End of term musings

Term is over. I left the ’Bridge this afternoon. At the end of last term, I was having emotional farewells left, right and centre, and sobbing melodramatically into The Boyfriend’s t-shirt about how much I didn’t want to leave Cambridge. This time around, I wanted to go home. Not least because I wasn’t sure how much longer my body could stand the horrendously unhealthy diet I was inflicting upon it (sample menu for a day: the remainder of a packet of M&Ms, a sausage roll, a bag of crisps, a plate of Nachos, microwave salted popcorn, chocolate biscuits. Oh, and a plum, which I maintain cancelled everything else out – that’s how it works, yes?). This term has been exhausting. I’ve done so much more: yoga, badminton, getting involved in the play, seeing other plays, English Society, formals, randomly-themed room gatherings (who could forget the Egg Party?), and the odd bit of work for my degree, too. That’s a lie; I’ve done quite a lot of work but if I say that, the scientists get angry. All I’ll say is that it isn’t my fault they have 9am lectures six days a week.

Now I just want to sleep for a week, watch some appalling daytime television, and then get started on my vacation work of reading the complete works of Shakespeare, a task which my Director of Studies casually informed us of as though it was the sort of thing one could easily manage on a lazy Sunday afternoon. No matter: I am ready to immerse myself in reading, and alongside that will hopefully manage to do a bit of writing and drawing too. I shall miss the Cam lot, of course, and The Boyfriend, but five weeks will fly by, and with a bit of luck I may even meet some of them between now and then.

And then I shall return to Cambridge for my final fresher term, prepared for the six weeks or so devoted to the Bard. I’ve a feeling it’s going to be a weird term. Everyone else will be stressing about their university exams, whereas we English students will have nothing more to worry about than our usual workload and one measly Preliminary. To put it in perspective, most of my friends have over eighteen hours of exams that count towards Part I of their degree, while we have a three-hour internally set test that means nothing. I’m a little worried that I will be unable to stop myself from making smug jibes to everyone, and that eventually I’ll push someone too far and they will either burst into tears or punch me in the face, which I’m sure I would fully deserve. So I intend to at least try to be extra-nice to all the people panicking about exams – I thought it would be cool to become the Food Fairy, delivering de-stressing cookies and cakes and the like to people who are shut away revising. Perhaps that’s patronising, but who would say no to cookies?

It will also be my last term in Cripps Court, our lovely 1960s accommodation block. For non-Selwynites, I will add that Cripps is often described as a rite of passage for freshers: it has an abundance of asbestos, depressingly brown décor, toilets situated right next to the tiny gyp (kitchen), chairs you frequently fall through, showers with spontaneous temperature malfunction tendencies and ceilings that collapse. Well, the latter happened just the once, but still. Compared with the lovely Ann’s Court rooms that my über-cool Crew of Six last week managed to secure for next year, Cripps rooms are a little bit grim.

But I’m going to miss it all the same. I’m actually very fond of Cripps. I wouldn’t have thought I would be when I arrived: once I’d finished putting all my stuff into my room on my first day, I looked around and I almost cried. It didn’t feel like a home, and I was generally being a bit pathetic, but once it had been buried under all my clutter and had some geeky/arty/lame posters in it, I grew to like it rather a lot. If nothing else, it sort of stands for independence and freedom, however trite that may sound, being the first place I’ve lived in away from home. I didn’t anticipate how fantastic it would be to live within a massive community of friends, and Cripps is where I found that. Probably the weirdest thing that I’ll miss is the glowing tree outside my window – when I come back to my room late at night, before I turn on the light all I can see is this big tree which is lit up by some means. Being me, I’ve become attached to it.

Of course, the substantially larger gyp that awaits the crew and I is quite an appealing prospect. As is the en-suite bathroom I will have with a (hopefully) consistently warm shower. And the awesome balcony that runs all the way around the third floor, which we are strictly not allowed to go out onto; this is a rule that we will of course obey (balcony RAVE, guys!). Still, despite all this, Cripps will always have a special place in our hearts, I feel. So here’s to Easter Term: our final one in our grotty haven, and one that will almost certainly see most of my friends coming to hate my exam-free existence.

Thoughts on a thespy debut (though I'm informed that the word 'thesp' is abhorrent, and thus apologise)

“What play are you directing?”

“The Duchess of Malfi. Do you want a part?”

“Yes please.”

And thus my secret yearning to take to the stage at least once during my time at Cambridge triumphed over my inherent cowardice, which had been determined to thwart said ambition. Upon reading the email about auditions for the production a few weeks previously, I’d longed to try but had been far too scared to actually do anything about it – that kind of flight-response wimpiness has me written all over it. But this chance conversation with our lovely director saw me agreeing to take on a spare minor part in a relatively small-scale production of a play I already knew, having studied it at A Level. A nice, fairly unthreatening introduction into the world of student theatre.

