You know you're a real English student when you start dreaming about radioactive sheep reciting poetry. Where the sheep came from I'm not sure - perhaps a desire to return to my Cotswold roots? Or a rebellion against the geese who insist on hissing at innocent passers by and screeching outside windows far too early in the morning? Hmm
interesting as this dream analysis is, I think it's time I moved on to the poetry. Arghhh dreaded poetry, I'm ashamed to admit that before coming to ni I'd never studied any - well nothing after a rather vague essay on World War I poetry aged 13. People may argue that Chaucer counts as verse but however interesting and significant a writer Chaucer may be, translating The Pardoner's Tale does not prepare you for a seminar on Cavalier poetry. After two hours of trying to nod wisely in response to comments on the use of trochaic metre and the significance of the caesura I realised it was time to take action. I was not going to fall into the self-pitying spiral of deciding of everyone knows more than me, what am I doing at this university, I know nothing about anything etc etc! Swallowing whatever pride I had left regarding my knowledge of English I headed off to the library and armed with 'Poetry the Basics' set to work.
Three weeks later I've finally managed to hand in an essay on 'The Spiritual Struggle' in the work of Donne and Herbert, perhaps not the best I've ever written given the late nights and early mornings required to fit in a degree around working over 20 hours a week. Something else which has been impinging on what I used to call my social life. Despite the best of resolutions and much coaching from concerned friends on how to say 'No!' and mean it I let myself get pulled in for increasingly long and demanding shifts. When the text message set my phone bleeping at 7.00am on Bank Holiday Monday (my first day off since the previous Thursday) asking if I could manage the afternoon shift
I put my developing writing skills to use in the composition of my notice. On the plus side after my final shift this Sunday I might actually rediscover the concept of a weekend and see the outside of my room. On the other hand, cash is going to be a serious issue and I'm job hunting again.
What is the lesson here? Balance perhaps for next year. Maybe then I won't reach the end of my final term realising just how much I've missed out on. There are only three weeks to go now of life in true student accommodation - I noticed the other day that the safety notices peeling off the walls date back to 1987! How can I have reached the end of my first year? I hate to end on a negative note, so perhaps it's time to make some positive and belated resolutions. Course-wise I've got three weeks to write one more essay, attend some final lectures and read five more books - no problem, in yesterday's seminar one guy groaned when he heard we only had to read two books of Paradise Lost as he'd already read the whole thing! Life-wise I've got three weeks left to make the most of living near everyone on campus, maybe I'll make the effort to bake a cake for the Birthday picnic next week! And who knows, maybe being unemployed will mean I have time to figure out exactly what my subconscious was trying to express in the form of those radioactive sheep?...
Veronica Could you be a student diarist?
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