The worst time to sober up

Imagine your friend suddenly springs into your room, crying and sobbing that her boyfriend of two years has, for no apparent reason, decided not to pursue the relationship anymore. What are your options?

a) Tissues, chocolate and some romantic comedy that you yell at everytime someone says 'I'll love you forever" - "YOU LIAR!!!!!"

b) Bake muffins. LOTS of muffins.

c) Tell her how fantastic it is that she's free now (i.e. suicide).

d) Get another friend over, have a few drinks and put on all her sexy lingerie that she won't need anymore and go prancing around the university.

Yeah... we picked d.

Now, try to imagine what ran through my head when I sobered up and realised that I was a long way from home, wearing nothing except a corset, undies that said "It doesn't count if you don't get caught", fish net stockings, a broken pair of handcuffs clamped around one wrist and a vibrator in my other hand. You guessed it: "..........................................oh fuck".

The funny thing was that she was still upset in the morning. I mean, did we not do our best to cheer her up? On another interesting note, would you call this a man or a woman? We still don't know.

"Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics"

A few days ago a friend and I were bored as hell and decided to crack out the paint and brushes. She was slightly drunk and I was slightly high since I'd only just driven a manual for the very first time. With our powers combined, we created a piece that was... interesting. Ever seen a painting that, depending on how you looked at it, could be deeply artistic or completely awful? Ours was like that, except we were quite considering the latter possibility to be the more correct one. In any case, let me present "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics".

About that interpretation? Well, the title comes from a recent statistics lecture, and we called it that before we made our analysis of our beautiful painting. What we came up with is that the big eye in the middle belongs to someone who let his or her friends use Excel for stats and is now crying blood because they caught fire. The friends are the two blue stick people on the lower left. Artistic, no?

Anyway, at about 3am that night, I decided that it would be a really funny idea to send it to our lecturer. Here's how the email went:

"Hi Simon,
A friend and I are in BS2001, which I have to tell you is a lot less scary than I originally thought it would be. Of course, in saying that, it's mostly been cruisy so far, and you'll no doubt be getting a whole lot of crazed emails from us later.
You seem like a pretty easy going dude, so I thought I'd share something with you that happened over the weekend. A friend and I had a few drinks and got bored, so I cracked out the paint and brushes and together we painted this rather pretty sort of abstract piece. We called it "Friends Don't Let Friends Use Excel For Statistics" (sound familiar?). From that, we figured that it was a big eye crying because its owner let two friends use Excel for statistics and they exploded or something - they're the two bluish stick dudes on the bottom left. Doesn't make much sense to me now, but hey, you can't argue with drunken logic.
Just hoping this made you smile, at least now you know that we listen in lectures.
Keep it real, Emily and her accomplice Caitlin, now hoping for HDs for our outstanding effort."

Yeah. I haven't got a reply.

A Tale of Two Traffic Cones

I have to admit something. I have a cone fetish. No, not the geometric object, nor even a joint. I'm talking about traffic cones.

It all started late last year when we were driving home from the city after a night of getting wasted. Ahead on the road we spied a cone next to a big metal roadworks sign. We pulled over with brakes screeching, opened the door and snatched the cone up, effectively pulling off our very first conenapping. Further down the road we took another, before heading back to college with our new-found treasures. One we put on top of a sleeping friend's air conditioner. We had better plans for the other. Another friend who we know parties hard and had been out the same night was passed out cold on his bed. Another poor soul was lying on the floor. On the way to his room with cone #2, we found a little baby cone which we picked up as well. When we got inside, I pulled back the covers, gently placed the cone in the guy's arms and wrapped them both up in blankets. The baby cone we placed on the floor-dude's crotch.

Later that day I woke to a text message beeping: "I think I hooked up with a traffic cone last night!". He eventually found out it was me, and thus begun the Cone Collecting War, in which the participant to collect the most traffic cones by the end of the exam period won the respect and adoration of the people.

About a week later, myself and another friend went for a cruise. This cruise ended up being one of my most profitable escapades in terms of anecdotes, for we collected a staggering 38 cones, plus some construction flags that had been left next to the road. Imagine our terror as we approached the gatehouse of the university, the back of the car full to the roof with cones. However, we got through no questions asked. On return to the college, we did what any normal person would do with the cones - built people out of them.






All together we built four people - Conelia, Shaconea (as in Sharona), Conerad and Farmer Cones. Aren't they beautiful? Look at the detail! Conelia even has saggy bewbs!



