Sydney Life

Magical place –
Where gothic towers
Superimpose city skylines;
Minds are formed,
Lives shaped.

Across the room sat a boy…

I wrote that poem in my first year at Sydney University in 2003, when I fell madly in love with a boy who I first saw ‘across the room’. Yes, uni is a magical time and place. The story of my uni experience would not be complete without a recount of my romantic history. Here's where I fell in love for the first time, fell in love for the second time, experienced heart break, had several unrequited crushes and once even vowed to become celibate (I won't tell you how long that lasted).

Few people tell you this but uni is a cauldron for romance. Mix thousands of students, sandstone buildings and Clubs & Societies and you get a recipe for love, love-gone-wrong, unrequited-love, not-quite-love-but-good-anyway and shy-morning-goodbyes.

There is a complete untold story about romance on campus and I'm going to take the daring step to reveal some of the campus' secrets. This is the first instalment in a series on campus romance.

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Part One: Finding Ms/Mr Right or Ms/Mr Right-Now (...and knowing where to take her/him)

1. The Evangelical Union (EU) - The EU is the largest evangelical Christian group on campus. They host bible readings, public forums and talks on everything from Jesus to Judas, abortion to abomination. Inside sources tell me the levels of coupling in the EU are significant. There is something very useful about meeting a future partner in the EU if you identify with this brand of Christianity; sex-before-marriage is never an issue and your partner is likely to hold similar beliefs to you about how marriage/family life should be arranged. If you join the EU, by third year be expected to be on the invite list for a not insignificant amount of weddings.

2. Not-so Public Places - Several places on campus boast a reputation for being lovers’ hideaways. Unfortunately for you, revealing these places would jeopardise the very usefulness of them. But for the cryptic among us, five infamous places include:

Down:
- Angling in the Eight Degree
- A Room with a View
- Parking in the Zone

Across:
- Referencing Again
- Lawless Vehicles

3. Oh! Week - There is something magic about O-Week; a uni full of eager (dressed to impress) freshers and older, more seasoned students. In my first year, I remember the Union held a sleepover pyjama party in Manning Bar. Unfortunately, I don’t think this event has been repeated since the Union realised it was opening itself up to numerous wrongful birth lawsuits.

4. Cross-Campus Student Mardi Gras Float - Every year queer students from universities across NSW converge to march in the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade. Preparations for the student float usually take months, which also means months to get to know fellow queer students from other universities. Not surprisingly, many a romance has blossomed working on the student float. Unfortunately, these burgeoning romances usually end up resembling the parade itself: a fabulous two-hour run followed by a hurried dash home the next morning down a completely trashed Oxford St.

Above: The giant Rocket Clock on the 2005 "GaySkool" Cross-Campus Student Float. With fabulous cardboard creations like this, is it any wonder that romance blossomed?

5. Tute Presentations - The classroom should not be forgotten as a primary site for many campus romances. The Economics and Business faculty is particularly known for encouraging its students to collaborate on group projects and tute presentations. Let me tell you, you can pick up more than just some marks in a tute presentation. Who knows what might happen with that spunk you did your last Australian Politics tute presentation with?

6. Sydney University Law Society (SULS): Christmas Party and First Year Camp - The Law Society gets two mentions because it holds a special place in many a-law students’ heart. Law students are weird and wonderful creatures. To get into law, most students have to kiss goodbye any hope of a social life beyond study groups during the HSC. But once students actually make it into law, those that recover from the scars of the HSC, tend to make up for their Year 12 social hiatus pretty quickly at the SULS First Year Camp and Christmas Party. After all, what did you think would happen when you mixed law students with an open bar tab and some Santa hats? Law students like to call this an ‘informal networking opportunity’.

7. Become an Actor! - I’ve saved the best for last. The sure-fire place to find campus romance is to be involved in any form of theatrical show: whether it’s a SUDS play, a MUSE musical or a faculty Comedy Revue, the arts are where it’s at. In my first year, I was in a Broadway Review where two friends (both involved in the show) fell head over heels for each other. Three years later they are still together! After all, we all knew that the pash at the end of the eighth scene was just a little prolonged for acting…