At college I was a crazy diamond--but in the end the students...

At college I was a crazy diamond--but in the end the students got used to me.
This happened when at the Agriciltural college.

This memory comes to mind when reflecting on my student years at an all-male live-in Agricultural College in the early 70’s in South Australia. There was a culture of bullying, bastardry, xenophobia, homophobia and misogyny towards the more effeminate looking males. My nickname was the stupid, dago bricklayer, and I was pleased, as some were much worse.

Everyone liked the animal science lecturer as he had a good sense of humour and did not denigrate the farm boys who had thick cranial bones, leaving little room for a functioning brain.

One day at his 8am lecture he was excitedly describing his holiday in WA and the cute little quokkas. Unfortunately most were either still asleep, suffering a hangover or licking wounds from a fight the night before, and few remembered anything about that animal.

The lecturer was a bit pi$$ed off with us, so he asked question about quokkas in the exam. Some began to whisper around the room, “What’s a quokka?” The whispers continued to circulate until a student with a particularly bony cranium called out angrily – What the F$$K is a quokka!

We all laughed, but few attempted an answer. I had no recollection whatsoever of that animal, so I took a stab in the dark and imagined it might be something like a cross between a chicken and a rat.

After spewing out anything that came to mind for a couple of pages, I was shocked to find I passed that question, but I have never forgiven those vicious, mongrel quokkas!