Back to New 25-27 January 2019

It’s a fair call to say I’m a New College desperado. At the end of first year, I moved out for 3 months, but then moved back in for 2nd year and didn’t move again until halfway through 4th year.  Over the course of my New College life, I made it to less than 100 breakfasts in 3.5 years, played more games of 500 than there were breakfasts available, managed the college shop, swam innumerable laps in the UNSW pool, got myself a New College blue for swimming and racked up hours and hours on the grand piano.  

Even now, I still have dreams where I return to New College as a postgraduate student, at one point my dream revealed a circular New College, roundhouse like, where I paid for a semester’s accommodation but only managed to pop in to my room occasionally. Those dreams have been coming more frequently since I heard about the college reunion Back to New.

So it was with great excitement that I parked my little car outside Shalom on Friday night. At the entrance, I saw with astonishment that Shalom residents were allowed to eat here, but that at least Warrane College was still the enemy.

I couldn’t find anyone to give me my room key, so I wandered over to the office. Gone were the friendly bifold shutters to the front desk, and in its place big fire doors. One swung open, and out came Dani Scarratt, CASE editor. She tried to help me find the key person (they were key, get it? - I cringe at my own puns) and instead I helped myself to dinner, passing by a staircase in the middle of the dining hall (HUH?) and the grand piano, which I’d never seen outside the MCR. 

Getting a plate was the same, but the food - not a badly cut up capsicum or boiled broccoli in sight! There was a quarter of chicken, seasoned and cooked perfectly and I had it with peas that were actually pea green, as opposed to the green of a dank infested swamp. 

I spotted some vaguely familiar faces, and sat down, chatting to them and meeting collegians that were at college around the year I was born.  It was great. After dinner, I got my door key, and caught the lift to level 3. The first year I was at college I got fit literally climbing up and down those stairs all day, when my worst nightmare had come true: being allocated to Level 3, Anzac Pde. After first year, I moved to the more accessible level 2.  But this lift: absolute bliss to my 44 year old knees and feet, not to mention my luggage. 

I entered 3D and saw to my dismay that the common room didn’t exist. They’d paved over the parking lot… oops, I mean there was no common room! Those common rooms were the scene of many hours of chatting and playing cards, I was very sad to see that now there were only 4 common rooms per floor.  

The roof over the college made the courtyard into another extremely functional area, but I longed for the sky and the view of the Applied Science building, over which I had sat and watched with my smoking friends the first year I was there (which was the last year smoking was allowed on the balconies inside college).  Yeah, sure, it doesn’t leak anymore, but in summer, on a 30 degree day, that place was an oven. I’m sure it’d be really nice the rest of the year though when the students are actually there!

I opened the door to my room. No more could you not lock your door - I reckon the rate of being locked out had gone up a lot since my day given the self-locking mechanism. I wasn’t sure why - the ability to close and not lock your door was great - but oh well. I wedged the door with my conveniently placed bin to get the breeze in through the window.  The room felt… small.  How did I live for 3.5 years in this space? It had a desk, and luxury of luxuries, a bedside chest of drawers! The wardrobe was way better. Gone was the chasm to which many clothes had disappeared never to be seen again, and in its place were useful sized shelves and another chest of drawers! The luxury!  I heaved open my window. At least that was the same. The curtain hung off the rod, perhaps signalling that one day, it should be replaced too. It looked pretty original to me.

Inside the wardrobe, the years since the refurbishment had left their mark, as generations of students had written on the back of the door. I remembered that year I wrote my name on the back of 3H6 door, and how seeing it many years later reminded me of the fresh-faced, bright eyed, naive and yet confident, fresher I was in 1993. The chairs had had an upgrade too - ergonomics coming at last, with the old black steel types being replaced by manoeuvrable and adjustable rolling chairs. No longer did freshers have to bring their own ergonomic chairs. I hope that people are still being rolled down corridors and that hockey sticks are still bashing against each other in roller corridor hockey. 

