeling a bit homesick. anyway, i got myself smartened up (eg white t-shirt and black jeans rather than band t-shirt and blue jeans) and ended up having a marvellous time realising htat in fact i did know quite a lot of people and most of them seemed quite nice (well, that and the ice dragon at a quid a bottle).

(ailsa, i'm a year younger than you, which do you think ;))

The first thing I did in hall was set up my stereo and put some music on to show that, hey I was a fun guy, come and meet me. Unfortunately the first record to hand was a Cockney Rejects album and someone asked me to turn it down quite abruptly. At dinner I met a lot of people who were doing things like Land Management and Quantity Surveying. They were all called Crispin and I didn't like them. The first person I met who was doing a course I recognized was a guy with long hair and huge sideburns who was doing English. I didn't like him much, but I was impressed enough by his knowledge of reggae and Chelsea FC. He was my best man when I got married and is still my closest friend. Sitting opposite was a guy from Cornwall who looked terrified and mad. I was impressed that he had brought a drum kit with him. We formed a band a couple of weeks later and we are still in a bloody band together (not the same one!). Next gig this Friday!

The Fresher's Disco followed. I chatted up a nice girl from Wimbledon with aubergine hair, called Liz, Zoe from Manchester. Nowt happened. I met a lovely girl in the bar who chatted ME up. I spent most of the next three years chasing around after her making an idiot of myself, and she's still a mate.

I joined the Rugby Club at Freshers Fair and discovered that all the Crispins and Jeremy's had joined too.

I also liked high school, and was immediately nostalgic for it. I was looking forward to meeting all sorts of new, interesting people at college, and when that didn't happen right away, I got depressed. (There was one night during orientation week when I sat in a dorm room with a bunch of rich kids from the Detroit suburbs listening to Barenaked Ladies.) I eventually came to be friends with some girls who lived next door to me, but it wasn't actually for a few months that I really felt happy there.

I don't think I had any posters right away, but over winter break I made a huge collage of photos from SPIN and Option.

We were too demure for that kind of thing, but we did try to identify potential snogging targets when handing out matric cards. I managed to snare three of the identified targets in one week, which I was immensely chuffed with. God, I was a sad old tart back in the day.

Side question - who joined the most preposterous society? In 99 joined something called the Alternative To Society Society without really knowing what it was. There was a bloke who seemed cool who was joining it and I followed on. On the plus side, I got to find out about that party in the woods, on the minus side the rhetoric was yer usual student cod-revolutionary nonsense and I didn't bother to go to a second meeting. A year later they occupied the Senate for a fortnight, which would have had more of an effect if anyone had ever used the building for anything the rest of the time.

I wonder how much this has changed in the days of email. My fresher's week ('96) was the first time me or any of my friends from school had got internet access, or email.

I think I joined the Cheese Society.

The only cheese-and-wine party I went to was my departmental one, a couple of weeks into term. I drank far too much cheap Bulgarian red, and had to run out of a seminar and throw up the following morning.

It would have been a tragedy if ILX had existed when I was a fresher. I didn't even find Sinister until my third year - until then I lived in blissful ignorance of the interweb, just sending long self-consciously flippant and cynical emails to my friends at Cambridge.

My friend at Cambridge refused to start using email until well into his second year, so all my self-consciously flippant emails were to friends at Sheffield, London and Warwick.

Filmsoc
Italian Society
Offbeat (and Sheffield types, it was at Warwick FIRST before that empire-building fucker Christian Chris nicked the idea, the typeface and the soul and buggered off to your place)
Floorshow (indie-rock soc, urgh)
W963 (where I passed my DJ audition by oh so cleverly segueing Anarchy in the UK into New Art Riot)

Um, that's all I have any recollection of :(

This past week has been... not too bad, actually. The people I'm with seem pretty decent types, just had me first lecture (elective in Contemporary Art, which is looking very interesting) - having kittens about my financial situation (there's an Oxfam in the union and it sells CD's = RECIPE FOR DISASTER), and I've not really met that many people thus far, but I'm a lot less anxious than I have been for ages. Getting out of Croydon... god knows how long I'd waited for that. Again.

Unfortunately, I've got the internet in my room. It's a bit quick, so I've got the Football Manager beta demo. I stayed up till 4 AM last night playing it. Oh dear.

No posters so far, apart from for Strangeways (local minor-league indie night - they put on a gig on Wednesday night, Jeff Lewis & Misty's Big Adventure, which was extremely skill) and various associated flyers. Not bought any records to look cool or anything, though the people in our block are already aware of my musical tastes. I bought Marquee Moon for £3.50 in Oxfam, so maybe that counts. I have joined the Indie Society, which is called (oh dear god) the Panzer Attack society. Yes, after the Cooper Temple Clause song. I went to the local grrrrl-punk club night instead, because dancing to 'Deceptacon' is more fun. And now, off to the student paper music meeting, where they've assigned me to go and see Chikinki play Leeds Met this evening. Hmm.

Labour Club
FilmSoc
Mini Club
Debating Society
And 2 others I never went to once and now can't recall.

Transferred since tho; its much better where i am now

Did you feel like you fitted in? - er, not at all, but I don't really ever have this feeling. Shyness mixed with a stubborn streak doesn't bode well.

