Sydney Life

All in all, it had been a pretty decent party. Started off slowly, until word spread via the technological blessing and curse that is SMS.

I say blessing because it’s the best way to quickly mobilise a bunch of people in the one area; I say curse because, well, it’s the best way to quickly mobilise a bunch of people in the one area. Just look at Cronulla... But I digress.

It was the height of Summer, a million degrees by day but the nights just cool enough to get people emerging from airconditioned pool rooms, pubs and supermarkets to enjoy the sunset. We were all in a buoyant mood - school was
over and we were yet to face the reality of UAI results, uni applications and that interminable waiting game before the offers came out.

There was dancing. God-awful renditions of Cold Chisel songs which never seemed to grow old (hey - it was the country, ok?). Cow tipping expeditions. Somebody hijacked a parked water tanker. You know, just those average things which make parties in the bush what they are.

The party was borne from our desire to forget about the UAI results which would be waiting for us at 9am the following morning. Doing something to take your mind off it is essential - I could imagine myself repeatedly checking online the night before, “just to make sure” the results hadn’t gone up early by accident...

And it was a successful tactic - I woke the following morning surrounded by slumbering people and the detritus of the previous night... and I even forgot for a moment. I think it was only a few minutes however before everyone was up and congregated around the computer in nervous anticipation.

Two years of preparing for those results to come out, weeks if not months of obsessing over this day, endless classroom and playground conversations about it, and the only thing I could think when I saw my marks was, “All that effort for those three letters, two digits and a decimal point?” Then I thought, “Is this good enough? Am I happy with this? What is everyone going to say?”

But I didn’t have long to ponder it. My friend James staggered up from the couch, squinted at the screen, and repeated the number to the waiting amassed audience. “You feel like a genius, or what?”

Well, I replied, maybe not genius. But it was definitely enough. I’d made it.

Plus, it was a great excuse for another party.