Sydney Life

If we believe clichés, then all good things must come to an end. What goes up, must come down. All journeys have their destinations.

But what if you took the journey, and missed the destination? What if you’re still up, waiting to fall? And what if your good thing has ended, without you being there to witness it?

On Wednesday, June 7, I had my last tutorial. Ever. (Maybe.)

I was really looking forward to it – we had planned to have drinks afterwards, to celebrate our end-of-semester. For some of us, myself included, it would be the end of our formal university life. We still have our theses to complete, but our actual classes would be finished.

My class began at 5pm – we Honours students don’t have many hours, but we seem to keep strange ones. As I had an essay due the next day, I decided to stay home and attempt to proof-read until my eyes felt like they had been washed with anthrax. I planned to head into uni at around 4, grab a coffee and waltz on into class – after all, I had to arrive in style, it was my last chance to do so!

At 3:30, I shook off my beloved Denver Broncos jumper and Britney Spears-esque velour track pants and got dressed properly. A short while later, I grabbed my bag and a bottle of water, and headed for my car, Ally the Astra.

I turned the keys in the ignition. Mmm. Nothing. A quick glance at the gears told me that it had been parked properly; my common mistake was not the answer, this time. I tried the ignition again. A horrible sound, perhaps something like a small child and an animal battling to be the loudest in a tightly enclosed space, was emitted.

Oh God…what was wrong?

I’m not a car person. (Avid readers may be wondering: what kind of a person are you, Lauren? You’ve already told us you’re not an animal person or a child-friendly person…and now you’re not a car person…right.)

I don’t know anything about them. If someone asks me what kind of car I have, I tell them it’s an Astra. I know my Mum has a four wheel drive and I know my best friend has a white car. I can do number plates; I can remember them instantly. But the cars themselves simply hold no interest for me.

I was clearly at a loss. There was no one at home, so I couldn’t rush back inside to ask for help. Everybody I knew was at work. By that time, I had missed the train, and the buses from my house are not to be relied upon. It takes about forty minutes to get from my house to uni, and as I looked at my dashboard clock, it was 4:25.
This was crazy. I could not, I repeat, I could not be missing my last class. I still remember my last high school class. It was English, and it was a Wednesday afternoon. I remember the number of the classroom, I remember that we were revising Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and I remember that it was completely non-momentous. But it still deserved to be remembered. It was the end of six years of English classes.

Likewise, this was the end of four years of History classes. If I didn’t start the car right then, I’d miss it. Breathing deeply and remembering the relaxation advice of some long-ago yoga class, I calmly turned the key one more time.

Unfortunately, I never went back to my yoga class, and so I’m not as relaxed as my instructor might like me to be. Ally heard me dish out a fair bit of abuse that day, and I think she may report me to the DOCS equivalent for cars. The little light on the dash told me she had a flat battery: and without the requisite smarts to charge ’er up, I had no hope of getting to uni.

The condensed version is that I missed my last class. Like my high school finale, it was probably completely forgettable. But I still wish I had have been there. It reminds me of the time I taped the last episode of Melrose Place, and my brother used the tape to record a golf tournament. I will never know if Amanda and Peter eloped together, and I’ll never know what my lecturer’s final words to our class were.

Of course, there are some upsides to the story: I’ve finished my classes; Ally’s battery is now fully charged, and next week, I’m starting yoga again.