I’m not one for regrets.
I’m a firm believer that we make the best decisions we can at the time, with the knowledge we have available.
But that doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes.
(Yes, even I, your most gracious, grounded, and always-humble daily host, am not immune from this.)
And one of my biggest ones comes down to university.
Now, this isn’t going to be a diatribe on all the reasons why I think university is good or bad. That’s not the point of this. But I can safely say that university was not one of my most prudent choices.
In fact, when I think of uni now, I think of two things:
Weed and copious parties.
And one particular party screams out at me:
Over here in the UK, we have these university piss-up rituals called Fresher’s Week, which starts and finishes in the first 1–2 weeks of a new term. I imagine it’s something akin to what frat/sorority parties are by American standards.
It’s just a fun excuse to get lousy drunk on cheap booze, and by golly…
Did I get shamrocked at my first-ever Fresher’s event!
To the point, it was the closest thing to a blackout I’ve ever experienced in my esteemed career as a social drinker.
I don’t even remember it properly. Someone showed me photos later: me hugging a bench outside in a pub garden, my brand-new shoes caked in all the booze I’d inhaled. Next thing I knew, I was in the back of an ambulance, being taken to the hospital.
I remember the doctor who assessed me wore a mask of fury and told me I was one more shot away from having my stomach pumped. I couldn’t even escape a scolding from my mother, who is usually softer than butter found in the Sahara.
However, now that I’m knee-deep in my 30s, I can concede their frustration was justified.
Getting intoxicated is a self-inflicted wound, not to mention a huge bleed on NHS resources.
And as a father, the idea of pouring years of resources into your kid, only for them to nearly kick the bucket at a sweaty Fresher’s party? Not exactly what we strive for.
Alas, I paid for this piss-up dearly to the tune of a 10-day hangover.
Still, to this day, I cannot whiff Sambuca without my stomach lurching.
Yet, as reckless as it was, it stands as one of the more prominent memories I took from my brief time at uni. Sad, I know. Especially as I didn’t even walk away with a degree.
Nope, after two years and two separate courses, I dropped out with £25,000 worth of student debt shackled to my ankle and absolutely no direction.
One could argue that it was one expensive hangover.
Indeed, it was.
But I’m not mad.
Had I continued pursuing university, I may have travelled down a completely different track altogether. One that might have stifled my creative spirit and stopped me from crafting worlds that you and I — and thousands of other readers around the world — get to enjoy.
That means there would have been no Sticks and Stones, no Tiny Epics, and no The Divided Region.
Oh my, what a travesty that would have been…
Yet thanks to the powers that be and a costly uni experience, here they exist.
And you can get them by tapping the link below:
https://www.djjwatsonstore.com
DJJW