Adventures in Lubberland

I've had this idea in my head for some time now that for my 30th birthday - which is just over a year away - the present I will give myself is the gift of manliness.

That sounds weird, right? Like I'm going to book a night at some gay sauna in Amsterdam.

Well, no. That's not what I mean.

What I mean is this. For my 30th birthday, I want to acquire some of the skills and habits that I have lacked through most of my adult life. Mostly manly skills. Like self-discipline. Courage. Endurance. The ability to hunt. Or, at least, go for a jog at 6.30 in the morning before work.

I've been trying to develop these skills for years, but the hops and the barley and the nicotine weed have proven too irresistible, and I've followed the way of the slovenly man for most of my life.

Now seems like the perfect time to change tack. I have no responsibilities, and am just about young and fit enough to attempt such a transformation. But how? The big problem for me, it seems, is making the psychological switch from a man who avoids pain and gives in easily to instant pleasures, to a man who embraces pain and prefers the pleasure that comes from a struggle won.

Is such a transformation possible at this point in life?

2009 has been a good year for me, overall. There's a long story to be told of how I ended up here, but the short version is that I completed a very long and intense piece of postgraduate academic research work around this time last year, and since then, I've been enjoying my rehabilitation back into normal society.

It's been great fun. Through a quirk of good fortune, my work and personal circumstances have allowed me to partially re-visit my student glory days, free of responsibility and the need to get up and go to work at 9am. I've been living the Old School dream. It's like I found a secret level in the video game of life, where you get to repeat the best bits of your early 20s, except this time with the confidence and wisdom that comes with age. The trouble is, life has been so good in the secret level that I don't actually want to leave this land of milk and honey. There's angry turtles out there who want to kill me.

But the party's over. I've over-stayed my welcome. Inside I feel like I'm 22. But it's becoming clear from the look of terror in the faces of the awful young people who populate the university that I look more like 42.

I don't get fliered any more when I pass the Student Union. Where's my invite to Rain? Where's my invite to Scratch? The Samaritans is not a night club. 

I'm amazed at how quickly the University has ceased to feel like home in the few weeks that I've been working somewhere else, albeit 10 minutes down the road.

There's no going back, now, is there? I must stockpile my arsenal. The angry turtles are waiting.