Which in hindsight terrible record/poster did you buy to try and look cool? - I got a Rose Chronilces album whilst I was there for all of 3 weeks. They were a goth type band from Canada, not at all terrible.

How did you manage to lose the interminable/obnoxious people you managed to pick up as 'friends' on the first night? - I got dragged around student bars by the people I was sharing with, it was quite hellish.

Are you nostalgic or embarassed about your younger, more naive, optimistic and drunken self? - I feel a little bad that I ended up dropping out after 3 weeks. Perhaps, I should have taken a gap year, and thought more carefully about what I wanted to do. I hated the pressure of going out and drinking. Perhaps, now I'd have a less pratical degree from a "better" university. I'm glad I never really got into drinking - I'd say I'm more opimistic now.

I made good friends and kept up with old ones by staying at London uni's...so, I guess I don't regret not having the proper university experience.

I saw 2 shows: Janes Addiction w/ Dinosaur Jr (w/ Van Conner of Screaming Trees on bass) and Beat Happening w/ Treepeople.

The only club or society I joined was the triathlon team but I had been training with them for a couple months by that point.

I bet that REALLY fucking cheered you up!

This would be fantastic! I should do this too, maybe when I graduate.

(A semi-poignant vignette: after leaving terrible expensive club that was having some fresher special, the bouncers gave us all these "you are one of the chosen" discount cards. I kept it on my wall for two months, until I realised that, no, they gave them to everyone).

(I am actually rather proud of my Fresher's week - in what was pretty much the least emo moment of my life, I worked out what sort of clique I wanted to be in, worked out who would be in it, and made them my friends before they could come back with "but you're a go-playing juggling loser". This was probably the smartest thing I have ever done).

That's very unpleasant.

Went to a few parties, mostly out in the woods at bonfires because the school supposedly was dry. Met girl, fucked to Quicksands "Slip". End of week. Dated for the rest of the sememster and then she broke my heart and slept with a good friend of mine. Bitch.

i met this guy dan on the first day. he was a hippy. and the first jewish person i'd ever met. he introduced me to his friend john, who was his orientation roommate. john had his car on campus, and so we were really 'cool' because we left campus to go to denny's, when everyone else was freaking out about what to do in the middle of the night. dan ended up being my boyfriend for all of freshman year, and he, john and dan's neighbor in the dorm, jacob, ended up being my best friends at michigan.

How did it go? pretty well. since i knew dan from the weekend before, within 5 mins of arriving in my dorm with my parents, he'd called inviting me to a party that night. yay! off to a good start.

Did you feel like you fitted in? yeah, for one of the first times in my life.

Which in hindsight terrible record/poster did you buy to try and look cool? we didn't have room for posters! there were three of us living in a double room. it was hell. worst roommate ever situation. i crashed with friends a LOT that year.

How did you manage to lose the interminable/obnoxious people you managed to pick up as 'friends' on the first night? lost dan when his stoner crap made me crazy, stayed friends with jacob for years, and only recently lost touch with him.

Are you nostalgic or embarassed about your younger, more naive, optimistic and drunken self? nostalgic, but i'm happy enough with my life now that i wouldn't want to go back.

interestingly, when i was in chicago, i met a guy at a mouse on mars show, and he kept saying 'you look so familiar to me' and, oddly enough, he'd been in my orientation group 5 years earlier. small world.

The first two of those things often making the third one problematic.

My friend Mike was called up to the stage during one of the entertainment things--it was a hypnotist. He was hypnotized and told that he was a woman named Chastity on a dating-game type thing. He acted all effeminate and silly. I don't remember who else was called to the stage for that show, but Mike is very distinctive looking. So, for the next four years, people would recognize him at parties from the hypnotizing show thing, and call him Chastity.

there was 'rush week' and also 'festifall', where people could join things, but that was about a month into things.

Anyhow, I went to Rutgers, the state school of New Jersey, from out of state, and in the first week I put up my Miles Davis poster, thinking lots of other people would also have jazz posters and be into jazz, because, Hey, this is college, and people are smart and interesting here! . . .

I had those posters that I had gotten out of Select in my room, I think I had Sarah Cracknell, Juliana Hatfield, Nick Cave, Adam Ant??, Pet Shop Boys, I forget!

I met my friend Mary because she liked my Unrest t shirt. She took me to Kim's for the first time.

We all got free laptops, so for many of us this was a first experience with email.

I can't believe it's been ten years. Jesus Christ.

I attempted to go to upperclass keg parties and supercrowded and noisy all-campus parties with everybody else, in order to sort of reinvent my boring goody-two-shoes self because I wasn't stuck in a social group of boring goody-two-shoes friends, but then I realized I really didn't like them and ended up sticking with the people in my dorm who also didn't for the second half of the week. (Those people are the ten people who live on my floor this year, four of whom are my suitemates.) Oh, and halfway through orientation we went on three-day backpacking trips, I originally thought the people on the trip would be my friends for life but a week later I realized that I only really liked one of them, who is now only my friend because our social circles coincided later in the year. I just said hello to them on the sidewalk for awhile but now most of us don't even bother doing that.

It got a lot better in January, though, because at that point I ended up going to dinner a lot with friends from marching band, hence meeting and befriending about half of the "odd quad." So then spring semester I had a bunch of interesting and fun friends aside from the ones I live with. Sadly half of them graduated and now I miss them.

