Stop The World

I never have an uneventful day without stress around here. Public transport is consistently a nightmare. It ruins my day from the outset. Busses that never come, busses that come 15 minutes late, thereby missing the train they were supposed to connect with, trains that arrive late and leave early, trains that blast past the station they were supposed to stop at, busses that won’t stop ’cos you’re 12 foot from the designated pole, or not making eye contact with the driver… I hate it. I’m always running from stop to stop, puffed, exhausted and never confident I’ll make it.

You’ve just always got to catch the next one; not go to a different stop, not seek another mode of transport, no counter-intuitive reverse routes, and other ways of getting there. Just sit there for that half an hour and take it. Maybe that’s what city people have come to terms with that I haven’t. Takin’ it up the proverbial from the transport company. This is not a place for action. There is nothing you can do, you are already a pawn and resistance is increasingly futile.

I was rushing to try and catch yet another train (after walking the route of a late bus that would have got me there at exactly the same time, and not half as tired). And I came puffing up to a school crossing where I had to cross the road. And there’s the crossing lady, yakking away without a care in the world to an old man. Paying absolutely no attention whatsoever. There’s also a little girl, of about 9, not rude enough to say or do anything, also waiting to cross the road. I try to get this woman’s attention, to no avail, and I’m in a hurry; so I walk quickly across the crossing regardless. She suddenly snaps to attention just as I pass her and she spits ‘Morning.’ at me resentfully. Obviously to scold me for crossing without her attendance. I could hardly resist turning around and saying “Hey, don’t give me that tone of voice bitch; you’re the one who’s supposed to be manning the crossing! There are children wai-ting!”

The other day I nearly got flattened by the bus I was trying to catch, stepping out from the traffic island on a freeway.

I’d deserve that. I’d be satisfied with that; meeting a suitably ironic and poetic end. How did she die? Winded and desperate, with a look pain and fear on her face, flailing across the road, desperate to get there on time and make the best of a university she detested…

– She got run over by a bus.

People always say that life is short because you could get run over by a bus tomorrow. It would be the perfect way for a beautiful young life to be cut short. Nothing would surprise me today. I’m just waiting for another in a long line of catastrophes.

In one of my first lectures it suddenly occurs to me the perfect statement to encapsulate my sentiments about university; in the worlds of Andy from Little Britain: ‘I don’ ly’kit.’

When I think about university, I think of it as a toxic plague standing between me and what I really want to do; me and happiness. I never wanted to come here. I knew it wasn’t what everybody said it was. Mark my words I said, it’s just another rung in the job ladder! Just more dry, boring and useless education.

I didn’t go to university to acquire a dream job. Some brilliant high paid thing that would keep my as-yet-unformed family secure, make me rich, or get me in the industry I so admire.

I didn’t go as a means of realising a dream. I have none. And the shadows of ones I once had could not be achieved through a university course.

I didn’t follow any friends from which I am inseparable. I don’t know anyone here.

All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was something that everybody else was doing; it was the done thing.

It seemed like a waste of my intelligence not to.

I couldn’t think what I might do, if not this.

I thought it would give me some direction in life.

I thought it might further my avocations.

I thought I would like it, that it would be fun, or at least as much of a bludge as high school.

And so I arrived here with no discernable purpose or direction; with that dangerously half-baked thought that I knew what course I wanted to do, but not why I chose university in the first place.

I’d forgotten about the work that they give you. That that’s what we were here for, to do essays and be forced to learn; I don’t know what I thought we were here for, if not that. But it was a shock anyway. The arts was my hobby, my creative outlet, food for my soul; and I had to sit there as my lecturers deconstructed it and tortured it; spitting it back at me and making it into hard work. Making my passion into WORK. It was awful. Wading, groping, and digging through this hideously and inconceivably mangled manifestation of a subject I once felt enthused by. There is pressure and hostility here. Pressure and hostility. I didn’t sign on for that. What a toxic place. What a boring, uncondusive, barren place. They are ruining my creativity. I can feel the noxious academia seeping into my pores. It is stifling in the lecture theatre. All I can think about it getting out of here.

I fancy that a beautiful woman with a crown of ivy, clad in nothing but a silk slip, manifesting the spirit of Calliope, will appear at the door. She will tell me (in some sort of celestial version of Punk'd) that in my revulsion for the establishment I have passed the test, and that I can come away with her now, to live a life of artistic abandon.

What happened to that? What happened to art? What happened to the music and the freedom and life is my own movie? What happened to television and cultural feasting? Not only within myself, but within the university environment as well. A life changed. A world changed. I imagined a tangible air of imaginativeness and vision. Where’s the spirit gone? The poetry? The drama clubs? The bands? The love? Yes, maybe, I admit, my image of university is tangled up with what appears to be the 70s and Amanda’s concept of ‘rock love’. But who cares? These things exist. They did exist. Somewhere. That place used to be university. In a way I feel that this last refuge has been lost.

