missprint

Sleep was quite high on my list of post-dissertation priorities but unfortunately, the events of the week have conspired against a full-night's sleep. Last night, Priya arranged for all the people on our degree course to go out to celebrate the end of university and I was slightly dreading it. You see, for me, university wasn't the life-changing experience that it purports itself to be. In fact, I don't think since I was 14 that I've ever been unhappy for such a constant period of time. When I finished my A-Levels, I resolutely decided against university, partly because I had never wanted to go and partly because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. After taking a year out and rapidly realising that full-time work was the rock, it was with trepidation I approached the hard place. I applied for English Literature degrees in all the universities in London and for some reason or another, I ended up at UEL.

When I applied for university, I didn't want the typical student experience, as far as I was concerned it was a way of killing time in a productive way. You know that old adage about how the people you meet at university are your friends for life? In my experience, that hasn't been the case and perhaps partly that is my own fault (I am aware that the impression I give off to strangers isn't representative of what I'm really like. Like many shy people, I think others probably think that I'm rather stuffy, straight-laced and stuck-up. Incidentally, whilst talking to some of the others on my course last night, we were having that what-did-you-think-of-me-when-you-first-met-me conversation which only served to confirm these suspicions...) For the record, UEL is a new university, its intake comprises of a large proportion of mature students, international students and those who don't necessarily have academic qualifications. Combine this with the fact that the Docklands campus, beautiful though it is, is actually located in Beckton, which is pretty much the middle of nowhere. Beckton is perhaps the most depressing place in the world, it's a flat and empty landscape, only broken up by the grey ribbons of motorways and dual carriageways. It is also alarmingly close to Essex. In fact, you could use those very terms to describe the social life at the university.

Needless to say, when I first started at UEL, I was somewhat disappointed. Looking around the group of people at Induction Day, 80% of the people on my degree course were mature students. As I got to know some of the younger people on the course, I became increasingly frustrated, I had nothing in common with these people. There were no points of commonality between us apart from our ages: they all lived in Essex or East London and I lived way down in South London; I enthused about pop music and television whilst they immersed themselves in talking about drinking and white-stiletto nights out; during seminars, while I was attempting to talk about the topics without seeming too geeky, they sullenly sat there and contributed single-sentance answers. It didn't occur to me to try and befriend any of the older students, partly I am ashamed to admit, because it wasn't very cool. My first year at UEL was quite lonely and I found myself feeling more and more frustrated and angry that I was being robbed of a proper student experience. As much as I love my friends, on hearing their tales of life in halls, I was incredibly jealous in that way that unhappy people are only content on hearing that others are similarly unhappy.

The second year came around and I'd started befriending some people I had never noticed before. Having had such a disappointing first year, I let myself get carried away and overlooked the fact that I also didn't have much in common with these people because I was too overjoyed at being part of a little group. However, this too was short-lived as the group dispersed as various members dropped out (UEL also has the highest drop-out rate in the country. I guess we had to be good at something.) It was at this point that I started getting to know the older students on my course and I realised that I got on with them far better than any of the younger students. They were funny and inquisitive and talkative and raucous and there was none of that cautious sizing-up that comes with people my own age. However, these were people who had given up careers and had wives and husbands and children and a mortgage. These were not people I could imagine populating my life in years to come, whose faces would be in birthday photos and nights out. However, despite going out last night, armed with an excuse to leave early, I found that I had one of the best nights out in recent memory. Despite spending the first half of the evening in a cramped, sweaty, noisy bar in Brick Lane. Despite the rain. Despite spending the second half of the evening in what appeared to be a BNP pub in Brick Lane. Despite it being karaoke night in said pub. Despite being accosted by a drunken be-anoraked idiot from the BNP pub, who laid on the charm and aquired my fake email address with the immortal line: "You look like you take it up the arse." Despite the fact that there were no night buses running from Liverpool Street to Peckham. Despite the fact that it took an hour and a half to get home. Despite the fact that I had work the next morning. I put it down to the funny and inquisitive and talkative and raucous people and although I might not have left with the quintessential student memories of messy flats and drunken nights that somehow involve traffic cones, I did leave a little more open and about 5 drinks drunker.

Anyway, that is all an incredibly long way of trying to say that I've been sleep-deprived for the past two weeks and that it is due to this that I overslept and missed Doctor Who this week. So, the weekly musings on the fineness of Mickey, the pertness of the Whovian ladies' breasts and as ever, the loveliness of Tennant will be postponed until tomorrow when I watch the repeat.

Stolen from well, practically every diarist and blogger this side of the galaxy but specifically the lovely and fragrant, Stepfie and Stuart.

Six Weird Things About Me

One // I am absolutely obsessed with subtitles. I will watch anything and everything with subtitles much to the annoyance of my friends. It's gotten to the point where if I watch something without subtitles, like a film in the cinema, I have a little difficulty in catching all the dialogue without the aid of subtitles and I end up having to focus very intently on the actors mouths.

Two // I have a seemingly boundless capacity for sleep. I have been told that I just fall asleep straight away (much in the style of Homer Simpson). 8 hours a night is just not enough, at least 10 hours enables me to be fully functioning and lucid. I have been known on occasion to sleep for the whole day, only arising from bed at 5pm. I know, it's disgusting. However, even more strangely, I cannot sleep on planes and trains or any other form of transportation. Which usually means that I spend flights trying to surreptitiously unentangle my shoulder from strangers's lolling heads.

Three // I refuse to go into a hairdressers anymore. I have had far too many bad experiences with them. I am sure that every girl has had that dreadful experience of going into a hairdresser armed with a precise idea or picture and only to have your hair butchered into the style that the hairdresser thinks is suitable. Also, hairdressers seem to operate using a different system of measurement to everyone else, I have now learnt that asking for half an inch off results in a trim. Ask for any more than that and you will find most of your hair adorning the floor of the salon. I haven't been to a hairdressers in five years and instead I cut my own hair over the bathroom sink.

Four // Despite being brought up on Vietnamese food, I never learnt how to use chopsticks until I was about 12. When I was little, my Dad tried to teach me by encouraging me to practice picking up his cigarette butt ends (classy). My 7 year old self assumed that as I was An Oriental, my chopstick skills were innate and like some kind of slow-release knowledge, I would miraculously just know how to use them one day. In fact, I actually still don't really know how to use them properly, everyone comments how how I hold my chopsticks strangely (I hold them like a pen).

Five // You would think that being an only child, I would have had an imaginary friend but this was never the case. Perhaps the spoilt brat in me didn't want to share my Polly Pockets.

Six // I had a Catholic education (not weird in itself. Well kind of...) and in order to get into Catholic schools, I had to attend church every Sunday and go through all the Catholic rites of passage, including confession and First Holy Communion. (Incidentally, I loved my First Holy Communion dress despite the fact that it was made out of net curtains.) I always found confession quite stressful and intimidating, so as a result I didn't go very often. However, when I was made to go I always confessed the same sin of having broken a marble elephant and hiding its trunk down the back of the sofa.

Anyway, I am attempting to get my body clock back in order, so I take my leave of you now gentle readers. Bonne nuit.