allow me to explain
Dear Incoming Frosh,
Yes, your first year of university is stretching before you. And heck yes, it is going to be an adventure and three-quarters you will never forget. Freedom! Academia! Romance! It’ll all be there for you to enjoy and breathe in.
Yes, I can hear you doubters in the corner, crying, “but Kingston is so small!” or “but I’m still underage!” But before you skeptics flock down to the illegal road and cough up those bucks for a fake ID, allow me to explain the delicate art of having a truly terrific first year that will leave all your non-Queen’s friends jealously listening to your every story.
And don’t you worry; I’m not here to recommend yoga classes or band clinics—although I do enjoy them both, personally. No, I’ve got a more eclectic set of suggestions for you.
One. All-Ages Nights.
All-ages nights can be summed up in three words: Hormones, and more hormones. Once you add alcohol, repetitive hip-hop beats and sixteen-year-olds, you’ve got the complete picture of a typical Thursday or Friday night at well-known clubs called Cocamo (which is lovingly dubbed the “Poke-a-ho”) and Stages.
Once you dress up in your barely-there skirt and a piece of fabric to cover your naughty bits—or, in the male equivalent, a Gino shirt and faded jeans—you can head over to the smoky, crowded, sweaty place called the dance floor, where you will proceed to grind! grind! and GRIND! your night away with random strangers.
If this sounds appealing to you, congratulations: there’s lots of dance-fever fun to be had in Kingston. If not, read on.
Two. Embrace your spontaneous and slightly illogical self.
It’s okay if it makes no sense to start a snowball fight in minus-30 degree weather with no jacket on and an exam looming large on the horizon—once in a while. It’s okay if you want to walk all the way downtown to eat a warm slice of pizza at 2 a.m., and somebody is awake enough—and adventurous enough—to accompany you.
As the clichéd saying goes, “life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.” Your best memories will be of the things that just kind of happened one night, rather than what was supposed to happen.
It really is okay to that Monty Python club, share your secret obsession of 3D animation, and have a hair-raising nerd moment while discussing Star Trek; we all have our buried ions we’ve been dying to exercise, and this is your best possible chance.
And when you do express your spontaneous and slightly illogical self, keep me posted, and I will make you famous. Or I’ll try my best, at least!
Three. Restaurants
Welcome to Kingston, the city that boasts such prestigious titles as “The Greatest Amount of Restaurants Per Capita.” Should you decide to take advantage of such statistics, you will have no problem becoming the arbiter of good food taste by the end of your first year.
Because caf food is going to be vile no matter how much they try to fool you, I encourage regular adventures out into the food world of downtown Kingston.
These are, of course, only three out of many suggestions—the beauty of first year is that anything and everything is game.
And when you do express your spontaneous and slightly illogical self, keep me posted.
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