Alcohol, your chance for plausible deniability – NOT

Or maybe you are just in a funny mood. Anyways, who cares what happens? You’re only young once, your parents will bail you out and after all, you are indestructible! Think again, we’ve seen it all over these years and we certainly have heard all possible excuses more than once. “I don’t remember because I was too drunk”, “I can’t explain why I did this because I never do such things”, “I didn’t hurt anyone”, etc, etc. We are not your parents, and we certainly don’t enjoy punishing you but we have a duty of care and we are responsible for providing a safe and enjoyable environment for everyone. If you hurt yourself because you were stupid, we have to deal with it… So, let’s see what we’ve seen over the years: • A guy passed out while having a shower. He flooded his entire apartment and half the corridor. He did this not only once but twice in one semester! Cost to student: over $1,000 in damages. • A resident decided to cook up some sausages because he was hungry when he came home from clubbing. He decided to go for a 30 second nap while the sausage was frying. Unfortunately, he didn’t wake up when his late night meal started to burn causing the fire alarm to go off. The fire brigade couldn’t wake him up when they attended the room. Cost: $1065 (fire brigade call out fee), not including the shame and the pictures that his friends took of him • Resident vs wall. Resident angrily kicks the wall, wall isn’t strong enough. Resident wins through KO in the first round! Unfortunately, he later was disqualified (evicted from the building) because it was right in front of the camera. Cost: $280 to fix the wall and eviction from the building • One of our special long term residents, let’s call him Billy, decides to jump off the balcony at 3am after having drunk a case of beer and half a bottle of vodka. He’s still smart enough to make sure he takes off his t-shirt so it doesn’t get wet – he makes it safely down, doesn’t break anything and the sharks don’t get him. Unfortunately, he forgot about the rocks so he cuts his feet when he climbs out of the water and when he wants to enter the building, he notices that he forgot his keys in the room. Luckily, he has a very good friend who’d let him sleep on the couch until the next morning. • A semester abroad resident wanted to call her parents back home. Being the smart girl that she is, she uses a phone card that she got from home to minimize costs. She calls to the 1800 number on the card and follows the prompts to be connected to her family. A few weeks later she gets the phone bill – over $100! What happened? She called to a 1800-number in the US instead of a 1800-number in Australia. Cost: Over $100 but at least she now knows how to use a phone card • A couple of students go on a boat trip organised by Bond University. They have a great time with awesome company but have more than a little bit too much to drink. They are drunk for the whole trip making it a nightmare for the supervisors to keep control over the group. They even put themselves in danger by jumping off the ship that is going at full throttle. Cost: Disciplinary suspension from Bond University for 1 year, Visa’s canceled, and they lost their accommodation deposit. But all that is nothing compared to what they faced back home from their families who paid for their education. • Countless guys try to make a good impression by buying drinks for the girls at the beginning of the semester. Guess what fellas? You’re being used. One drink may be okay to start a conversation; two drinks is already too many and anything beyond that won’t get you anywhere. • A few residents decide to all buy motorbikes. After all, it’s perfect biking weather year around on the Gold Coast. Unfortunately, one of them will never finish his studies and never return back home because he was hit by a car while overtaking his friend and exceeding the speed limit. Don’t do this to your family! What is the morale of these stories? Drink responsibly, think of the consequences and don’t risk your study abroad experience by acting like an idiot. Be smart, it only takes a split second for your study abroad trip to turn into a nightmare.