Goths of the World Unite!
...you have nothing to lose but your dignity.

'k - moment of confession, peeps. I went to a certain highly regarded university with hundreds of years of tradition.

So, despite my solidly working-class roots, I find myself in this place surrounded by over-privileged twunts with platignum credit cards, overbites, and mostly called Jocasta and Tarquin. But as if that wasn't bad enough, it turned out that you had to wear a uniform for exams.

Yes, a fucking uniform. Stressed about exams? Worried about grades? No worries - we'll make you doll up in a bastard monkey suit before you can even get in the door. And what's more, we'll use a latin name for it. Ladies and Gentlefolk, I give you... Sub Fusc.

And what a stupid getup it was. Black suit. (extra comfy, and in no way cheap). White shirt, dark socks and shoes (and yes, I did see them checking), a gown (pointless pointless pointless - and the 'smarter' you were, the bigger the gown got - yet another way of advertising how your wonderful fee-paying parents thrust you through a public exam factory like the braying, over-funded spunkmuppet you are), and just to top it off; a white bow tie. WHITE. And a mortar board - which you had to carry. Oh no, no wearing it.

For the love of cock.

Anyways, it became the game of choice to subvert this in any way you could. Props to a mate who wore a suit with sequins sewn in, who turned the entire exam hall into a disco when he put up his hand for extra paper - and a challenge for me to beat. And how, gentle reader, did I think I would subvert the system, cast two fingers at authority and generally fuck with the man? Yes... like many others here, through the medium of Goth.

So, come the final final, and I don my armour: black ten hole docs; check. Aids awareness ribbon or similar bodily adornment which they just couldn't ban; check. Nail varnish, black; check. Hair, slicked back ala Dave Vanian; check. Eyeliner, purple; check. Earings/rings/amulets; check to the max.

And out the door I march, into the hall, feeling a million dollars and ten-foot tall (hell, docs do a lot for yer height, guys)... only to hear a sniggering wench, probably called Tamsin, say to her friend:

'look at that idiot. I bet he's borrowed that suit from his father. I can't believe they let people like THAT in these days'.

At which point, centuries of social conditioning kicked in, and I had a small cry, knowing that no matter how I looked, how strong I felt, those bastard toffs would always win.

That, and I was having a bad reaction to the eyeliner. Red-eyed, swollen lidded and weeping, I could barely see the exam paper... so, what was the single greatest thing I learnt after three years at Uni?

Goths look miserable because their eye-makeup hurts.

Word t'your maternal parent.

Grouch.
( Grouch would quite like his clients to stop being numptys, Tue 29 Aug 2006, 17:26, Reply)