wake up....

Finishing your exams at University is an amazing feeling. All that pressure and the weight of expectation is suddenly lifted from your shoulders. All of those long hours in the library desperately cramming in information can be consigned to the past. There are still results to come, but just for the moment they feel a long way in the future. Right now, the whole summer is stretching out in front of you and you can finally start to relax with your friends before the end of term, and perhaps the end of your University career.

I think it's entirely understandable that, in these circumstances, you should go out and have a blow out. After all, you probably need to let off some steam to work the last vestiges of stress out of your system. The exams are in the past and the anticipation of things to come can wait until tomorrow. Now is the time to live absolutely in the present.

Enjoy yourself. You've earned it.

One thing though.

It would perhaps be better if you could manage to restrain yourself from spilling out onto the quiet residential street where you live at 4am in the morning to conduct loud, drunken conversations in the dead quiet of the suburban dawn. Tomorrow may be the start of a brighter future for you, but for lots of other people living here, tomorrow is just another working Wednesday with only tedious commutes and even more tedious meetings to look forward to. A whisper at this time of the morning can carry a long way, and a noisy blackbird can keep people awake, nevermind a bunch of shouting, leery students.

Many of us living here were students too though - it's that kind of a neighbourhood - so we do understand what it's like to finish exams and we also understand the urge to blow off some steam. Hell, we're probably more than a bit jealous of you, truth be told. That's why no one was too angry at you for waking up the whole street this morning, and only that one chap stuck his head out of the window and asked you if you minded popping inside. If I'm honest, I'm not sure there was any real need to call him a "wanker" before proceeding to make just a little bit more noise before finally taking your shouted conversations indoors.

So although I rejoice on your behalf that exam-time is now over, when I drove past your - now silent - house this morning, you've no idea how tempted I was to stop and make damn sure that I disturbed your beauty sleep before I went into work to see how you liked it. A few loud honks of the horn, maybe. Some banging on the door, perhaps. A short, sharp clubbing to the sides of your selfish heads with a broken brick....

But, as I say, I remember what it was like. I understand. I kept driving.

Just don't do it again tonight.

I'm tired and I might snap.