From stale alternatives to chatty people: the campus is a breeding ground for diverse people. Since second-year sociology student Richard van den Berg spends all day on campus mainly eating from his nose and staring blankly ahead, he strikes up conversations with passers-by.
I walk through the landing to the top floor of the University Library. My bowels are rumbling, it feels like carbide is being fired into my stomach. Maybe soon my rectum will hurtle through my skin like a space shuttle. I hope not for bystanders. Although Radboud students are used to scary things, given the coffee prices at our university, it must be a bit of a shock if a mutilated organ bursts onto your face.
The throbbing is increasing, I think I have a colon tumor. Sweat pours all over my body, even in places I didn’t know existed. Suddenly I spot an acquaintance.
“Hello,” I say to her. ‘I’m dying.’
‘Again? Yesterday you claimed to die of a heart attack and the day before yesterday of tuberculosis.’
You must have it from your acquaintances. I tell her to whistle at a Christmas card in December as punishment for this colossal indifference to a dying person.
‘Oh, I can do without your shitty tickets. If I want worthless things in front of me, I might as well look at you,” she laughs. “But tell me, what is sir dying of today?”
‘Colon cancer! My bowels are running wild,” I say.
‘No, you just have hypochondria, fear of illness. Have you been to a psychologist for that? That’s what I advised the other day when you claimed to have Korsakov.’
“No, you know I hate psychologists?”
I tell her again about my first and only psychologist visit. I was five and sang a song written by myself in kindergarten disstrack titled, roses are red, violets are blue: SM is funny, except with you. My kindergarten teacher was not impressed by this great poetry and sent me to a psychologist. This loser turned out to have no understanding of music either. Because he diagnosed me with fundamental insanity, while a Grammy award for this absolute masterpiece would be no less than deserved. Since then I distrust psychologists and would rather cuddle with used toilet brushes than go to one of those shrinks.
‘Wow, did you eat Refectory food? That explains a lot.’
Whenever I tell her this story, my acquaintance looks surprised out of the corner of her eye, as if she had been swatted in the face by a shark. Very strange. My bowels are rumbling louder, I can’t rule them out raven on Frans Bauer songs; guts have a refined taste in music. My acquaintance seems to hear the roar, finally she looks concerned.
“Good heavens, what did you do today?” she asks.
‘Not much, I was watching a romantic movie about moldy knees. Then I sat in the Refter, eating paella.’
‘Wow, did you eat that stuff? That explains a lot.’
I think of the spicy paella heaps that were thrown onto my plate with a large serving spoon. Refectory waste is not suitable for sensitive intestinal tracts. I realize I don’t have a colon tumor after all. Although I do have shooting pains in my head. It’s probably because of all that stress and anxiety, but maybe…
‘Is meningitis common among students?’ I ask my acquaintance panicked.
2023-06-02 11:48:57
#Campus #conversations #dying #days #year #Algemeen #Nijmeegs #Studentenblad
