Living the cliche, and loving it
Freshers Week. Freshers Fortnight. In Australia; Orientation. In the US, we’re called ‘freshmen’. York seems fond of the term ‘STYClets’. Oink oink.
I said it wouldn’t happen but since the Friday of Week One I’m just another Fresher Fluer. Statistics, that’s all we are. The truth is that being this sociable and nocturnal was always going to end in tears. I’m not cut out for it. But a Facebook feed hailing from Cardiff tells me my friend’s in the same schtick. “Man up fresher” is a comment on her icky status. That’s right. Aren’t we supposed to be this indestructible tour de force, work hard/play hard movement?
Forgive me, but there are 300 students doing English. We’ve not had a single lecture yet where our poor lecturer’s been able to keep a straight face. It’s not funny! We’re dying here! Who knew how tricky it was to hold a cough in until you’re in a cleverly-acoustically-minded lecture theatre?
Also, food’s been a bit of a car crash so far. I suppose I just didn’t give the ‘kitchen’ situation much thought. Maybe one of the first conversations we had was on where we were going to stow away our kitchen tools. “You know, like your cutlery and bowls and chopping boards and things”. Oh. I forgot about that kind of stuff. But I brought a milk frother. The kind where you heat it up in the microwave then froth until you’re all set for incredible cappuccinos.
But Starbucks won’t help me now. Not when first floor are cooking roast dinners every Sunday. And although Special K packets recommend it, living off cereal really isn’t an ideal move. Things are looking up though. Mummy Haines took pity on me following our first catch-up phone call and the porter had post for me that second weekend: 16 pieces of pink stripy Tesco cutlery. “Crikey, I’ll never use them all”, I thought. Then came the Ben and Jerry’s/Anchorman evening. £1.90 tubs of Cookie Dough excellence between 10 of us? Beautiful.
When do we reach simple ‘first-year’ status, I wonder? Or is the whole year a fresher-filled rite of passage? There is an overwhelming sense that the second- and third-years can spot us a mile off with our wide-eyed ‘this is all new’ features. I like to think our fresher’s crew isn’t such a cliché though. We’ve already got a play on the college chant going strong: “Langwith till I leave”. You know, that kid of apathetic, too cool for school vibe. None of this talk of allegiances to the death.
And the next step? Let’s put this STYClet vibe to bed and get ourselves on the ‘visit day’ list. We get £15 an afternoon and the opportunity to show people round and to finally be in a position where we know what we’re doing. What a novel concept. And so the fresher cycle continues.
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Heard it all before; writing about freshers is a cliche.