The bathroom felt the same yet different. The vanity was beautiful. Gone were the tiny taps and basins, and they were upgraded.  The shower had a curtain! Luxury! No doubt a useful breakwater from being bucketed.  

Back down I entered the MCR and it looked the same. All the portraits were there, and I could’ve been back in 1994 sitting in one of the chairs. With great anticipation I sat down to the watch the revue. My memory of revues were that sometimes you had skits that you laughed yourself silly at, and sometimes skits which were a bit…less.  Ok, not really funny. This revue was all that and then some, referencing the wonderful skit “Bob’s $300 desk” in a way that showed that this generation was perplexed by the cost and amusement we had had in the 90’s. In 1995, $300 was a lot of money and those desks were weird. Trust me on this.  There were so many highlights, but my favourite was the historian and the reporter on the film. 

Like UTS where I now work, UNSW was moving to a 3 semester year, and the deadness I’d experienced in January of 1995 and 1996 was no longer evident. There were still collegians here, even as we alumni invaded their home.  The rest of the revue passed in a blur, with the occasional flat note, but more often, the warm laughter of those who had come home.

The next morning, my grown up body clock made it to breakfast and ate sensible muesli, although I still had to try some red cordial for nostalgia.  The cafe was empty, but I imagined in the main semesters there was “proper” coffee available. Good coffee had come even to New!

I sat talking for 2 hours to various older alumni, reflecting that this sitting round for hours was one of the main reasons that study featured so little in my time at New. I love to sit around and talk, and everyone shared what it had been like when they’d been there.  Airconditioning in the dining room? What was this? A staircase? To where? 

After that, I headed back to the heated eastern facing bedroom and sweated. So I gathered my things and headed down to Coogee beach via the bus. There’s a bus stop outside Gate 14! Who knew!? Coogee was familiar and I swam out to the shark net buoy and back again.

Back at college, the most delightful lunch was prepared. A current resident stated that this was not the normal standard of meals, and I was reminded of that first lunch, when all the parents are still around, and how the standard decreased after that. Is that still the case I wonder? Anyway, the lunch was awesome. 

After lunch, I sat talking for another hour in my wet but now just damp swimming costume and found photos of me at one of the college swimming carnivals. The photographer had captured me mid dive and it was a great shot. I took a photo of the photo for posterity.

Sport and games were scheduled for the afternoon, but I was done-ski. I went up to my room and slept the afternoon away, resting for the ball.

At 5.30 I spritzed myself up and headed over to Roundhouse. Good God! There’s another building! It turns out the tennis courts had metamorphisised into a renewable energy building! But the roundhouse still felt the same and the food was pretty good too.  I caught up with a couple of old friends and then chatted to some older alumni again, before heading back to my room. Time for another rest.

But then the beautiful piano beckoned. I played that piano in year 12 when I was at the first ever Engineering summer school, and I played that piano the day I got accepted to New, and now I played that piano again.  I miss playing a grand piano and I found a bunch of old music in the stool and sight read my way through 25 years prior.

Sunday dawned without the sun, which was a relief because it was super hot and humid still. I showered and made my way down to the dining room, to sit and talk again to some old friends over breakfast. I made 2/2 breakfasts! My highest percentage ever. After a lengthy chatting session, I headed up to my room, but my ongoing fatigue hit once again, and I got re-acquainted with the comfy bed. 

I woke up in time for lunch for another lovely meal in the dining room. It was time to meet some current residents! I found two young engineering students who had already arrived, brand new, from Saudi Arabia! They were looking forward to everything starting up and we talked about what to do in Sydney while they waited for the semester to start.  I was a bit disappointed because I wanted to meet students who’d already experienced a year at New but it was still cool. 

Then it was back to my room to pack my bag and once again, finally move out of New College once more.

Thank you for the opportunity to come back and experience college again. It still was in many ways, the most wonderfully social years of my life, but I don’t miss Anzac Pde or the study at all. And even though things had changed a lot, in some senses, nothing had changed. Students still came 8 parts excited and 2 parts nervous to study and change their lives at New College, Anzac Pde, Kensington, as they had for the previous 50 years.