!!!!

the next two years were much much better though - real, genuine friends who i could hang out with for hours and stay over their places if i wanted, a real and genuine social life with a varied clutch of people all over my course, a deeper love for what i was doing and an affection for many of my brilliant lecturers (lisa jardine, warren cherniak, markman ellis - i salute thee!), and a wonderful girlfriend who spent those years mostly in malaysia and then leeds, so i could have seperate but equally fulfilling friendhsip/love lives.

Anyway, freshers week. I turned 20 (old for my year, year out doing Foundation course), drank silly amounts, learned to go clubbing in ridiculous footwear. The next two years I did stuff for the Freshers Fair, so got to lech over freshfaced young things as they milled about aimlessly and signed up for crap societies. For my 22nd birthday I gave myself the not entirely fantastic present of pulling a chinless posh first-year mathematician with a speech impediment.

I had green hair.

http://www.secondsounds.com/graphics/new_order_technique.jpg
http://www.psykickgirl.com/lulu/images/miss_bayport.jpg

I am weirdly nervous about this coming freshers' week, for some reason.

The kids who hadn't been to boarding school all arrived there in 'travelling' clothes, while those that had seemed to have chosen whatever was least filthy and slung it on. I was nervous the first day and had about five costume changes. I didn't actually drink - I wanted to go into the city most of all and had only about $50 until my campus job paid. I had tickets to the Smiths at Radio City Music Hall so I did not care.

I lived in the 'new dorms' and shared a double. They had been designed by Lincoln Center's architect but fucked if anyone could tell by looking at them. My hallway included:

A rich party girl from Texas with tales of buying E on Daddy's Amex.
Nervous blond girl from DC
Languid, blond ballerina from NYC who'd gone to Spence
Beth, Jewish Deadhead who nailed a troll doll to her wall and said it was an effigy of Jerry Garcia and she was using it to send her ailing leader 'good vibes'
Heavy Metal Andrea from New Jersey
My roommate was, on first impression, not very dynamic. She was from Orange County and was a bit stonewashed jeans/pastel tops. We weren't that well-suited so she moved in with Heavy Metal Andrea.
Lora, HMA's roomie, moved in with me. She was a BIG girl and her first words to me were 'my friends in KC call me Claire Planet'. A fag-hag, her favourite group was the B52s and she had a thing for Kate Bush.
Katherine, sporty short-haired girl who did horsey things, completely unpretentious.
Miranda, my closest friend on the hall, was from Chicago and super-thin. She had turned down being a debutante and her father was the ombudsman for Cabrini-Green. Her boyfriend promoted at the Metro and had been an ex of Brix Smith's.
Michele, whose dad was a taxi driver and was from Flushing. She's a poet.
Guin Turner, who was always beautiful.

Sophomores lived across the hall in single rooms: Elizabeth was a model and gave me her brothel creepers; Alyxandria was ridiculously wealthy, Chinese, and had this jetset life off campus. She had $800 a month allowance and I was like 'Alyx, it's $300 to go to Paris.' 'You'd be surprised how fast it spends.' She invited me to Thanksgiving dinner in a mansion in Riverdale with the family of her Austrian boyfriend Gunnar, which was scary. Deborah was from Texas, had a sweat problem, a Monkees fixation, and was a showtunes faghag. Lisa was our RA and was also from Minnesota.

I settled in by the end of the week. I went to the city and bumped into a tour manager who was dating my friend back home, so my first gig was actually Robyn Hitchcock at the Ritz.

Once classes started it didn't feel like summer camp in a mock-Tudor style.

Mine are becoming slightly more clueless as the week progresses. One just wandered in and said 'er is this where I register for... er... something?' Bless.

That's be the bouze beginning to take its toll. The poor lamb has probably never drunk so much in all his life.

I remember turning around to the two guys behind me in the first lecture and having to just go "Hi I'm Ronan". They are Kevin and Conor, both nice guys actually. I also remember fancying a few of the girls in my small class, stuff happened later. they are all dead to me now.

Anyway nights out wise I remember the first college function I went to, it was called the Orientation Ball, me and my friend Steve (a mate from school) went to that, and it was crap, so we left and went to the Kitchen nightclub, basically the first place I ever went clubbing and got into dance etc. there was never anyone there on Thursdays but Philip, a friend of my brothers and now one of my best friends and also my boss, was the resident DJ, he said if we wanted guestlist anytime for the events he did, just to text him. (the rest is history, that seems like about 10000 years ago now. I wish I could go back)

Other things I remember, driving into College and listening to awful indie in the car. THE BLUEPRINT and smoking spliffs in my house. heart broken severely not for the first but possibly the worst time.

fuck it check the september 2001 archives, I probably posted about it here already!

The volume of my diary that deals with the crushing disappointment of arriving there, watching my flatmates arrive one by one and realising that I had nothing in common with any of them is missing (at my mum and dad's, I hope), but one I have here picks up the story a couple of days in, on the day of the Freshers Ball.

MONDAY, 30th SEPTEMBER 1991

I cried before I got to sleep tonight. And I nearly cried again in the middle of a queue which was a near scrape with embarrassment. But I have started a new book because today wouldn't fit onto a page and a fifth. In the morning, amongst other things, I walked to Fallowfield to find out where Geraldine [a girl I knew from school] was. I kind of guessed that she'd either be at Owen's Park or Oak House, but it still came as a bit of a surprise when the man in Oak House reception said "Yes. She's in Flat 36, Beech Court."