You may well ask what befell of the remaining cones before the end of the exam period. Well, I freaked out. At 4am a few days later I figured it would be a great time to run out and stash the cones in the bushes. I had to do it in two lots since they were so heavy. The first lot went fine, as I'd suspected, there was nobody to be seen. However, on the second trip I was halfway across the road when suddenly a car came racing towards me, headlights at full beam. I literally ran and dived into the bushes to avoid being seen. The car continued past where I was and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then, it turned around. I was convinced it had seen me and so I wriggled further into the tall grass. But no, the car sped on past back the way it had come. I lay in the dirt for a minute afterwards, all I could say was "WHAT. THE. FUCK.". And so that was how I got rid of the cones.

It's not the end of the story though. This year upon my return to college, there was a leaking pipe in the quad and they had fenced off the area to students. Upon closer inspection I noticed something - On top of a star post was the head of someone very familiar - Conelia! And there on the ground was Conerad! I made a hasty escape back to my room so I could laugh loudly to myself. And that's when I decided it was time to expose the rest of the stash. There they all were, in the bushes just as I had left them months before. The same friend who had helped me 'liberate' them before helped me carry them down to my conenapping adversary's room. We placed them all around his front door and lawn and promptly ran off. The next morning I was greeted in many ways. "Very nice, but could you get rid of them?!" "Wow, that was the best thing I've seen in ages, good one!". Later that day, they were all gone, and yet I had not touched them. A day later I was walking past the maintenance guy's shed, when I spied a particularly familiar large stack of cones out the back. I'm glad I contributed something to the construction area of the college, but really I'm most surprised that I haven't been asked to leave yet. Again, I do things and go unpunished - I am unstoppable! But it has come at a price. I can never go anywhere now without my eyes widening and heart racing whenever I see a cone. Things came to a head over the holidays when I came across this beautiful piece of delectability. The hybrid cone - build of a traditional cone, height of the skinny poles we used to create the people's bodies. My mouth waters every time I pass it.

Tequila - that's all I need to say.

When it comes to drinking, I can't refuse a cold Corona. When it comes to drinking hard, I can't refuse a shot or ten of my good friend Jose Cuervo. Jose and I have spent many memorable nights together, and he's the one I always take home with me at the end of the night (providing I haven't left him in somebody's toilet... or floor... or both).

We met on my 18th birthday party and have been close ever since. When my friends see him coming they know there's going to be trouble. When I decided much older men were great at kissing, Jose was there. When I decided it would be great to throw up all over someone else's bathroom, Jose was there. When I dance so hard that I'm drenched in sweat when the club closes at 5am, you'll know Jose was there. And when somebody mentioned making out with everyone in the room, ladies included, yep, it was Jose.

Jose is responsible for many of my finest and not so finest moments... God bless you, tequila.

My Bar Fridge

One of THE most important things a uni student will ever own is a bar fridge. Now, being a guru on all things alcoholic, my dad knew this and gave me a fully-stocked fridge when uni started. This is my bar fridge before O-Week:

And this is my bar fridge after O-Week:

Am I not the model uni student?

Drinking Tips for Uni Students

It is my strong feeling that drinking at universities has become a problem that undermines the academic atmosphere and turns brilliance into slobbering vomiting sloth. I have thus compiled a guide on responsible practices when drinking and how to remain respectable when one is undertaking this regretful activity.

1. Whilst doing that trick where you suction a shot glass to the side of your face by sucking all the air out with your mouth and sliding it to your cheek, don't suck too hard. You don't want people to be thinking your partner is a wifebasher, now.



2. Make sure you get REALLY close to cameras because otherwise it's hard to see you in the picture.



3. When staying the night at a friend's house, try to use some sort of support for the head. Scuba tanks aren't recommended, but they sure look funny.



4. After a few drinks, it is easy to get slightly disorientated, like this individual. No, the bottle doesn't go in that way...



...Well, that's close enough...



5. Now for hats. Hats go on your head, not your face.



Not that way, silly.




Good work!




As my uncle always said, "At uni you don't have too much money, so you're going to have to choose between food and beer sometimes. There are a lot of hungry uni students out there."

At Home with the Nuns

At John Flynn there is an annual event called the At Home Dinner. Basically it's an excuse for everyone to dress up in drag and dance like Napoleon Dynamite. This year everyone had to pick a song or movie beginning with the letter of their deck - T-Deck did Titanic, F-Deck did Footloose and, not surprisingly, N-Deck did the entire Napoleon Dynamite dance.

L-Deck, as I have mentioned in the past, has been dubbed "The Nunnery" because we're made up entirely of girls. It only seemed appropriate to dress up in habits and dance to Like A Virgin.


