Growing up gracefully

Growing old is quite daunting for a number of us. It has come to a point where many of us third year students have to start making decisions about what the fo' we're going to do with our lives-Masters? London? Travelling? Dole? Of course you naturally lose track of time and we forget that we've actually evolved from freshers to third years. Last night like old farts, some friends and I sat around pre drinking and reminiscing about the past 2 and a bit years. Curiously I thought what best to talk about whilst we're on the subject of uni memories: first impressions.

My first impressions on everybody I met in my first year have obviously changed. If a person hasn't matured in the slightest since being at uni, then there is someting fundementally wrong with them if they haven't learnt a single thing about adulthood. But my friends and I have definitely all changed in some way. For me, I'm better with money (call it an improvement)and I simply don't like going out as much. Last night I sat still with a full glass of vodka and cherryade after 20mins. Firstly, why the hell haven't I got through my drink already, secondly, come 11pm I just want to crawl into bed and watch TV. I'm a far cry from who I was in first year.

First year was mental...absolutely mental. I lived up to James Dean's quote 'dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today'. I didn't really care if I went into uni or not, granted I would feel guilty, nothing a game of pool wouldn't lift the gloom away. I lived in a house in first year with only 3 lads, as you can imagine the bathroom was horrendous and the kitchen was a never ending cesspit of takeaways from the night before. First impressions of us: complete indie kids. The way we dressed, the only genre of music we listened to seemed to be a broken record of indie rock, and our obsession with jamming in our living room. Roll on summer of first year and we come back and things had completely changed. Friendship groups were slowly parting right under our noses and things became really chilled. We started believing that going out was just a fad, 'fuck going out' was our new thing.

Come a year later and we're in that same position of deciding whether or not to get absolutely sloshed. It was Valentines last night so I guess it was appropriate for my single friends to find a nice girl and settle for a romantic dance and whatever comes after. So we're dancing away, I'm becoming increasingly aware that I'm among loads of freshers and I begin to feel quite...old. Between my friends we have established that once you get to third year that 'freshness' and enthusiasm is kind of diminished like a 90 year old granny's libido. I'm not saying we don't have fun, but we don't have as many 'effortless' fun nights that seemed to have occurred every night in first year.

Suddenly one song came on and teleported me back in time to my first year in that same club singing along to the foals. And there we were, my one and only house mate (that managed to go onto second year) howling 'cassius its over, you're second best, cassius its over, you're second best, second best second best'.


Everything was rather cheery after touching familiar grounds. The Foals, The Killers 'Mr Brightside', Black eyed peas 'I gotta a feeling' and Dizzee Rascal 'bonkers' summed up the music in first year. M83 a new band apparently got everyone in high spirits, and I caught a sudden realisation that I haven't kept up with indie music since first year. I fell in love with this from the first time it came on. I can't really expplain why this song makes me feel all sentimental, but some songs just replace the words with music to extract certain emotions.



I guess that in my last year I've learnt that growing old and leaving uni is scary, daunting, but exciting. I should enjoy the time that I've got left and relish the good memories. I don't need to chase after the past nor live up to my 18 yr old antics, just chill and accept that I can't stomach £1.21 Sainsburys cider any more nor not wearing a coat to save a quid on cloakroom. Now that's growing up gracefully.