So I went round there to see her, but she wasn't in. My feet were killing me so I got a bus back. What surly bastards Manchester bus drivers are. And the fares are bloody expensive too. 55p for a five minute ride from the university to Fallowfield. I rang Amanda [a closer friend from school]'s house to ask if there was an address for her yet but there wasn't: that had to be sorted out once she got here. So I went along to the Accomodation Ofice at about 5:30 and asked them. And they said, yes, she's been given an emergency bed at Woolton Hall.

So back to Fallowfield I went and the porter showed me to the Guest Room 8 where she was. Except she wasn't. So I left a note. When I got back there was a message to say she'd rung. But she rang again and we arranged to meet outside the Union at 9:00. And we did.

I kept myself busy today, which was a good idea. I have made up my mind to go to the Welfare Office tomorrow and ask about changing to Oak House. I hate it here - it's not just my flatmates - the whole place is so unsocial and dead compared to Owen's Park/Oak House.

The only people I met today were those who Amanda arrived at the Freshers Ball with: other girls in temporary accommodation at Woolton Hall. One of them, Emma, from Belfast but with a distinctly Northern accent, was nice. There were loads of nice people about at the Freshers Ball, but I couldn't find a way to meet them. Amanda's kind anyway. There's not enough kindness about, especially in Whitworth Park. Amanda and the otherrs wanted to go at about 12:30, so I went too.

The band the Adventure Babies, amongst others, played at the Freshers Ball, and they were quite good, but better on record than live, I think. I'm OK as long as things change, which I assume they will. I think I'm the only one in the flat now. I've been back about an hour, and the proceedings continue until 2:00. There's the Societies Fair and departmental registration tomorrow. I'll say it again - there are lots of nice looking people out there and it's my job to meet them. I'm meeting Amanda for lunch in the refectory tomorrow at 1:00. I hope we sit down with some other people and that I like them. I've just noticed - my ears are ringing.

I don't know if this diary business is going to survive. I can't even remember what happened today. That's bollocks actually - I can rememberif I think about it, but there's quite a lot to list and it's 1:42 and I've got to be in the Roscoe Building tomorrow at 10 or so. Well, quick resumé then. Woke up to the bastard building works outside my window at 8:00. Why don't I do this like a timesheet? OK then Nick - why not do it like a timesheet?

8:00 Woke up to bastard building works

10:30 Finally got up after a couple of hours of trying to get back to sleep properly.

10:31 Ran a bath and sat in that for 20 mins or so

10:50 Ate some Sugar Puffs and got dressed

11:45 Finally found the Psychology building after passing though the Dental Hospital. Woman told me that I had 15 mins left to do registration which took an hour or so. I had to choose a subsidiary subject which fitted into the timetable. I choose Drama. A couple of reasonably nice (urrgh - reasonably nice - that sounds horrible) girls called Louise + Christine helped me out with all the forms.

1:00 Went to the refectory with them where I had also arranged to meet Amanda. I gave up after about 3 mouthfuls of stodgy pie + chips. Geraldine appeared and she invited us round to her flat later on.

1:40 Went to the Academy for the societies fair. Joined far too many for my own good. Drama, Psychology, Film, MSTV, Media, Philosophy, Aikido etc. Actually I haven't actually joined all of them (ie. given them money) but I put my name down for their introductory meetings.

4:00 Went to introductory talk and 'meet the staff + fellow students' party.

5:00 Went to Geraldine's. Realised how fucking excellent Oak House is next to Whitworth Park. I worried all day about what I was going to do about changing and all. Geraldine's so nice. Welfare Office was staffed by a very odd man whose eyes kept rolling all over the place. He told me to talk to my warden about changing. Fuck knows who the warden is - Grove House always seems empty and generally dead when I'm there.

9:00 After supper + general sitting around here, I went back to Geraldine's and went to the Oak House Squirrels Bar with her, her flatmates and Amanda. We also went to the Queen of Hearts pub. It was OK but I spent most of the evening trying to perfect a a way of sitting down by the edge of the dancefloor without looking like a boring wallflower. Students are very funny when they try and dance. I would have danced, but the music was a bit shit and neither Geraldine or Amanda seemed very keen on the idea.

12:30 Went back to Geraldine's flat. Geraldine, Matt and Lisa (who Geraldine dislikes and who fancies Matt) smoked a joint.

1.20 I walked home. Didn't get mugged.

Things are up and down, just like Alice [my sister] said. Whatever station this is on 102FM it's dead entertaining.

I've not changed a bit my love, but I'm trying. Not that that would satisfy Alice. If she saw what I've been doing since I've got here she'd have a fit at me. I could do with her here in fact. The only thing I had to do today was complete registration and check that Drama was OK as a subsidiary, both of which I did reasonably quicklu and then I had the rest of the day free. Free to ruin another day. I walked.

Vistors are slowly appearing at the flat, particularly lady friends of Matt's (who's not really a lad - more of a sly one really). He stood up a girl this evening for the first time in his life (actually told her that he wanted to stay in and watch football!) in favour of someone else and felt rather bad about it.