Oh, don't we look so wholesome? We walked to dinner in two lines with our hands in the praying position and promptly sat down and started guzzing down the goon and passion pop. One by one they called up the different decks to perform. We were one of the first few to go through. We got up and our DA Julia gave a speech about how we'd been excommunicated because we liked to indulge in certain activities that the church didn't approve of, and that we "know more about heaven than you could ever imagine". One of the girls had spliced together this prayer song that came on first before it abruptly changed to the first chorus of Like A Virgin. When this change occurred we threw off our habits to reveal our inner souls.



HOT!! Our dance consisted of such classic moves as the group orgy, the Mexican bum-slap and me giving a lucky stranger a lap dance. We ended up coming second which we were all pretty stoked about. The prize choccies were gone in about 8.54 seconds.

Then we all got outrageously drunk and I projectile vomited all over a rival college's bathroom.

JFC: Home of the Quad Run

Every college has its own little traditions. The kind of stuff that the guys in charge know about but turn a blind eye to because it's culture! John Flynn has a few nice ones that I thought I'd share.

The Quad Run

Everybody who goes to John Flynn has to do at least one Quad Run before they leave/get kicked out. The quad is a big grassy area with a few trees in the middle of the college where people play footy, lounge about or go for rides in the resident kangaroos' pouches. At night however, the quad turns into a playground for something a little odd. Flynners from all over come (most of the time a touch intoxicated) to do a couple of laps of the quad, do some pushups, flex their gargantuan biceps and impress the ladies. Twist is, they're butt naked. Shoes are allowed, actually, and Batman capes have become quite fashionable lately.

My only complaint is that I live in L-Deck (also known as The Nunnery or The Convent). L-Deck is separated from the quad by one of the other college buildings, meaning that we miss out on all the Quad Run action. I propose that, since we have a very nice new concrete slab in front of the L-Deck buildings , the Slab Run be incorporated with the Quad Run so that the poor nuns get to see some flesh too.

Gavin Peterson is coot

Nobody knows quite when it happened, but a long time ago there was a boy called Gavin Peterson. Now, Gav was a bit of a ladies' man and was admired by many during his time at John Flynn. One girl happened to be quite taken with Gav, but she apparently wasn't too crash hot in the spelling department. Thus her declaration of affection yields the classic message "Gavin Peterson is coot".

It has become a tradition of John Flynn to write "Gavin Peterson is coot" anywhere and everywhere. You can see it scrawled on toilet doors, under beds, desks, on trees and even on t-shirts. People have seen it written interstate and even overseas. Impressive, eh?

I myself have written it four times in various places. I hate graffiti, but in doing this I feel like I am an exception to the rule - I'm doing my duty as a Flynnian!

The Bongo Van

A while back St Paul's procured a van. Not just any van, but the oldest, crappiest van they could find. They took out the engine and stripped it of anything it didn't really need for its intended purpose. It was christened the Bongo Van. The idea is that the fossils jump in and buckle up (if it even has buckles), then the freshers push it wherever it needs to go. It's one of the main modes of transport to inter-college cricket games.

My very first Bongo Van experience was during the 4.30am wake-up call on the first night at college. We neared the St Paul's carpark and noticed that there was one vehicle that didn't quite look like the others. As in it was lying on its side in the
parking spot.

It is a long-standing tradition that Flynners try to steal the Bongo Van. The greatest story ever told of this was that some bloke went over to the van in the middle of the night, dismantled the whole thing and hung the pieces from the trees in the quad. Brilliant, and it'll be hard to beat. On several occasions we've ventured over to the Bongo Van late at night to see if we could turn ourselves into legendary freshers, and on all of these occasions we've found the van to be heavily guarded. We're talking people sleeping on mattresses around it. Big people. It was unanimously decided to leave our hopes and dreams for later. A lot later.

The Haunted Rooms

This one isn't really a tradition but it's still creepy. There are several rooms in the college that are said to be haunted. We've been told that in the past there was a fireman going around and checking that all the fire extinguishers were in good nick. One of them wasn't and it blew up and killed him. I don't know whether it's true or not, but it still might explain some of the creepy stuff that happens. In one room if you throw open the door it sometimes bounces back - but there's nothing for it to bounce off. In another people complain that at night when they're sleeping they feel something pushing hard on their chests, like somebody's trying to crush them. When they get up to look there's nobody there. Spooky, huh? I guess living in a brand new building has its advantages - nobody's died in it yet. Hopefully, anyway.