Kevin_BlackGood evening, Internet.
Having successfully slogged my way through a second year of my degree, I have decided to condescend in posting my precious word-thoughts onto the world wide web. You’re welcome.
Unfortunately I haven’t had a lot of time to think throughout the year, unless you count one’s absurdly long holidays, but those really are intended for drinking, I believe. You see I’m one of those chaps whom the Daily Mail likes to portray as the future prime minister. Perhaps you’ve guessed it, I am a Cambridge Man.
My term time days leave little time for contemplation; I wake, I eat, I read, I have seminars, I attend non-compulsory lectures by world experts, I get horrendously drunk in the middle of the week, but I don’t watch TV, because I’m too busy to be normal. Therefore when I get the odd week off, I like to party just as much as the next man, woman or tragically neglected child. It is this proclivity for drunken misadventure which is a problem in the eyes of the national press. And despite my predilection for alcohol and fine cuisine, I sometimes have to wonder whether the Mail are onto something with their persistent denigration of students at this noble institution.
You see, this week I shall row in the May bumps – a tournament of races older in origin than the Football League. I will be joined in my endeavours by many schoolboy rowers from Eton and the like, and ogled in my lycra by summer dress-adorned girls sipping pimms. So far so decadent. So elite. An anarchist by the slightly amusing name of Ian Bone intends to disrupt the races on the basis that rowing promotes social inequality. What piffle. I worked bloody hard to get to Cambridge from my comprehensive background, and I worked bloody hard in training all year to get to these races, so there was nothing elitist about my journey to the present. Rowing has nothing to do with social elitism, and everything to do with physical and mental determination. Much like Cambridge itself, which by the way does more than any other university to bring in state school applicants. If you have a problem with elitism, blame the government; after all, most of them went to Oxford, which is another story altogether.
Having said that, what follows the bumps races is nothing short of madness; on Sunday there are a multitude of garden parties lasting from 9am until 9pm, with free flowing alcohol. On every other night there are balls which last beyond daybreak, of which I am this year attending 3. I will be wearing the obligatory White Tie attire to two of them, Black Tie to the other. May Week, as it’s known, is a period in which the entire university attempts to drink itself into oblivion. It is sweet, unadulterated madness. And if you’re lucky, you might be photographed in the papers while throwing up. But is it wrong to spend £150 on a night of unlimited alcohol and music? Does it promote elitism? Or are we merely a group of overworked, overachieving students letting off steam from the prior year, rebooting ready for the next?
Frankly I don’t care, it is what it is – I intend to enjoy it to the full, and I just wanted you to know how much fun I’ll be having.
Best Wishes.