Fear and Loathing on the Learning Curve: Observations on Life, Tech and Web Design from a Slightly Misanthropic Mind

One Down…

Strange feel­ings on this June after­noon. Having been home since Saturday, I’m still try­ing to shift out of the stu­dent paradigm, and face up to the real­it­ies of being short on cash, return­ing to the Old Job, and still hav­ing innu­mer­able tasks to take care of.

Saturday was weird (as was Friday Night: Stoned Adventures in the UV Room, but that’s another story). My “I’m pretty sure I could tear this whole room down in 2 hours” con­tin­gency turned, pre­dict­ably, into real­ity (as tends to hap­pen when large amounts of alco­hol are imbibed instead of pack­ing), so I got up around 7am and, break­fast­less for the fourth con­sec­ut­ive day, wandered over to cam­pus to retrieve my car. I arrived back just in time to see Josh and Andrea off to catch their red-eye out of Birmingham, and then I had the place to myself.

And thus began the pack­ing up of the last year of my life which had, like a giant uncoil­ing spring, gradu­ally spread itself in increas­ing depth across the room. The posters alone took about an hour to take down, so need­less to say by the time my father arrived I was not too far in to the task. I man­aged to rustle up some cof­fee, and in true boy-scout style he man­aged to loc­ate what must have been the last edible breakfasty-type food in the kit­chen: four bur­ger buns. In about two hours we packed the rest of my stuff, and man­aged to fit that — and the assor­ted crap I had kindly agreed to take for my flat­mates — into his and my cars.

Walking down those hall­ways for the last time — to drop off my keys — felt utterly strange. The place had become com­pletely dehu­man­ized — every­one else had left; no more strange cook­ing smells eman­at­ing from the flats, no more strange sounds from behind closed doors. I sol­emnly checked our mail­box for the last time, dropped my keys into the des­ig­nated box, and that was it. So long, Lakeside. Never again shall I run scream­ing down your cor­ridors in the dead of night; no more shall I scar your walls with uni­cycle, foot­ball and diabolo; no more shall I explode beer cans in your bathrooms.

It was a nasty feel­ing to say the least. From this point on we are out on our own, no more under­paid clean­ing staff to clear up the big bits after our scream­ing, vomit­ing, bottle-smashing pas­sage, no more reg­u­lar linen change, bath­room clean, safe haven by the water. It’s up to us next year, God help us.

WSAF Photo Exhibition

For those of you at Warwick, next week sees the arrival of the Warwick Student Arts Festival, which includes an exhib­i­tion put on by PhotoSoc. This will appear in Xanana’s Lounge (oppos­ite Xanana’s) at the begin­ning of the week, and the Cooler on Thursday and will, with any luck, include some of my work.