So long farewell, Auf Wiedersehen
This will probably be the last time that I will ever write for Nouse. Stop grinning, that’s not kind. By Friday, I will have packed up my room, waved goodbye to all of my lecturers, and I will be heading out into the big, wide, and admittedly quite scary world.
Like most third-years at this time in their University career, I’m already getting a little bit misty-eyed about leaving, and I’m certainly not looking forward to it. For one thing, life outside of the campus bubble is not as cushy as we might like to think, and moving out of the safety and security of York scares me quite a lot. Things that we take for granted in our safe little community are certainly not the norm once we step outside. York is pretty safe, and unlike other city universities we don’t have to fear a brutal knee-capping every time we leave the house. I’ve got through three years in Yorkshire without too much in the way of knocks (aside from a punch received from a particularly un-ladylike woman, for singing Tom Jones’ ‘She’s a Lady’ at her, after she spat on the floor), but I know that that will almost definately not be the case when I move off to live in London.
What I am going to miss the most, more than intricate campus politics, the legend that is Dan Taylor, the ducks or our finest campus newspaper, is the people. I have met some people here that I will know for the rest of my life, and it is unlikely that I will experience the friendliness that we have at York ever again. In how many other environments will it take you the 45 minutes to walk two hundred metres like it does from Vanbrugh to Langwith? People in York don’t seem to take themselves too seriously. For the most part we all seem to rub along pretty well, and we certainly all know how to have a good time. The great and strange phenomenon of Ziggy’s show us this every Wednesday.
My brother confided in me recently that he loves coming to see me and some of his friends, here in York. When I asked him why, he replied (after a sherry or two) that at his University (Sheffield) everyone is a bit “ooooooh”, whereas at York we’re all a bit “wayhayyyyyyyy!” I think that sums up York better than I ever could.
Other unis have better facilities, less duck poo and a better nightlife, but York has something special, a certain feeling that other places just don’t have. Perhaps it’s the asbestos in the library, but I’m a much better person now than I was when I arrived, and I’ve had a bloody great time changing. My advice to you is to enjoy it while it lasts, or be like Matt Burton, keep turning up on campus so it will never end. I’ve never been so tempted to apply for a masters…..
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