I regret that summer is over, not because the weather will be getting colder, but because Queen’s students have returned to Kingston. I’m not a disgruntled townie who can’t relate to the students. In fact, I’m a Queen’s graduate who’s just never been enamoured by the prevalent “Queen’s is the centre of the universe” mindset.

Many Queen’s students are slobs. Need proof? Go through the Queen’s ghetto. It’s not a coincidence that the amount of broken glass on the roads increases dramatically as soon as students arrive in September.

Despite the movement to call it ‘the village’ instead of ‘the ghetto,’ believe me, compared to the McGill housing area, the Queen’s area is a ghetto. It’s bad enough having to watch students drink and scream all Frosh Week, but the normal citizens of Kingston must put up with this again when Homecoming Weekend hits.

I don’t live near Queen’s, but I’m still subjected to Queen’s slobs/obnoxious drunks. My street is dotted with Queen’s houses, and they stick out like sore thumbs. Just look for the front porch packed to capacity with boozing, yelling yahoos whose friends are blocking the sidewalk.

Funny, the normal people on my street don’t feel the need to scream all night and have outdoor parties. I guess it’s a privilege reserved for those people too young and irresponsible to fit in painlessly to society.

Queen’s is not the real world. You won’t be a member of real society until you graduate. Then you won’t have the “security blanket” of having a pack of friends following you everywhere you go.

Maybe then you’ll realize that singing Gael group chants and Queen’s songs while walking around in coveralls makes you look like a moron.

Maybe then engineers will realize that destroying their leather jackets “because that’s what you do at Queen’s” is, what we call in the real world, stupid.

As for Queen’s spirit, how can Frosh have spirit about a school they’ve just arrived at, where all they’ve done is get drunk all week? In the real world, you have to think for yourself, and not just parrot what your Gap-wearing posse is doing.

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Liam Cullen, ArtSci ’90, believes Queen’s students to be rather obnoxious.