Dana Zaman

(BA English and American Literature, 1992)

I miss the fun we had when we were students at Warwick- turning up to lectures dripping wet after water fights in the summer.

I remember Rag Week- students being followed by other students dressed as giant gnomes!

I also remember thinking I was going to die when men in balaclavas burst into our lecture room with rifles ( which I thought were real) and thinking, " I must die with dignity as this could be in the Warwick Boar," and then realising it was all a prank for Rag Week when one of the men in balaclavas slapped a box of milk tray in front of a fellow student, saying, " And all because the lady loves Milk Tray!"

I remember drinking runny soup from the soup machine just before the exams and asking another student whether Boris Yeltsin was a real person because I had just written about his trans-world identity in an exam and I needed him to be a real person for my argument in the essay to be correct! I was a bit of a funny girl back then!

I remember writing poems about another student's sneezes in lectures when we were doing the ‘Courtly Love Tradition’, and gushing to a friend. "Oh Sarah, Sarah, he's got poetic and romantic hair!", to which my friend replied rather curtly, " No Dana, he just needs a haircut!"

I was very young for my age while I was at Warwick and friends realised this and were quite protective of me as I still had a bit of a naive schoolgirl vibe about me at university.

I made many good friends and we created some very happy memories together.

Every year, the Students’ Union would play Electric Dreams for the final year students who were leaving, and one year, it was suddenly, our turn to leave. It all went so fast. Tears were shed as we parted and said fond farewells.

For three years, we had lived in a safe bubble of academia amongst our best friends who were also our neighbours, and suddenly, it was time to come back to the real world, to come home. For the first year, adjustment was hard. I missed my University and my friends terribly. I thought I would never recover but time heals all wounds and I learned to re-adjust to the real world.

Now several years later, I have published a book for children and would like to share the link with friends and Warwick Alumni. I hope you're all proud of me!

The Prince Who Lost His Pants: Zaman, D.F.: 9798370018008: Amazon.com: Books