I’m not a natural actress: shy and hideously awkward around people I don’t know, given to turning scarlet when too many eyes are upon me, and with a habit of tripping over my words when nervous. The last time I was in a play (not counting a hastily-prepared pantomime in which I was a hippie with four lines) was when I was eleven years old. I took the lead then, but that was before I learned the art of self-consciousness, and when the audience comprised only doting family members for whom it was compulsory to appreciate our faltering attempts at amateur dramatics.

But this was a different kettle of apricots altogether (spot the pointless plot-related idiom adjustment…). This would be in a proper theatre, with a stage and wings and a paying audience who were, for the most part, not obliged to enjoy themselves. Experienced actors will hopefully forgive my being intimidated by all of these novelties. I’m easily overawed.

Rehearsals commenced. I initially regretted my involvement somewhat, having suddenly remembered my fear of speaking in front of large numbers of people. The first person I met on arriving at my first rehearsal was our stage manager, who was later to be referred to as Awkward Simon.

“What other things you been in before?” he asked, after a few minutes of uncomfortably stilted conversation.

“Er, nothing really.”

“Oh. Okay,” he said, giving me what I interpreted as an unimpressed, derisive look that said, ‘Right, why is she here?’, which did nothing to allay my worries that I was going to be hideously inferior to everybody else.

Thankfully, the rest of the cast were lovely. After the obligatory initial degree of timidity, I loved the feeling of being a part of something, and seeing the play develop and grow into something that I was so proud to be involved in. My part, as the Marquis of Pescara, was one I became rather attached to – he's just a very nice man who, unlike most of the characters, has at least a few scruples and stands around being a bit surprised and dismayed at all the madness and death going on. One part multiplied into three as I then was asked to be Lord Silvio and an executioner as well. I was really very pleased with my little collection of parts, not least because I got to wear a suit AND a threatening balaclava/surgical mask-and-gloves combo, though sadly not all at once (that would be weird, even for Webster, though I'm undecided as to whether or not it would be weirder than that classic plot device of apricots inducing labour).

I’d forgotten what it’s like to feel the unpleasant squeezing sensation of the stomach and sick feeling in the back of the throat that only comes with the anticipation of having to achieve coherence in front of an audience, but on our opening night I was happily reminded. The nerves really weren’t helped by the pre-show music – Tchaikovsky, I think – which, being epic and atmospheric and thus effectively building tension in the audience, built even more tension backstage where we were all gnawing off our own hands. Or that might have been just me. All I know is that every time the music went quiet and it seemed like we were about to start, I was tempted to regurgitate the contents of my stomach. Nice.

But when the moment came to go out on stage, the buzz was immense. I could feel and hear my heart hammering relentlessly and a rush of dizziness went to my head, but it was a thrilling kind of fear. Everything went fine, until about halfway through my first scene. I’d got my first line out of the way, I hadn’t dropped my plastic champagne flute yet, and I thought I was adequately feigning conversation with Count Malateste, but unfortunately, I’d also completely tuned out of what was being said onstage. When my attention latched itself back on to this, I was just in time to hear the words, ‘You have bespoke it worthily.” Which was my cue to deliver a line that had completely erased itself from my head. A second lapsed. Some of the cast were looking at me. The only words going through my head were ‘F*CK F*CK F*CK WHAT DO I DO?’ until, after what was probably a very short stretch of torturous silence, it came to me:

“Your brother, the lord Cardinal, and sister Duchess!”

After that small hiccup, things went fine as far as my own performance went. Everyone else was marvellous and I was filled with admiration for those who had zillions of lines to memorise and delivered them with such passion, really feeling and meaning what they said. I don’t know if I was any good but I do know that I was extremely happy just not to fluff my lines by saying something like ‘So shir, we shall not' like a drunk, as in rehearsal – twenty repetitions of  ‘She sells seashells on the seashore’ per day might have helped, but on the other hand I would probably have then said ‘So sir, we seashells…’

And now it’s all over, and I’m sad. The period from getting a part to the last performance ending saw me fall horrendously behind with my supervision work, tear the skin around my nails to shreds, and seriously compromise on sleeping and eating towards the end (I can only imagine what it was like for those whose involvement was much greater). Oh, and have 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' stuck in my head for days, thanks to our Ferdinand who made it the anthem of the production. But I'd agree to do it again in a minute.

And next time, the novelty might have worn off enough for me to not feel the need to spew out my excitable reflections in a blog post that is far too long for anybody sane to want to read.

"I give myself such good advice, but I very seldom follow it"

Sang Alice, as she looked around Wonderland and it dawned upon her that she had brought this plight upon herself.

As a general rule, I see in the New Year surrounded by my immediate family plus my auntie, uncle and cousins, having spent the evening indulging in ridiculous pursuits and quite possibly wearing fancy dress. This New Year was no different, except for the fact that I added The Boyfriend into the equation. Inviting him along was brave to the point of insanity, and as I watched him sitting at the dinner table sporting a zebra-print cowboy hat and valiantly attempting a Wild West accent for his part in our Western-themed murder mystery, I realised two things:

1) My family must appear utterly mental to outsiders.
2) The Boyfriend definitely deserves a whole shower of gold stars for not running away as fast as he could.

