U.C.D-My Guilty Pleasure

U.C.D-its campus may look like some monster has sucked up buildings from various eras and then vomited them back up. It may be host to the weird and the wonderful. It may have a lake with no purpose and it may be overrun with Hollister wearing clones- but I love it. I am proud to admit that I have a particular soft spot for the various sub-cultures and personalities of U.C.D. It is truly my guilty pleasure.

I liken U.C.D to a big, dysfunctional family. I've never been a fan of old-folk tales but if you were to fashion a story about how U.C.D campus came to be how it is today, I think you could build one around the story of a woman who inherited an estate (UCD campus to be exact) and became a black widow. A black widow is a woman who marries and then subsequently kills off her husband. I like to think of the UCD Black Widow as a woman who has married and killed off many, many different men of very different backgrounds. I also like to think that each man she has married has built on to U.C.D during their lifetime, before being killed off, leaving a piece of themselves behind them. Roebuck Castle is courtesy of her first husband who was antiquated and old-school in his architectural approach and also a bit introverted as he set it aside from everything else. The Art's Block was courtesy of her second husband, who was, as my friend Rob so beautifully put it, a “blind communist” who had a love of cubism and all things dull, dreary and lacking in hope. Her subsequent husband was more of a creative and environmentally-aware soul and it is thus that we came to have all the lakes of UCD. Her forthcoming husband, a preacher from a small parish in America, presented her with the chapel. The man proceeding him harboured a love for all things abstract and decided to leave the bizarre sculpture of a giant egg beside the Veterinary Science Building. Her engineering other-half built the water tower as an elaborate show of his love and affection to her. Her most recent catch was a retired NASA scientist whose last project was only recently completed in the form of our almost space-age sports' centre. He too, suffered an inexplicable death and his wife, the mother of UCD, lived on and inherited his improvement of her estate.

 I also like to think that each marriage brought with it various children from the marriage and from external marriages, creating this kind of step-sibling, mashed up family unit: the old-school law students from the first marriage, the rebellious art students who rose above their father's reserved approach from the second, the hippy, agricultural and environmental kids from the third marriage, the theology and psychology children from the abstract-egg lover, the business-minded and ambitious children from the water-tower entrepreneur and the engineering, super-nerds from the NASA retiree. This super-family was created-part culchy, part D4, part erasmus and part something else. And they, in turn, took up residence in UCD and used the various facilities left behind by the victims of their Black Widow mother.

U.C.D is like a grown-up version of baby Wezz which is a gathering of all similarly-aged people, looking for the collective buzz. Where, upon a night out, lack of clothing is not frowned upon but actively encouraged. Everyone is there for one purpose-to socialize, have a good time and hopefully get the shift at the end of it if they’re lucky. The mature students are like the Donnies of the Wezz-era: probably a little too old to be socializing with young ‘uns but they hang in there anyways and you got to love them for it.

A particular aspect of U.C.D which I find particularly entertaining is the toilets in the Art’s Block. The walls, doors and toilet dispensers bear host to a variety of inspirational words of wisdom, posted by passing students.. Anything from “Don’t see a great night wasted” to encouraging words such as “Nobody remembers the night that they got a great night’s sleep” to just the plain bizarre such as “Tina is a filthy whore and should not be trusted”. People seem to get this lease of inspiration whilst in the toilet. It’s a place of calm and solitude where you are at liberty to gather your thoughts. Your toilet cubicle chooses you-you do not choose it. I like to think of your toilet cubicle, complete with its own unique set of sayings, like an interactive Magic8 ball. It has the power to answer all of life’s great, unanswered questions. All one has to do is sit there, close your eyes, think of the question and then open them again and the first saying you see is the answer.

Such as:

1. “Should I go out tonight?”-*open eyes “Nobody remembers the night that they got a great night’s sleep”. Therefore, I should go out.
2. “Hmmm, should I drink a shoulder or a naggin?” *open eyes “Don’t see a great night wasted”. Naggin it is, then.
3. “Should I trust Tina?” *open eyes. Obviously not, seeing as she is a filthy whore.

Et voila. It is just that simple.

U.C.D authorities have tried to eliminate this vandalism by scrubbing off the writing but this has worked contrary to their plans. Instead, it has left a clean slate for new material and new innovative posts to be scribbled. Your Magic8 ball is constantly revised and renewed. No continuous, monotonous answers. All from the comfort of your toilet seat.

If you have ever longed to have a theme tune to your life, then U.C.D is where you should be. There seems to be music constantly blaring from somewhere-most especially during Fresher’s week. It’s usually a compilation of something along the lines of LMFAO “Party Rock Anthem” and “Sexy and I know it” that follows you around whilst you attend your daily errands. It’s uplifting, a lease of energy and you buzz around college, safe in the knowledge that you ARE sexy and you know and that everybody IS having a good time. You almost become immune to this music, following you wherever you go. However, be warned. When the music stops, you will feel a deep sense of loss. The pep in your step will fade to dull drudgery and that infallible confidence will be stripped away...

The craic is always rampant in U.C.D. Even when the entire student body falls on hard times and a deep depression takes over campus during the feared period known as “study week”, out of the darkness comes a light, a shining beacon in the form of “Spotted: U.C.D Library”. Suddenly, the library-so feared and hated by exam-students-is transformed overnight in to the only place to be. Romances are made in the frenzy leading up to exams, people are hit on whilst innocently searching for books by a random French guy, students declare their undying affections for another student they know nothing about bar the floor that they study on and the colour of their booty shorts…. It is truly the mystery and the magic of UCD.

And there you have it: my reasons for loving the train-wreck that is U.C.D. As William Cowper put it, “Variety is the Spice of Life”. If this is true, then U.C.D is the spiciest of curries that blows your mind, gives you the food-sweats and leaves you gasping for air/water.