This week marked the first day of school for students across the country.
It’s a busy time of year no matter where you are located, but it’s particularly busy here in Halifax where five world renowned universities have campuses.
Even though I have been a teacher for a number of years now, and the first week of school has come to mean different things, the week cannot go by without me remembering my own first year of university and the awkward frosh date that went along with it.
It was near the end of Frosh Week at the University of Kings College, here in Halifax. I was super excited about starting the Foundation Year Programme there and ready to be one of the elite intellectuals of Kings. (pretentious, I know)
In my frosh group I met a guy by the name of Christian (long before Mr. Grey made the name famous) who had moved here from Toronto, was living in Alex Hall (one of the residences), was 19 years old (older man!), a Capricorn (great love compatibility!), and a self proclaimed modern day philosopher (swoon!), who even had his own car – all things that made him completely endearing to me at the time.
The date took place on a beautiful sunny and warm Saturday afternoon. The plan was to go for a picnic in Point Pleasant Park, then maybe to a movie at Park Lane.
Christian had taken care of everything, packed the picnic basket (he had his own apparently) and had brought a bottle of wine along with him for the occasion. We sat close to one of the old fortresses near the top of the park, in a rather secluded area, ensuring we had the total romantic package.
As a girl who was not allowed to date in high school (and was probably not allowed to go on this date either, which was why I had told my parents I was going to spend the afternoon studying) everything about Christian, and this date, seemed perfect. How quickly things can change.
He had no sooner opened the bottle of wine when I casually mentioned that I thought drinking in public was against the law. This fact caused Christian to panic and down the bottle.
Not more than fifteen minutes later, my knight in hemp clothing was sprawled out over our picnic blanket, drunk as a skunk and in the mood to make-out. Flipping over to his stomach, Christian started to do a fake panther type crawl over towards me – never really attaining the look he was going for, and instead looking more like a flailing sea otter.
As he got closer to me, I started to laugh, and quite gently pushed away his hands – unfortunately causing him to smack his face on to the ground. His body lay there motionless, eyes closed, barely breathing. Nervous that I may have killed him, I softly called his name and poked at his shoulder with my finger. He reacted by rolling over on to his back and began to snore – LOUDLY.
Not sure what to make of this situation, cursing the fact that even about dating my parents seemed to always be right, I took my copy of Plato’s Republic from my bag and began to read.
Apparently I would be spending the afternoon studying after all.
Hilarious! Like a scene from S&TC! Guess your philosopher-knight couldn’t hold his mead.