"First Year Blues"

So uni has been back in full swing for a few weeks now. The first Trimester of a University year is always the most irritating for me - and it has nothing to do with going back to study whilst the sun is still beaming. It has every thing to do with first years. And because I was stupid enough to over look one first year paper way back when, as being a major requirement, I now have to endure the First years, as a third year, at close proximity in order to complete my major.

Next year I am going to produce a pamphlet entitled "A first years guide to University life". Here are some points I am mulling over for the pamphlet.

• University life is not a fashion show, and the Campus is not your cat walk. I love shoes, but you do not need to wear 6 inch heels to class. You do not need to wear a full face of packed on make-up and red lipstick. You do not all need to shop at the same stores, buying expensive outfits - you look like some weird genetically engineered species.

• So the Government gave you $1000 and you bought yourself a MacBook. Well gee whizz, aren't you cool? The average paper costs you about $500, maybe stay off Facebook during lectures, because if you fail two of them, that laptop just cost you $2000 and six months of your academic life. 

• Afternoon classes start at ten minutes past the hour at VUW. You do not need to show up at ten to the hour and hang around/clog the walkways. If you do show up early and there is a class being held in the room you are waiting for DO NOT think that your class has started twenty minutes early. DO NOT go in to that room. You will look like an egg. And you'll feel like one too.

• Don't come to classes and chat about your new lease on life/sex/alcohol now that you're "an adult". We don't pay ridiculously high fees to here about how you got mashed on Jägerbombs over the weekend and let your room mates friend pash you in the taxi. This is CLAS104 and if you keep talking I'm going to suggest that you leave and take your chit-chat to NOBODYCARES101.

• Most external doors at uni are automatic or button release operated. Always look for the little green button. Standing at a door, trying with all your mite to force it open is embarrassing for you. It is funny to everybody else. 

• Do not ask if the notes will be put on Blackboard later. They will. 

• And finally, if you are in a tutorial with someone who seems to be a tad older than you, do not under any circumstance ask "so, like, are you, like, a Mature Student or something?" Do not ask this especially if they have just told you that they are twenty three years old. Not cool. Not. Cool.