An advantage of being a humanities student at Sydney university is that I rarely have a class start before 10 a.m. This yields its own advantages; sleep-ins, time for a leisurely cup of tea in the morning as I read the newspaper, or time to put the finishing touches on an essay towards the end of semester - lets face it, I probably only started writing the essay the night before so these few extra hours available to me in the morning are crucial. My favourite thing about my mid-morning starts, however, is the chance to get a FREE-parking spot in the clearway on Parramatta Road. I know it sounds a little pathetic - but free parking from 10 til 3 has, on more than one occasion in the midst of essay deadlines and exam stress, made my university day.
This semester - despite the oh so high price of petrol - I have a feeling I will be embracing free clearway parking even more than ever. I just can’t handle the thought of sitting on the train next to someone who has just eaten a mandarin or behind an obnoxious passenger who wants to share the details of their private phone call with the whole train.
While on exchange in Canada last semester I lived 2 minutes from the university library. That’s 2 minutes by foot! The furthest I ever had to travel to class was to a poetry lecture 10 minutes walk away - 15 minutes if the snow hadn’t been cleared or the footpaths were icy. After experiencing such a simple and hassle free (well if you don’t count injury due to clumsiness in the snow and ice) way of getting to uni this year, the thought of returning to Sydney’s public transport nightmare has about as much appeal to me as listening to a song by David Hasselhoff.
I have to confess, the fact that public transport sucks is not the only reason I prefer driving to uni. Whenever I am in the middle of my internal debate over whether I should be environmentally friendly (and wallet friendly) and take the train, or just stuff the trees and drive, the winning factor is always that when I drive to uni I get to window shop as I drive past all the bridal stores along Parramatta Road.
Parramatta Road has it all as far as Bridal outfits go - from the Princess Diana inspired dresses in Peretti, to the delicate lace dresses in Caritas Yu. I have often wondered whether it is weird to try on wedding dresses when I am only 20 and do not have a fiancé, or a boyfriend for that matter. This is a side of my personality that does, I understand, place me in crazy lady territory. But hey - Katherine Heigl’s character in 27 dresses is obsessed with weddings too and it works out well for her - I mean she marries James Marsden!
As I write this I realise two things:
Firstly; that I need to stop comparing my life to a movie and myself to Katherine Heigl.
Secondly; that my attitude towards this whole public transport thing is not only incredibly environmentally unfriendly, it is just plain wrong.
I like the idea of saving the planet one train ride at a time, but in practice my desire to live in a world with polar ice caps just doesn’t outweigh my immediate need to avoid poorly timetabled trains and my desire to gawk at pretty wedding dresses.
So I need to think in terms of the more immediate advantages of train travel;
1) Catching the train gives me time to read - on days when I am less prepared for uni I can do my tutorial readings.
2) I can use the money I save on petrol to by InStyle and read it on the train.
3) I can use the time to call a friend - why not turn into one of those obnoxious travellers and share my weekend plans and the details of my latest crush with my fellow travellers.
Unfortunately I could only come up with 3 short term advantages of public transport.
Help me out would you - can you come up with any other useful ways to spend a train trip?