Because safety is secondary when you're low on Rand

Having spent a highly leisurely week or so partying and wandering in South Africa’s ‘mother city’ it was time to leave. Me and my travel partner were on the final straight of our gap year and had two weeks to amble north to Johannesburg before flying home. We had booked coach tickets for the 6 hour journey from Cape Town to Bloemfontein and had a leisurely two hour wait for the coach to arrive at its stop directly behind our hostel.

Having looked at the tickets and seen 0620 printed on them I opted to stay in the hostel till 6:15 before sauntering over, this casualness being based on how little fun sitting at bus stops is and the proximity of it to our hostel. However when looking at my coach ticket I had failed to see the R (rand) symbol following 0620. This of course denoting how much the journey cost and not what time the coach departed. Dick. The coach had left at six and by the time we had worked out what had happened it was six twenty five. In the grand scheme of things this was a moderate fuck up meaning a whole heap of hassle involving cancelling/rebooking hostels, travel arrangements and our schedule for the final two weeks of our gap year.

The following shit-scary joy ride entailed cruising through three red lights, the wrong way round a roundabout and some overtaking manoeuvres that meat headed chump Vin-Diesel would be proud of.

Based on this I took what was in retrospect a fairly large risk based on our delicately balanced finances and the startling combination of drink driving, lawless roads and cars that would make your average safety conscious Volvo owner vomit, which we had experienced frequently on out travels so far. I quizzed a taxi driver at the bus stop on how far away the bus would be now and where the next stop is. In the twenty five minutes since it had left the driver estimated it would be at the next stop 26km’s away on the other side of Cape Town. He also estimated that for the right price he could get us there before it leaves again.

What then entailed was pure Hollywood. After piling in with all our belongings the taxi had to be push started for around 100m before the engine snarled into life. A beauty our taxi was not. On cue the skies opened and our taxi devoid of front windscreen wipers, seatbelts and properly closing windows began its mad chase across Cape Town. The following frankly shit-scary joy ride entailed cruising through three red lights, the wrong way down a one way street, the wrong way round a roundabout and some overtaking manoeuvres that meat headed chump Vin-Diesel would be proud of. All this in a car that would have failed its MOT in the UK around 73 years ago.

The kilometres flew by and leaving the motorway we rose over a bank to see our bus down the valley sat gloriously stationary at the petrol station. With about with a hundred and fifty yards and a T junction to go we saw the doors of the coach close and the engines fire up. Aghast, our driver gunned the dilapidated engine, screeched through the junction and blocked the coach’s exit with a skid as small crowd of onlookers cheered and whooped (no exaggeration). We flew out, waving our tickets at a slightly bemused coach driver, who grudgingly let us on to the sound of cheers. Inconvenience and death avoided with a few thrills to boot. Sure it sounds like a classic gap year yarn embellished for entertainment, but I can assure you it hasn’t! As the locals would say: ‘That was lekker bru, massive jols or what, eh?’

No related posts.

My main concern during the second term involved the tricky process of dealing with the people in halls who you’ve always said ‘Hi’ to but never spoken to. When does this end? What if I bump into them during my thirties? When do you bite the bullet and ignore them? And then there’s coping with the pride hit if someone ignores you when you go to briefly acknowledge them. Despite the minor social shitstorm kicking around, second term continued pleasantly with enough nights out to kill the average fun dodging 40 year old and an increased level of commitment to studies that meant I didn’t feel quite so bad when lying about how much work I’ve been doing to my parents, who happen to be funding this whole uni malarkey.

Soon enough however better weather appeared and with it Easter. I enjoyed a massively crap Easter, crippled by the current employment crisis, I was forced to spend 4 weeks at home twiddling my thumbs and remembering every single reason why I went I to university in the first place. Note to self: do not drop out.

The following summer term was easily the most fun and most stressful. The prick tease summer that graced us in May and promptly did one soon after was glorious and made the fact that formal teaching ended three weeks after Easter all the better. With the sun, the party atmosphere surrounding halls hit new highs and a whole host of end of year bashes, do’s and formals made for a hazy few weeks. However like every good party the comedown hits hard and the revision period was fraught with wasted days, astonishing procrastination and looking enviously out of the window as scum bags in the sun that’d finished exams early.

Fortunately before too long I remembered I’m only a dirty fresher and 40% really will do. I then spent several weeks smashing in the nights out as a first year whilst I could, wringing the last of my overdraft and still managing to feel fairly confident about my exams. Result.

After the hugely sad realisation that my first year was over hit home and I would have to leave my beloved halls behind, the reflection began and whilst sounding like a sentimental prat, my first year at uni has been fantastic, friends for life… blah blah blah etc.

As the massive and hugely un-ironic lad Asher Roth recently rapped,

‘Man I love college/uni/higher education centre
Do I really have to graduate?
Or can I just stay here forever?’

Amen Asher, Amen.

Related posts:

1. The Fresh Prince (of Academia)
2. Exam stress needn’t get in the way of a trim vagina

Going back to September and the night before I left for university, I remember lying in bed thinking, ‘Shit. What if university is a massive letdown?’ Years of listening to fondly told stories of student days from family and friends and my own experiences as a teen visiting my older brother and friends meant I’d had several positive uni experiences. However I took a gap year and experienced a huge level of financial (pre credit crunch) and personal freedom. I remember a nagging thought at the back of my mind: what if uni isn’t all its cracked up to be? Years of being skint, having to get back into a structured regime of work and the social unknown; the enormity of it all hit me.

However my fears, as I’m sure the vast majority of freshers’ were, melted from sight as soon as I donned my first shoddy fancy dress outfit and watched someone else get too drunk for the entertainment of the masses.

