I.

I just want to say that I am no fucking wiser than I was last year. You might think that in the ordinary course of events a person might have learnt a thing or few over the summer, and be consequently confident in shaping their life in a more coherent way. Forget it cock. Older? Yes. Wiser? No.

But hey, do I look worried? It’s not as if anyone expects me to grow up or anything. I am too old for that. Do you remember when you were fifteen? You got pissed on cheap wine and puked on the faux-velour lounge suite, or you smoked your mother’s reefer, or you nicked that tempting $10 note poking from the edge of your dad’s wallet, or came home four hours later after going to the shop for five minutes for milk. Someone always said to you, “Why don’t you fucking grow up!”

Okay, they might not have said “fucking”. I put that in to (1) see if the editor would put “#@&%$@” instead of the actual word, and (2) just to work in a gratuitous swear word in a pathetic attempt at gaining some street cred, as it used to be known five years ago.

Shit, where was I? Yeah, I know. There is no point in telling me to grow up. I already have – just not very successfully! But, hey, maybe that’s not true. I am a Uni student after all. Doesn’t that count for something? I know you’ve slugged it out at some totally bizarre TCE subjects in order to gain the magic number that gets you into the course of your choice. Or some course someone said would get you a job as long as you were happy to take minimum wage and listen to some old fart manager without a degree tell you what a load of crap it all is. Or something to get you off this carbuncle island on the arse of Australia.

Actually, I am rather partial to living in Tasmania. So that comment about carbuncles (and I don’t actually know what a carbuncle is) should be taken as a bit of literary license – you know, something to fill in the page, used mainly for effect.

And just to confess: I’m a post-grad student, and consequently do not have to do either assignments or exams, and have actually bypassed, for various reasons I won’t go into, the TCE experience. Not so for most of you poor bastards. But anyway, those of you hitting Uni for the first time, and even those who’ve been here a while (and maybe even those perennial students who started here long before AFL was VFL), should remember that it’s not all goddamn assignments that never end and dead shit lecturers droning on into the second hour.
Of course, those things and worse are here in abundance. You haven’t lived until you discover you have three 2000 words assignment all due on the same day as your sister is getting married and you are the bridesmaid/best man/maid of honour/marriage celebrant and/or the groom, given we are in Tasmania. (I know, that last comment about sisters marrying their brothers is a cheap shot. But I sort of feel obliged to get in an incest joke, to match the gratuitous swear words if nothing else.)

Anyway, my advice is to lighten up. Why the Hell should you grow up and become a wise person. You know, one of those dickweeds who always do the right thing, and who take superannuation extremely seriously.

Rather, while you are here at Uni, working hard for the sake of the future, visit your local purveyor of mind numbing intoxicants (I pinched that phrase from The Simpsons), e.g. the Student Association Bar, and get totally shitfaced – in moderation of course. Here’s another option: Visit your local purveyor of mind numbing intoxicants (yes, I did pinch that phrase from The Simpsons), e.g. the Student Association Bar, and shag the first cutie you see, gender according to your inclination – with protection of course.

Okay, maybe this is not the most sensible advice in world, re: your general physical and moral wellbeing, or your overall ability to actually pass the odd subject. Like I said though, I am no fucking wiser this year. But, and this is a great big but, I am moderately happy. And this definitely has lots to do with wine, women and song, and nothing at all to do with superannuation.