It’s always much easier to talk about the bad than the good.
05/09/11 • 2 Comments

A lot has happened the month that’s passed since my last post here. Between cocktail parties, more drinking sports and college balls I’ve been kept busy, and there’s always been alcohol.  Everything has been going really well (in stark contrast to my last post), and so haven’t really had much to say. The cocktail party was to raise funds for the Oaktree foundation, and well, I didn’t really have the greatest time, but neither did my friends who had been drinking. So I don’t see that as a factor. It was more the confusion of deocrating the place like a raging party, having everyone wear nice class cocktail clothes as they drank cocktails, and having what probably should have been a quiet band playing loud and raging music. No one was really sure what was meant to be happening. Especially when at the start of the night I was struck [...]

Hiding awkwardly in the corner
12/08/11 • 3 Comments

Last night was perhaps the epitome of college drinking: people from 5 different colleges all congregated at a club to watch competitive beer pong. So that makes it fairly drunk people watching other drunk people play a sport. The first time I watched beer pong I’d tried to drink to make it more exciting. It didn’t.  There were too many teams and it dragged on for too long. Yesterday I didn’t need to try and make it more interesting: it already was. Tensions were high and the inner competitor came out in just about everyone knowing that if they lost a game that team lost the chance to win, but so too did their college. Watching the beer pong was fun. It was exciting. Unfortunately for me, by about 9.30 all 4 of our teams had been knocked out. Which left the rest of the evening free. The rest of [...]

Saying hello to Sunday morning
31/07/11 • 0 Comments

Someone asked me this morning if I was up on principle because it was a Sunday morning. I wasn\’t, but I was only the fourth of 236 people to actually get to breakfast. Probably 30 went to breakfast this morning, and that was pushing it. So they slept, hungover and probably feeling like crap, while I ate, studied and then planted my share of nearly 300 trees planted by people at my college for National Tree Planting Day. It was tiresome work and I got muddy and gross (and to anyone who knows me, that is most definitely not me) but I had fun and I did something productive. It feels good. Today marks the beginning of my fourth week of a HSM, and the end of re-o week. I thought it was going to be incredibly difficult. A week of activities, 2 of which were themed nights and two [...]

In the face of adversity, try harder.
20/07/11 • 1 Comment

It’s been ten days since I started, and honestly, it’s been pretty easy to abstain from alcohol. Perhaps just because it was never a huge issue for me to start with, but maybe more likely that I’ve been home and not at college. Only once when I was home did people question my decision to do it. At a concert during the week some friends tried to convince me that it was only one drink, and it was the best cider to have ever existed, so it was worth it. I managed to refrain quite easily, but I do think they were a little bit put off. I had fun without the alcohol, even though I didn’t actually know the band, which definitely made me feel good. However I’ve been back at college for just over 24 hours, and I’ve already been asked twice if I was brainwashed. I wasn’t. [...]

The beginning
10/07/11 • 0 Comments

Before I begin, I must stress that I don’t generally see college as a bad thing. I love it. It’s amazing. Having your own little community and support is the best thing I could have possibly had at this time in my life. There’s no doubt about that. The notion of being able to sit with anyone at any meal isn’t really something you see elsewhere, the spirit and passion to better the place where you live is strong and people are so willing to get involved and lend a hand. I love that. But I won’t lie and say it’s perfect, there\\\’s just one aspect I don’t quite appreciate: the constant drinking – of goon in people’s rooms, before we go out, when we’re out, and in some cases, the morning after to delay the hangover. Out of the next three months, I want to get, more than anything [...]