With 'ma gurls' on a recent night out. (One of the better ones).
When I started university, I was a little apprehensive about the whole drinking-until-you-pass-out-every-night thing. So, as a concerned prospective student, I naturally sought out every Fresher's Week horror story going (dressing up as a cow, being dragged around on all fours with a lead and forced to eat dog biscuits, anyone?). I was quite suitably terrified. Fortunately nothing quite that bad happened to me and it didn't take long before the weekly routine of going clubbing - and consequently not sleeping - three nights a week became second nature. Although I was too tired to take much in during my lectures, one thing I did learn was this: clubs are a bit shit.
Don't get me wrong: I do like to go out and have fun, but queuing up outside in the cold for half an hour, having to wait FOREVER to get served at the bar, getting my arse grabbed by random strangers (here's a thought: why is it suddenly ok to inappropriately touch people in a club?), standing up for hours in six-inch heels, having people throwing up around me, being expected to dance WHERE PEOPLE CAN SEE ME...nope, not my idea of fun. You might think I'm boring (I'm not, I'm actually really funny and interesting and extremely modest) and you can call me crazy, but I don't want to be the girl passed out in front of a club with her knickers on show - or, in some girls' cases, lack of knickers - or the girl who is so drunk she thinks deep throating a wooden rod infront of an audience is extremely alluring (actually happened. Kind of impressive, actually...).
What is wrong with going to a pub and having a few drinks with a group of friends, talking and laughing? And what happened to house parties?! They were the most fun! Trashing the house of the generous person who has opened their doors to you. Good times. You turn eighteen and suddenly BAM everyone's going to clubs rather than throwing parties. You can't have a conversation in a club and while dancing certainly is not my thing, talking definitely is. Talking is a skill I am well practised in. I can talk until the cows come home and, considering I don't live on a farm, that's a pretty long time. That's not to say I don't want to go clubbing EVER - I am still only twenty-two, after all. And I have had some good nights in clubs. But now that I've finished university, I don't think I'll find myself in one quite as often.
And that's what I think about that.
Let's just take a minute to appreciate the beauty of my new shoesies, the Jeffrey Campbell Brazens. Ahhh. Aren't they wonderful? I first spotted them on the Office website way back in December and quite fancied them straight away. Now, it's quite against my nature to ignore a pretty pair of shoes when they catch my eye, but I couldn't justify spending almost half my monthly wage on one pair of shoes. I must be growing up and finally developing that sense of 'money management' that my parents keep banging on about, or something. So when I saw they were reduced to £50 a few weeks ago, I was so excited I bought two pairs (in different sizes, of course).
Throughout university, I've had one pair of shoes which have suffered many a student night on the sticky floors of various dingy nightclubs. They were comfy, versatile, and - in true student fashion - dirt cheap. Now they're just plain dirty: scuffed, battered and covered in God knows what. I have my final university hand-in tomorrow, so as a fully fledged mature woman with a degree (almost), I decided it was time for a grown up pair of shoes to go with my shiny new persona.