But Freshers Week generally seems to be so much tamer than Alice described it - there just aren't hoards of vomiting students everywhere. Or maybe it's just that I'm not looking in the right places. In the evening blah blah. I went to the pub with Amanda and that was just about it. I can't believe that Geraldine told Emma [another friend from school] on the phone how crap a time she was having and how much she disliked her flat + flatmates. She doesn't know how lucky she is (sorry to sound like an old man).

We (Amanda + I) rang Emma this evening and spoke for about 40 minutes or so (on Emma's phone bill). Boring boring - no that's not right; it can't be. There are so many couples in each other's arms already - it's frightening.

I know there's an answer and today was a little different. It hasn't felt right listening to the Smiths while I've been here, until this evening when I fell asleep listening to Meat Is Murder. Around the time of 'Nowhere Fast' and 'Well I Wonder' I entered that realm of the unutterably distant and sweet dreams of human life which make everything worthwhile. It's not pretension - I'm just trying to explain what really happened.

I had a tour of John Rylands Library today and I was lucky enough to have as another member of the group of 10, the girl that I've been watching for the last couple of days. She's beautiful and despite this she's always alone when I see her and I've never heard her speak. But it's not shyness in a mousy I'm-all-eager-to-talk-to-you-if-I-get-the-opportunity kind of way. It's a more profound, beautiful, sad thing altogether. I know looks can be deceiving and the next time I see her you might say that she'll probably be chatting away in a studenty kind of way to all and sundry, but I just don't think so. I touched her hand, by accident, on the escalator rail and she instantly drew it back and temporarily seized up.

She wears very wonderful clothes, especially a jacket she always has. I'm wishing that I'll talk to her, and more so that she'll talk to me before too long - she is on my course after all. I know it's selfish, but I hope she doesn't find a friend (alright, I admit it, a male friend) before she finds me. This is a girl to feature in my dreams. If I find out her name by looking over her shoulder at a form she's filling in or something and then I follow her home one day, I can find out her actual flat/room number from the list of residents at the halls she goes to. Then I can drop her in a note or something. Actually, if I go back to the Psychology common room and look on the list of people down for that 3:00 library tour, I can probably work out who she is.

I'm keeping in mind what relevance this will have when I read this diary back in say two or three years - will this be a distant reminder of a girl long since forgotten, or will it be something to look back on as my first mention of a major part of my life?

By the way - don't assume that what I wrote about my flatmates on Sunday stands today in totality. Well actually it does mostly, but none of them are really wankers in that they're not nasty people and I can get along with them OK, but I just don't have a lot to do with them. I probably won't change after all.

I didn't go out this evening as I wasn't that keen on what was on offer and anyway I need some rest. Mind you - it's already seven minutes past twelve so I've been pretty stupid.

OH DEAR GOD I WAS INSANE.

Thankfully, I never followed up on this plan. Stalking hadn't been invented then. They were innocent times.

The following day, all of the students who had not been on the trip arrived and registered. The queue went round and round the dining hall several times, everybody having arrived dead on 6.30 for dinner even tho it was served for a period of an hour - something we would learn not to do pretty quickly. That evening, there was a talk from all the student officers at the Union who were making their way round the halls in turn. I noticed that the Womens Officer was called Aspin411 and wondered whether she was the sprog of the Kent zoo owner who was in the headlines for having his tigers constantly savaging the keepers. Later that evening we just made our way from room to room en masse meeting new ppl - easily done in my hall where all the units joined onto one another to form a square round a central quad. Later we went into town and made our way from bar to bar in the halls down there. As the week progressed I got more and more embarrassed about the fact that ppl were offering me cups of coffee in ther rooms and I couldn't return the favour as I had come down on the train on my own with minimal luggage which didn't include a kettle - my sister turned up at the end of the week with more stuff and one of the ppl on my corridor, a Macunian called Steve, thought she was my Mum (an understandable mistake, 19 year age gap after all).

Somehow I also found time to go to a few gigs, including The Montgomery Clifts, the Man from Delmonte and the Darling Buds. I didn't buy any posters. Also, I spent about 5 minutes in the freshers fair and didn't sign up to any societies on account of the fact that my older friends back home had told me not to ("Theyre just after your money", they said).

Did you ever talk to that girl?

Don't think I don't realise that, Ronan. This is why I thought I could be of help to him, once.

Did you ever talk to that girl?

The weird thing is, I like to pride myself on remembering the romantic minutiae of my demented past, but reading that episode again was a shock to me. I have a vague memory of it, but I have a feeling she turned out to be quite normal and not at all mysterious and I stopped fantasizing about her. Either that or she left the course.

Or you were looking in a mirror all the while (such a romantic old soul).

Leeds 1995,

day 1 met up with a pretty waiflike indie-girl at the first days freshers thing.

day 2 Met her at an Indie night the next day and danced to the indie hits of the day.

day 3 Took her out the next night to see Pulp wowed her by taking her to the aftershow party

(thought it would all last forever)

day 4 we met up to go and see the Chemical Brothers after about an hour she felt ill and collapsed. I took her home and put her to bed spent the night on the floor and looked after her, next day she went back to her halls,

day 6 She broke up with me, spent most of the day in my room listening to Mellow Doubt (felt so very alone). Went out in the evening, got drunk, hooked up with another waif-like indie girl.

-- Davel (Davelightning7...), September 27th, 2004 4:59 PM.

