From the archives.

I find in life that it’s best to take it easy when you can. There are very few things better than kicking back and not doing anything at all apart from flick the TV over and rearrange the cushions behind your head while touching yourself underneath your pants. University is probably the second best chance you will have in life, after your toddler years, for a substantial period of taking it easy so it’s very important not to waste any time expelling extra energy. Here are a few simple rules for you to follow to enjoy at least three years of blissful under-exertion.

MOVING IN
Before you even move in to a house, you need to be thinking about the best ways for you to do as little as possible. Rule number one: don’t show your face for the first week. There will be furniture to be moved, repairs to be made, cupboards to be cleaned, stuff to be painted. Casually stroll in after a week and this will all be taken care of. Whatever you do, do not get the room nearest to the front door. You do not want to be woken up at 7 AM once a week by the postman because the textbooks your bookish little worm of a flatmate keeps ordering won’t fit through the letterbox. Get an intermediately positioned room (so there won’t be too much effort needed to get to the front door when choosing to leave the house) and make a pact with yourself only to be risen by fire alarms or armed robbers.

WAKING UP
Never set your alarm clock too early. Have as much sleep as you like. Don’t worry if you miss the first episode of Neighbours, Channel 5 will very kindly repeat it again later on. Making breakfast is way more hassle than you need to deal with, so do anything and everything you can to get help with it. There is little better when dozing in bed in the mornings than hearing the words “cup of tea?” resonating from the kitchen. Never let an opportunity like this pass. You should be able to detect these words through concrete walls and closed doors. Your ears should perk up like those of a gazelle watching over its newborn in the dead of night as hyenas creep closer, and you should instantly reply “…and two slices of toast, please, with plenty of peanut butter. Bring them up.” If you drop a few crumbs on the floor while eating don’t worry about it, leave them. What do you think the mice are there for? The moment you leave the house they’ll have nibbled away those unsightly lumps of food and replaced them with much harder to detect little dark brown deposits that they will kindly hide out of sight under the bed or in the corners of the room.

ATTENDING LECTURES
There is no need to go in for lectures every day. Some wise guy came up with the idea of making it popular for everyone to take notes, so you can quite comfortably enjoy a brief summary of the day’s lectures from a friend’s photocopied notes, which you can get them to bring round to your house. If you decide not to give yourself the day off it is unnecessary for you ever to stand around outside the lecture hall waiting for the lecture to start. Aim to get there ten minutes in and you will never have this problem. Plus, it means you will have less time to sit and concentrate. Importantly, always sit at the back. Why walk all the way to the front of the lecture hall? There is also the added benefit of being able to covertly lie down and shut your eyes if the long trip from your house has made you sleepy.

UNNECESSARY PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AKA “SPORT”
There seems to be incessant pressure from people at uni to take up a sport or a hobby of some kind. Although the best option would be to ignore this, absorbing constant peer pressure can be quite taxing so, in some cases, it might just be easier to get a hobby. Rugby and football are way too much effort so you should go for something less taxing like pool or darts. There is the added bonus of being able to drink before, during and after these “sports”, which the rugby gimp-jocks don’t get.

COOKING
Cooking is a total fucking hassle. You have to go to the shop to buy the food, carry it back, take it out of the bags, put it away in cupboards, then you have to take it all out again when you want to eat the stuff. And even then you still need to get someone to teach you how to cook! The only way to get past this problem is to skulk about in the kitchen around dinner time every night dropping hints about how mouth-wateringly delicious your flatmate’s pasta and tomato sauce looks as they are preparing it until eventually they give in and ask if you want some too. Suggest some kind of “collaboration meal” by chucking them one of your tomatoes or a clove of someone else’s garlic or something and they won’t be able to ever complain about you being a freeloader. Eating other people’s cereal is totally fine as well, especially if the box has just been opened and the owner won’t be able to tell if a bowlful has disappeared. Just make sure they’re not in the house when you do it.

HAVING SEX
Don’t bother going out to the student bar to look for a partner, just have sex with your flatmate. Also, “casual sex” should mean just that. Lie on your back and let the other person do the work. If you need condoms, don’t bother to go to the shop, steal them from someone’s room. If even that is too much hassle, then just take the risk. It might even reward you with benefits. I know one girl who constantly told lecturers she was pregnant in order to get coursework extensions. At the rate she was using the excuse, she would have been getting abortions every three weeks throughout the year.

PRANCEHALL

Tagged: chillaxing
October 20th, 2009 @ 10:57