- Meet a minimum of nine aspiring DJs (they’re actually the real deal – they played at Carousel)
- Trek to Night n’ Day viciously hungover and wearing pajamas, purchase a steak and cheese pie and a purple Powerade, realise you can, in fact, be observed in this state
- Beg a begrudging med student to drive you up Signal Hill in the middle of the night to see the Aurora Australis, because you don’t have a car, everyone else is asleep, you can study later, and “I’ll buy you nuggets”
- Find 24 mentions of dropping out in your recently sent messages
- Throw up the nachos that your hall (for some cruel, sadistic reason) decided to serve on a Saturday night
- Take a break from eating mince
- Get egged during O-week in your toga
- Get egged during O-week knee deep in a river
- Get egged during O-week walking down the road
- Rescue a flat from scurvy by stealing them fruit and half a loaf of bread from your hall kitchen, then run away from the security guard who saw you doing a haul
- Buy a textbook that costs $100 with an additional walk up Queen Street to the terrifying flat of a desperately broke second year
- Never open said textbook because literally everything is online now (how can you live out your dark academia dreams under these conditions?)
- Partake in a Rob Roy trip even though it's the first time you’ve got out of bed today (it’s 6pm), you’re wearing a jacket you found in your room that isn’t yours (it’s 9 degrees), you’re pretty sure you’re developing an intolerance to lactose (you’re hungover), and you aren’t actually sure you want an ice cream (you have 17 cents in your spending account but you’ll transfer out of your savings because that sundae just looks so good)
- Get out of bed for a fire alarm at 5am
- Set off the fire alarm (but not at 5am so it's okay)
- Open photos on your iPhone to see a collection of the clocktower, your new friends, and lab notes
- See that your phone has titled this ‘Home’
- View a collection of flats with varying types of light switches (from the ones matching your grandparents’ old house, to a stick attached to a wire hanging from the ceiling)
- Advocate that you should absolutely apply to the flat with a stick attached to a wire hanging from the ceiling because it's whimsical
- Secure a flat far too early in the year, even though everyone is telling you to wait because things change (not your friend’s opinions on sticks attached to wires hanging from ceilings)
- Wish Alley Cantina was still open
- Observe a freshly 21 year old throw up on their knees into their yard long glass of beer, and then continue to drink it
- Contemplate if Otago was really the right move for you (it was, maybe)
- Amble down Castle in broad daylight on a rare sunny day in a cute outfit with a pretty tote bag on your way to New World to buy everything on sale
- Get water ballooned walking down Castle on a rare sunny day in a cute outfit with a pretty tote bag
- Hear a pop/EDM song that samples a song from your childhood twice in one night (both times at Trojan)
- Complete at least one wholesome activity sober. For example/inspo: devour Beam Me Up bagels in the botans
- Drink in the graveyard one (1) time and fall over the chain fence
- Pay the fee for overweight bags at the airport, because how can you ever pack your whole life into two 23kg bags?
- Lie on the floor of the gym listening to your sad playlist for at least twenty five minutes
- Leave the gym and buy dumplings from the Rising Sun truck instead
- Get bullied for your BA by your parents who didn’t go to uni and your miserable Health Sci friends
- Say “at least I’m not doing a BCom”
- Catch a 4am airport shuttle that's actually 20 minutes early and calls you before your alarm goes off to say they’re around the corner and please do make it snappy
- Wait an hour in the Pint Night line in the rain (you don’t enjoy beer and have no intention of buying a pint)
- Drink three energy drinks in one day (it doesn’t count – you’re at the library)
- Eat three dinners in one night (it doesn’t count – you’re at the library)
- Get extremely excited over falling snow in public and have to admit to your North Island roots
- Ask your warden for a lime the night before St Patrick’s day with a salt shaker in your pocket (he provides)
- St Patrick's day crash (it’s 11am)
- Lose the respect of the boy who lives downstairs when he watches you drink two litres of orange Gatorade in an economics lecture without taking a single note
- Gain the respect of the boy who lives upstairs when he watches you drink two litres of orange Gatorade in an economics lecture without taking a single note
- Google the most efficient RTD on the walk to the liquor store
- Go to the beach on the hottest day of the year (the sea is still bordering on untouchable)
- Good old fashioned sob (bonus point if you’re calling your mum)
If you scored…
Less than 10:
You’re either a Health Sci student, or just at St Margs (actually, that's the same thing). Other freshers look at you the same way they look at third years holding eggs — fearful reverence. When you do drink, your hangovers last three days.
10-19:
You’re really trying, but try harder. It’s pretty cool here. Put TikTok down, get out of bed, and force some friends to go on adventures with you.
20-29:
Okay so you left your room a few times, kudos. You are completely normal in this context, possibly the first time in your life you’ll ever be told this. An entirely solid effort from you — you’re truly a neutral fresher.
30-39:
You take photos of Castle Street on a Sunday morning and post them to your close friends in the same way millennials post “no place like home” stories. You probably haven’t been to the library yet. You pretend to like Scrumpy. You crave the filth of a true Dunners flat and are willing to pay a fortune to live out that dream.
40+:
Congratulations, you are well and truly an archetypal Dunners degenerate fresher. Time to start saving up to buy eggs next year – because they deserve it.