Good grief:

http://www.catoptric.com/archives/images/modernromance.jpg

(is this comic at all reminiscent of your early 20s?)

Who is Gravel Puzzleworth? Is it Mandee?

I feel I am missing something important to me. But what?

Perhaps Nick can gmail me that Alter Ego remix of 2raumwuhnong, I can't find it anywhere????

I'm actually Greg Henry/P@llis - the poor man's Mandee, perhaps.

http://www.sc8.org/gallery/cap6.jpg

xpost

I'm keeping in mind what relevance this will have when I read this diary back in say two or three years - will this be a distant reminder of a girl long since forgotten, or will it be something to look back on as my first mention of a major part of my life?

And the answer to this one is?

Another girl who had been at my school until the fifth year turned up in my hall. She had been to Swiss finishing school or something and had changed her name from Julie to Juliette and gone sooo posh. (well, even posher - she was always pretty posh). She hated the fact that someone from her old life was around. I made a point of calling her Julie, especially in front of her ultra-sloaney friends.

Nick's diaries are magnificent and touching.

If I started a blog of my complete diary entries, 1990-1994, do you think anyone would read it?

Swiss finishing schools still exist, yes.

And MarkH seems to have either a photographic memory or is consulting a diary:

...the porter of my hall and was taken aback by his Bristol accent and the fact he was wearing an extremely tight faux military jumper with shoulder pads

do they still think you're a paedophile, though?

shame the ten pin bowling site has gone all pearshaped though (it was good when i was in charge - it had weekly updated league table and all!)

Jugglesoc is so much better than it has ever been. We're holding a one day convention in March if you're around.

Then why can't *I* find it?

s k i p l e v e l s @ g m a i l . c o m

Me too - although I think it lasted all through my first year, and I wrote everything down on pieces of paper that I kept with my chequebook.

The dorm was something I was utterly unprepared for. I was, in retrospect, something of a prude about the seemingly bachanallian drinking and shagging going on all around me, and I hated the ridiculous initiation stunts that the freshman kids were made to perform.
I did what most ostensibly-high-minded-but-secretly-wanting-to-cut-loose kids did and took refuge in the campus radio station and newspaper.

I've loosened up exponentially since then.

I'm probably having more fun watching Hollyoaks Freshers action than remembering my own.

Me too. Damn.

As far as what I did during the week, hang out during the day and get pissed during the evenings was the height of it. It was incredibly intense but I handled it really well and survived. Didn't pull though, but then at that point I'd only ever snogged one girl in my life so not a massive surprise. I got very close but (and you really couldn't make this up) we were physically separated from getting on the same bus after a night out because she was the last one allowed on! She later told my mate she would've... I'm pathetic.

Have I ever asked you who this was? I know this was a long time ago, and there have no doubt been countless juggling fire-breathing dudes in Edinburgh, but one of my exes fits this description quite well. In fact he was probably on your course.

This must be kicking off around now, right? It is TEN YEARS since I first went to university. God I feel old.

This is a brilliant thread, I wish I'd remembered to nominate it in the poll. It's the Alba Diaries that make it.

Also if Southall's looking I don't suppose there's any way you can look up the dates of Exeter Freshers Week 1997 is there? I'm curious as to when my ten year anniversary actually hits.

a girl i used to childmind just before i went off to university is about to go up, which is v. old-making. nine years. i'm probably less intelligent now than then.

I had an interesting Fresher's Week. Not least for the fact that I decided to start keeping a diary. Here, unedited, is all I managed to write before abandoning the project:

It could all happen in the space of a few hours, at least if I have my way. And there’ll probably be some poor bastard who’s been waiting for his moment with you, who won’t know a thing about it. He last saw you before I first did, but the next time, when he’ll doubtless try to renew whatever he was doing before, he won’t be able to because of me.

However, the more I sit here and write about it rather than act on my giddiness, the more chance there is that I’ll be the poor bastard, and the poor bastard I mentioned earlier will leap into my own role, and that isn’t fair, because you’re perfect for me, not him.

And maybe there just isn’t a poor bastard at all, and I alone have all the time in the world. Trouble is, I need there to be a poor bastard, even if he’s hypothetical. It’s how it works and it’s how I’m going to succeed.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I have fallen in love. Sit back and enjoy the ride. For what it’s worth.