All I want is time for my blog. Time to read books and listen to the radio. All the other things I could be doing that bring me joy. Like ceramics. I want to make t-shirts and park sculptures, go to poetry nights, live in an artist commune, have dinner parties, make podcasts, get a job, kiss a stranger... So many other things. I must not forget them. In three years they shall release me from this prison and I will be free to do that. But until then…

The lack of escape is, as one might expect, suffocating me. I hate it; I have no time for anything. People make my bed when I’m away. I am contractually bound, legally and fiscally bound to my internet contract, my telephone company and my cabin. I get no sleep, I eat no food and I create no art. And the worst thing is I can’t go home. I can’t even visit. Let alone pack up my things and pretend this never happened. I have no friends, no home, no mother, no-one to talk to, no-one who understands, no place in the world. Is that what growing up is about? Having no-one but yourself? And with a grim realisation that actually does makes my stomach turn over – it is isn’t it? It really is. Urgh! That’s life. Oh I hate it. “It’ll all be alright in the end!” Where does that attitude come from? God, what I wouldn’t give…

My first university essay is not a pleasant experience. It is a review of a play for drama. It is to be 1000 words long. I watched the play, enjoyed it, and promptly and easily wrote an essay in a comfortable blog-like manner. It was great to be writing again. I was all set to hand it in a week early. Then someone in cinema (who is also in my drama class) whispers behind me that you lose 10% of your mark for every 100 words you go over the word limit. My essay is nearly twice as long as it should be. In a panic about losing half of my mark, I go to my teacher with my essay. She tells me that yes; I will indeed lose marks, but not quite as much as I had been told, and that I have to find some way to cut it down. I am distressed. I want her to read it. I want her to understand what I had been trying to achieve before idly dismissing half my words. This is my first ever university essay, and in truth my ego is bruised; I need her to tell me that my only problem lies with the word limit. She doesn’t want to read it. I cannot exactly remember the order of events. But some mild emotional showing on my part (I think I mutter something defeated and dejected and turn to leave) prompts her to read it. There are many things wrong with it. I am shocked, and this is when I become embarrassingly upset. Tears start leaking onto my burning cheeks without my consent. I try to rationalise my reaction with words, but I only dig myself a deeper hole ending with primary school and my mother. Everybody in the room feels prickly and awkward, and no-one knows what to do. I leave the room stinking of shame.

And then in the corridor, hours later, the humiliation and self-flagellation sets in. It is gratuitous. Evil screaming wailing hatred tearing at my face from the inside. Why is this a big deal? Why can’t I not care? It’s not that my best isn’t good enough; it’s that my best is wrong in some innate way. Why must I make a big scene of it? I am a mess and a disgrace. Sure that’s depressing, but it’s right. I completely believe that it is right.

I could have just responded with: ‘Cool, I’ll do that.’ and gone.

Why!?

I want to corner this woman again, and with a wink, a smile, and all the guile of feigning a multiple personality disorder say, - “The point that I was trying to make, through my failed and emotional logic, was that I have always been the smart girl who never quite got it right. And who cared way too much. Sorry about yesterday, I’ll have the essay on your desk by Friday.”

I was told that I would be able to get this right, and that there would be a place for me here.

I’m supposed to be of above average intelligence and made for this sort of thing. And I can’t do it. Almost everybody who is somebody (and even those who aren’t) went to university. Even the biggest no-hopers, bludgers and drug users managed to get through, or at least make a go of it.

So if everybody can do it, why can’t I?

There are plenty of things most people can do that I can’t, like drive, or whistle or sing or swim; and some of those things I don’t give a shit about, like whistling, some I want to be able to do with every particle of my being, like sing. But I don’t think it makes me less of a person that I can’t drive. It’s just not something I can do. Uni’s not something I particularly wanted to do, or even have on my list of achievements. But I am concerned that not being able to cope with uni does make me less of a person; makes me stupid, dumb and inadequate. Does it make me dumb? Or am I just too much of a creative soul? Is creative soul just another euphemism for bludger? These are questions which need answering.

Lately I am plagued with what can only be described as unrivalled and unmitigated inadequacy. It is not half as fulfilling as it used to be to get an essay over and done with; more a joy of the momentary relief from pressure than of genuine accomplishment. I have been fitted with this impossible work ethic that I get very little pleasure out of. Procrastinating is like a little kid disobeying his parents, knowing he’s going to get caught – I get no pleasure out of that. Nor the work. Nor getting it done. Or not doing it. Just being free from it. And even that turns shit after too long.

None of this has anything compared to seeing the city skyline, or smelling my favourite bread fresh from the shop, hearing the perfect song at the perfect moment, or finishing a blog.

What of dreams? What if I still had them now? How would I cope with losing them because of this as well as all the other things I’ve lost? It would be too much.

The worst bit is, I’m trying to enjoy it, this. That’s what’s detestable. That’s what’s the problem. You can’t try to enjoy it. You can’t approach it with love and awe, desperate to make something of it and find why you chose it, for your purpose in life. No. Make a point with every line. Get through it. Don’t care about it. Hate it if you have to. But don’t expect it to love you back.