Fresher’s week was certainly an experience, one that I will never forget and will remain a pleasant memory. This view I’m fully aware is in contrast to many peoples of fresher’s week, however for every single dog shit conversation about gap years/A levels/where people live and all those tentative yet ultimately doomed friendships with idiots etc there was a fantastic night out to a club you would never ever frequent again, with people you possibly would never ever meet again, all surfing a massive wave of optimism, good will and ultimately innocence. Like a rehabilitated crack addict remembering that first hit, fresher’s week was fantastic, but probably something I wouldn’t do again in retrospect.

The first term rumbled on as the party spirit barely stopping to catch breath, university life in a new city began to settle into place. After moaning about the Harvard referencing system and slowly realising that the guy next door who you thought was great in fresher’s week is a massive dick, uni life really began to take off.

At the risk of sounding like a huge tool, I found friends for life emerged from the many acquaintances id made and the buzz of being surrounded by like and able minded people as well as completely new people, perspectives and experiences made me realise why people rightly rave about university as the best time of their lives.

As if then conforming to every student cliché available, I caught Glandular Fever (from some manky Sheila no doubt) and spent December in bed playing Football Manager feeling sorry for myself and all Christmas holidays catching up on missed work and preparing for my January exams. I find students attitudes to exams fairly amusing despite the fact that I’m guilty of it. We speak of them as if they weren’t originally part of the student deal, a dastardly surprise sprung on us by the university. What we seemingly expected otherwise is a mystery? A game of ‘stuck in the mud’ to gauge academic progress with? Top Trumps against lecturers to sort out the 2:1’s from the 2:2’s? Still at my university first year doesn’t count for anything so I duly aimed for the sky and smashed in the 40% required. Ambition personified.

January saw another mini fresher’s week as students waited for exams to be marked and term to start again, only this time with friends. i.e. people they felt comfortable enough with to go out with, without the inherent danger of floundering and asking what course they do and promptly pretending to sound impressed/interested when they said ‘English’.

Related posts:

1. The Fresh Prince (of Academia) p2
2. On revision and procrastination (P.S. I wrote this piece to avoid more revision…)
3. 5 Reasons to be cheerful about graduating

The degree aims teach students the skills needed to entertain campers – from singing, dancing and performing, to stage management and pyrotechnics. I personally am very happy with the inclusion of pyrotechnics to the training as the last time I went to a Butlins style holiday camp, the organised kids activities consisted of a big game of Tig and lots of sliding on my knees. Even at the tender age of 7 I realised this was a bit shit and sincerely hope this breakthrough course will lead to improvements in on camp entertainment.

However this got me thinking, is this the start of a major new trend in higher education? Will we see more private company partnerships with universities and what will they be? I’d like to see a partnership with Bacardi Breezer offering an undergraduate programme in Loutish Behaviour, offering potential students a solid grounding in throwing up in the high street and key training in ‘Baps Out’.

On a slightly more realistic note, how long is it before we can expect a collaboration between the BNP and Oxford University offering students a chance to become a fully trained racist? Hmm…

Related posts:

1. Should universities be allowed to drown in debt?

For us students over in university land this has meant shed loads of bad stuff. Obviously the lack of graduate jobs is worrying, but my main concerns are much more severe.

Since Freshers’ Week the price of cheapo pasta from Somerfield’s has doubled in price from 20p to 41p. To put this global crisis in perspective, with 40p I used to be able to buy a bag of pasta and two Freddo bars – that day is a thing of the past. Shocking indeed.

My other grief lies with the fact that it’s also ruined my daily 40 minute commute into Uni. Whilst the Metro is not the finest publication on the planet, it does a lovely job of filling a highly tedious bus journey with news titbits. But since the big crunch kicked in, I’ve been reading the same bad news for months and I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on (something to do with banks running out of money?). How come all these banks in trouble didn’t think to get a part time job or give Ocean finance a call? Fools.

To be honest though this whole caboodle hasn’t been all bad news, its created a completely acceptable alibi to getting out of virtually anything.

Next time you get:

Pull a pained expression, shrug a bit and say: “Pfft, sorry mate – credit crunch”. This, followed by another rueful sigh and mumbling something about throwing money around willy-nilly, should be enough to sort things out.

Anyway, money is overrated. Notes have been designed not to fit in your wallet, coppers make your fingers smell funny and having too much change in my pockets makes my trousers fall down. Bovvered?

Related posts:

1. Credit Crunch: Apocalypse, later…
2. Credit crunch survival for just £500. Kind of.
3. Scrap the MA and face the recession

Exams and the associated stress are a strange thing. We’ve been doing them since we were four and yet we still treat them with fear and contempt. On a similar note I’ve been dressing myself since I was four and despite some issues, I would say that I am at ease with this once hard task. Why is the same not true of exams?

My friend convinced herself that she needed a wax and that it definitely took priority over her revision

We know what we have to do, namely revise a set list of information by a certain date. Not that hard really and yet it is one of the highest causes of stress in young people.

What is wrong with us that makes us so unable to do the simple thing and start early, doing a little bit everyday? Any exam stress I have ever experienced has been completely self inflicted and is all to predictable, through a mean combination of regular procrastination and computer games, all I need is a casual drugs habit and I’ve pretty much become the only character Seth Rogan has ever played.

When is my University going to wise up and spend some of my good money on revision mums? I feel the day I revise properly for an exam is the day I become a real student. Wearing chino’s and growing outlandish beards will presumably follow.

Whilst discussing this subject with a friend she informed me that the other day instead of revising she convinced herself that she needed a wax and that it definitely took priority over her revision. Seemingly a trim fanny is more important to us than bitching out some serious grades.

Still who’d want to be the prat with a first and a scruffy muff?

Related posts:

1. On revision and procrastination (P.S. I wrote this piece to avoid more revision…)