The Diary Of A Bespectacled English Student…

4/10/05: ONLY JOKING!!!!!!!!!!! Intriguing as the false start may have been, this isn’t (really) going to be one of THOSE diaries, the sort that wallow in perpetual angst and concern themselves exclusively with how much of a failed romantic the grievously maligned author is. To confess, I did actually write those words in utter seriousness last night, when I actually believed myself to have fallen in love with a girl on my course. Fortunately, love turned out to be merely great liking and therefore this page has been spared yet further bunkum. Although I guess it was probably for the best that she’s already taken…
Instead, this diary shall be a diary of observation, and of warm-hearted remembrance in times ahead. And I shall start by observing the extraordinary strangeness of our collective university experience thus far. It is quite clear that nigh-on everybody here is extremely nice, but more importantly, a little unhinged. Now, you try getting 79 unhinged young things in one place, removing the presence of any adults and replacing them with 19, 20 and 21 year-olds who are more than willing to indulge the freshmen with alcohol/cannabis/salacious anecdotes, and you’ve gone and cooked yourself a one-way goose to Decadence Town. It’s not as if the rites enacted have been purely kept to chemical mind-alteration however. The actual atmosphere of the place has almost a certain kinetic energy all of its own, almost like it can’t comfortably accommodate the sheer weight of brain wattage currently being haphazardly expended by its inhabitants like overexcited school-kids at a Laser Quest. The consequence of this is that I, and probably most others, have had to suspend our regular perceptions of common sense and write an entirely new, certainly much more interesting list which can cater for the many millions of directions each and every one of our minds is flying in simultaneously. The air is clear and yet hazy with anticipation. The path is crooked but spread out gloriously before us wider than the widest river. I feel silly with uninhibited delight but so does everybody else. I’m beginning to like this place.
So, what actually happened today? It’s not like me to take up the entire first page of my work with pompous, pretentious rambling (it normally ends after the second or third) but a return to plain narrative being required, I shall relent. Basically, we had our Matric dinner, which was gorgeous, even if the port did go very quickly, and I discovered that my tigerish Admissions Tutor isn’t actually the worst of company at the dinner table. My decision to forgo any sort of sustenance whatsoever during the day prior to that was also fully vindicated, as I was able to consume vast quantities of potato and cabbage, normally so cruel to my palate, without flinching an eyelid.
I must also ‘word up’, as it were, to the wonderful intelligence collective also known as my year, for their eccentricity, for their warmth, and for the fact that they seem to be enjoying it almost as much (or more so, W-, G-, J-, E-) as myself.
Don’t know who those mysterious fellows are what I’ve just mentioned? Don’t worry; a dramatis personae will be supplied at very short notice. I’ll just give you a clue as to the relevance of these four names, however, Diary: The free condom packs have not all remained sealed. I shall say no more.
Adios,
Louis.

6/10/05: This day has been epochal, like all the other ones, but much easier to explain as such. I have some advice for you all.
Never, ever, ever, ever declare your love to a Philosophy student unless you want it to be reciprocated with conversation rather than a relationship.
I now must write down everything I can remember from my conversation with this most wonderful, mindblowingly intelligent person (whom I still love).
I said let’s go outside and she followed. Neither of us liked the noisy bar-room atmosphere and as we both agreed the drinks were noxious. I said we should sit down on the bench and she agreed. I knew she liked me a lot from the conversation we’d been having. We had concurred on so very much and this is where I have to say why I loved her the way I did. I did so because she was a) nice, b) beautiful and c) intellectually something else. Something else, man. Like from a different universe. Her powers of argument, persuasion and reasoning are stupendous. Yet we are also quite similar in many ways. We both question. We both think divergently. We both love Romantic poetry, but (in her words) I understand it, being a trusting, optimistic idealist, and she loves it, without understanding a single part of the theory behind it, because she’s an untrusting cynic.
I thought I was a cynic…until I met Helena (her name).
That said, she did during the subsequent conversation instill a quite substantial amount of cynicism within me. I’m rambling and it’s great. I’m going to turn this into a story, or a play. Or even a poem. But this is story material. Onwards, fool…we sat on the bench and agreed how although some people regarded silences as awkward, we most certainly did not and we enjoyed several minutes of contemplation as my love for this girl grew.
I made her feel my heart. I’ll remember that. Then I said I had fallen in love with her to her face. Her reaction, you ask?
What is love?
I do not understand the concept of love.
I am not going to run away because I like you. I like you a hell of a lot.
No, I don’t already have a boyfriend.
Or a girlfriend.
Yes, but although being an idealist you harbour hopes of changing me around to you, would you genuinely WANT to change me like that? As you’ve said, you like me because I’m an intellectual challenge. If I lost the stubborn little cynic within me, I’d be a different person.
People always change though. I might change. You might change.
I feel a bit guilty. Nobody really does that to me.
I’m a very good liar.
You might be lying too.
I didn’t mean the thing about it being a lame chat-up line.
Would I still be here if you intimidated me?
Oh my GOD what have I done (whoops, one of my own reactions…)
This is one of my favourite ever conversations.

I came up with a barrier-leaping analogy with my arms. I defended my position well and I believe I made her think, which she evidently enjoyed.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, seeing as I felt 100% like doing both.
I hoped I could turn her over to my frame of mind. I tried to explain what love was. I tried to tell her how lovely she was and how this argument was making her lovelier, although what she was saying was making impossible the prospect of a relationship. We marvelled at the paradox.
I felt liberated. I curiously felt no regret at the time. She was extremely happy that I felt no regret. I still wasn’t completely sure she was being totally honest, but I am going to treat it as such. If I didn’t it just wouldn’t belong to my modus operandi.
Just imagine the weird couple in American Beauty, and magnify the weirdness factor by about apricot.
We discussed the concept of ‘bittersweet’ and she knew of it.
Did I want her body? Honestly? Yes. And I’m sure she knew it too. But it was her mind I was attracted to. The body is a kind of necessary add-on, thanks to my lovely hormones.
Of all the girls I could have said that to…
Plot of work: This conversation between the idealist poet and the cynical philosopher. They agree on much and understand one another’s position but she cannot go out with him. He doesn’t know if she’s lying or not (the readers however know that she is being honest, as is he).
She is terrified of mental asylums.
His challenge is to swing her around to himself. He cannot. In his delusions he goes too far and, ooh, dunno, kills himself for her or something to prove himself (not that I am going to do the same) and the tragedy is HERS because she actually loved him on her own terms but was unable to reciprocate him on his.
She winds up in a mental asylum and is unable to kill herself as she is put on suicide watch in a padded room.
The state of knowing something to be untrue (we’re both acting) but understanding entirely how it could easily be the case.
Hey—WAS she speaking the truth? According to her it doesn’t matter and according to me it does. She’s a good liar apparently but she seemed wholly genuine and ignorance is bliss but I really wanna know. In the story the boy will never know. In the story the girl will know he’s honest but try to keep her mind sceptical.
I’m rambling. I need to go to bed. It’s been a pleasure.
Footie trials tomorrow. Get in there.
Overandout.
Louis.

