The second most important party occasion of the year after Michael Gove’s birthday is slowly emerging from the dregs of its hangover period. The UMS marks are safely cocooned in imitation-mahogany frames, the semi-awkward Facebook groups are joined and cursorily stalked, and all traces of AQA have been so thoroughly purged you’ve actually asked the local priest to do that sprinkly thing around your room with the holy water. Now it’s time to look tentatively ahead to the packing. (The what?)
Veterans with months of procrastination experience will presently take to student rags to peddle apparently exclusive wisdoms about fresherdom. Often this involves recycling racy dos and don’ts, ironically compiled as some form of perverse health-and-safety leaflet. The nationals will also have a go, occasionally leaving you wondering why they tried.
With all that info in one Google search, what do you actually need to bring? You may as well just shove everything in. Of course, there are some things you can’t argue with (underwear), whereas there are some things you can (twenty-eight pairs of shoes) and some things you really can (shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles). To help whittle down your mounting tick list, here is a small sample of things you might think twice about before putting in ahead of the toothbrush.
Bust of Pericles
Boris Johnson famously took one of these to Balliol with him. Presumably not the real deal, although you can never be sure where the line is for the guy. At the time of writing, you can actually eBay one – from that arcadia of classical antiquity, Australia – for a hundred and twenty sterling squids. This bearded Athenian might win you the heart of a hot Corpus classicist, but in all probability will make you look a little over-keen to the student lay folk. And he probably finds being sole audience to your fumbly liaisons rather embarrassing.
Your favourite large teddy
Evelyn Waugh based Aloysius bear on one his poet friend John Betjeman used to carry around with him at Oxford called Archibald. (Betjeman also had a stuffed elephant called Jumbo.) However, anyone who still considers Oxford to be a minor suburb of Brideshead might receive a few bemused frowns for towing their vintage Steiff toy around with them between lectures. At best a naff Anthony Andrews tribute act and at worst an indication that you are ineligible for procreation, stuffed animals in college are best kept small and room-bound.
Backpack of condoms
Life ≠ Love Actually. Move on.
‘The Easy Way to Stop Drinking’ by Allen Carr (available for £13.46 on Amazon Books)
I’m not saying don’t invest in a copy, but you’re trying not to waste precious pennies, right? Pennies that could be put to better use at the bottom of glasses. And yes, I know what you’re thinking: I thought it was Alan Carr too.
Livestock
The last thing you need after a hard night’s senseless gyration is to get up and find you need to physically move more than seven metres to procure milk. The solution seems obvious: bring a cow, what udder genius – free lactose 24/7? Well firstly, it isn’t pasteurised, bitch. Secondly, they must be fed on grass, by which I don’t mean marijuana; and I’m not inclined to put Trinity’s gardener out of a job. The only place where quadrupeds are legit for any sort of lawnmowing is Magdalen and I am unsure whether they will supplement your Shreddies.
Fifty Shades of Grey
Unless ‘the study of humiliation on the sexual consciousness’ is a part of your course (for arts degrees, this is sometimes not a joke), it’s just not feasible to slot in a cheeky bit of bondage in amongst your essay crises and lab reports. Time is one issue; reading it is another. Involuntarily imbibing mummy porn can only lead to vexing disorientation: mentally superimposing kinky cuffs on the guy opposite you in the lecture hall, or misinterpreting your tute partner as she laments an overdue essay (“he’ll punish me when I give it to him later”). So, leave the literary marvel at home and concentrate, as you should, on more sedate, academic tomes, like J. R. Clarke’s ‘Roman Sex, 100 BC-AD 250’ (Bodleian Library shelfmark UBHU M04.C05068).
A closed attitude
One of the more annoying things you can do is roll up to university and end up hanging about with all the rugger chaps you used to play against, or making shoulder chips, visas, Jack Wills bottoms, etc. a pre-requisite of your milieu. Wake up to the joyous possibilities of higher education. Everyone feels as awkward as you, so there’s nothing to lose. Chat to everyone you meet, even the funny-smelling ones. Uppity cliques are best left to American teen serials, and striking a good note with one of your many witnesses to several years of blunder means there’s at least one more person who’ll drag you out of the gutter at 2am.
Hopes of everlasting love
Despite how books and films unfold to your pleasure, it’s not a sound assumption that dreaming spires automatically come with complimentary damsels and princes. The whole notion is, statistically, somewhat possible, but making it known that you’re “looking for love” will draw in unexpected sorts of punters at blearier times of the day.