P.S. Estella from Great Expectations, anyone? ;-)
P.P.S. If the world-renowned diary editor J- R- had his considerably righteous way, anything in this pitiful document coloured, or should that be colored, Mr Bush, in red would be eradicated in a pronto manner.

o_0

See here's the thing

We have to take our clothes off
We have to party all night
And we have to take our clothes off
To have a good time
Oh no

Excuse me miss
I couldn't help but to notice how alone you are
I dig the attitude and how you're acting like you own the bar
Got me flashing keys and I don't even own a car
Like you ain't feeling my charm, because I know you are
I'm trying to see how your lips feel
Oh I'm sorry, my name is Travie and I'm pretty much a big deal
Oh, you've never heard of me
That sounds absurd to me
The way you stole my attention was flat out burglary
What do you say let's exit stage left so me and you can
Possibly reconvene and play some naked peekaboo
Cause after all the blouse you're wearing is kinda see through
And it's obvious I'm heading wherever you're leading me too
Such an angel with a devilish angle
And quite the certified sweet talker
And you're buying every line of it girl
And I don't really blame you
If I was in your shoes I'd probably do the same too

We have to take our clothes off
We have to party all night
And we have to take our clothes off
To have a good time
Oh no

Now here's another barn burner for the slow learners
Put your helmets on and take a seat on the short bus
Next stop, right around the corner from your momma live
No turning back so you better buckle up
Shit, don't be concerned with mine
I feel like a Speak and Spell way I got you learning my lines
Fine, pull the string, replay that shit
I change my name to "did he really just say that shit?"
Yep
I'll take a mile if you let me
Six-five, two hundred plus and so sexy
My legs going numb for keeping my phone on vibrate
To hide the fact your girlfriend keeps textin' me
And I've been trying to never mind it man
But every time I get a new number, she finds it damn
And you thought you had it sewn up
Until right around amazing o'clock when I showed up

We have to take our clothes off
We have to party all night
And we have to take our clothes off
To have a good time
Oh no

Got chicks, all hot chicks
Indie-rock chicks, and hip-hop chicks
Slim chicks, round chicks
Black, white, yellow, and brown chicks
Got chicks, all hot chicks
Indie-rock chicks, and hip-hop chicks
Slim chicks, round chicks
Black, white, yellow, and brown chicks

Good grief girl, you're giving me goosebumps
Standing there in your underwear and new pumps
It's like the more time we waste and less time I get to taste you
Honestly I could easily replace you
It's not a scam girl
That's how I am girl
Peter Pan, I'm a sucker for smacker's jam girl
It's clear I'm only here for good clean fun
Shut up and kiss me like the antidotes under my tongue
Whoa

We have to take our clothes off
And we have to party all night
And we have to take our clothes off
To have a good time
Oh no
We have to take our clothes off
And we have to party all night
And we have to take our clothes off
To have a good time
Oh no

Got chicks, all hot chicks
Indie-rock chicks, and hip-hop chicks
Slim chicks, round chicks
Black, white, yellow, and brown chicks
Got chicks, all hot chicks
Indie-rock chicks, and hip-hop chicks
Slim chicks, round chicks
Black, white, yellow, and brown chicks

I am almost crying with laughter at myself aged 18. ;_;

It's 12 years since I was a college freshman. Man. I don't really remember much about the first week of school but that's probably a result of one of few things I do remember - my first bong hits.

My diary from then is all like. "8/7/01: depressed. 8/11/01: depressed, too tired to write more. 8/13/01: Reading The Godfather for lit class; depressed." A trend that continues to this day! My secret diary is not secretly more boring than the ag report.

I am almost crying with laughter at myself aged 18. ;_;

-- Just got offed, Monday, September 17, 2007 8:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

what? that's like 2 weeks ago broseph. i think, with perspective, you may see 18 and 19, and heck maybe 20, as along a continuum, get me?

Numbers got contiguity!

Yeah, I know. I look back on 16-18 with a combination of loathing and amusement, but even, say, the ILX posting I made when 19 and early 20 looks idiotic and naive. When I'm 22 I'll doubtless view myself circa September 2007 with Passantino-esque disdain and lulz. That last sentence will seem really douchey, for a start. It's definitely a continuum; the question is, at what age are you at your most OTM about hating your former self? When you're 40 or so I can imagine a sort of peace descending, and an acceptance of youthful idiocy.

welp, keep us posted.

haha, it's like you're trying to call me a WHELP, which i guess i am in a way