Mixing people together whom I usually see separately causes me some degree of agitation, so with the success of this new combination of Boyfriend + Extended Family to worry over, it was not until the following day that I let my thoughts turn to that tiresome convention of making New Year's Resolutions.

Now, nobody's more of a fan of a fresh start than I. New beginnings mean the possibility of creating a perfect track record in whatever it is that I am attempting, and being a failed perfectionnist, that appeals. The problem is in the 'failed' part of 'failed perfectionnist': if I am unable to maintain perfection, I abandon the attempt altogether, finding blotted near-perfection far more painful than not trying. Thus if I am endeavouring to spend the entire evening working, and I find myself distracted by wasting time on the internet, I tell myself I might as well give up for the day and try again tomorrow, when I can have another fresh start. Moderation, balance and compromise are not congruous with an all-or-nothing personality.

Therefore when I break all my New Year's Resolutions, which I always do, I then want to wait until the next opportunity for starting over presents itself, and the right time inevitably never comes. This irritating facet of my character combines particularly catastrophically with an extreme weakness of will, and results in me never getting anything done. Resolutions are, for this reason, fairly pointless.

But, here we are again at the start of the year, and of course the old rush of optimism returns to me. This, I say to myself, could be the year where I change drastically. Perhaps I'll suddenly find myself full of motivation, and able to deal with failures as small set-backs as opposed to inconquerable, project-destroying obstacles. Hmm. Actually, I'm unable to fool myself any more.

Nevertheless, I present the usual list, containing the same resolutions I've made for years and have never achieved.

1. I will be more organised.
Yep, that old gem. Both predicatable and highly improbable. The Queen of Disorganisation, I am fairly sure, is not likely to change any time soon, and I can vow to use my wall planner and academic diary as much as I like - it's not going to happen.

2. I will stop procrastinating.
Another laughable goal. I dream of the day when I complete essays well before they're due in, and am able to concentrate for hours at a time. As I dream of this, my time drains away and I realise my essay is going to be a huge rush again. In fact, I just remembered that I was going to spend this afternoon reading and am now blogging. Best scratch this resolution off the list.

3. I will keep my room tidy.
I'm surveying it right now. Mission failed.

4. I will eat more healthily and get more exercise.
What, with the menu in Hall at college containing chips as an option every day? And with the selection of chocolate being positioned right by the till? And with everywhere I need to get to being less than five minute's walk away? Yeah.

5. I will stop biting my nails and the surrounding skin.
I'm currently just about managing this one. When the stress of work returns at the start of Lent Term, my fingers will undoubtedly unconsciously find their way into my mouth, and that'll be the end of that. In fact, my new supervisor for Paper 4 (English Literature and its contexts, 1830-Present) just emailed me, and I can feel my teeth itching to tear at skin and keratin already.

Welcome to 2011: the year where Lemonie will be exactly the same as she always has been. Happy New Year!

*

How strange that I have met you here – such luck was never known,

That you should be just standing there; that I should be alone,

And now you’re here, I might suggest that it would do no harm,

If we should stay and talk awhile in rare, arresting calm.

How fortunate this happy chance that brought me to your door,

A thought that’s struck me every time I’ve wound up here before,

It’s always ‘I was passing by’ or ‘Just dropped by to ask’,

A constant quest for pretexts; it’s a ceaseless, vexing task.

How odd that though I hate it, I seek you for your tea,

You’re never as suspicious as you really ought to be,

The many times we fall in step continues to amaze,

The thousand times I meet you, in accidental ways.

______________________________

Something fairly failish that I wrote a couple of weeks ago, prompted by the number of 'chance' meetings I was having with somebody. Luckily, I don't need to make up excuses any more.

Best I could do in a haze of work and tiredness - I believe I was studying Alexander Pope's 'The Dunciad' at the time and his couplets seem to have seeped into my brain, though mine aren't heroic. I was experimenting with metre because it's much more amusing than working. It's Wordsworth, Blake and Coleridge Week this time around, but I doubt they're going to inspire me to write anything - I shall be too busy sleeping in my free time!

Ode To Pritt Stick

I had a horrendous class in the scansion of French poetry this afternoon, so I'm blitzing it from my mind with some of my own drivel, which I hope may also mildly amuse my one and only known reader. This is my very own Ode To Pritt Stick. Considering I composed the main part of it while in the shower, it's... wait, no, it's terrible.

You're rarely around when I need you,
I'm sure that you do it for fun,
If only I knew how to breed you,
'Cause whenever I seek you you're gone.

I'm forced into PVA nightmares,
I'm forced into Sellotape hell,
I'm sure that you're actually right there,
But just where you are you won't tell.

Is this 'cause I once left you uncapped, dear?
Left you sitting alone and near dry?
I know I deserve to be slapped, dear.
When I think of it now I could cry.

I hope that these words are cohesive,
That you know my apology's true,
You're my one and my only adhesive,
Be my number one partner in glue.
______________________________

I am the next Wordsworth...

Elegy For My Hypothetical Death

One had the impression
That she thought she was headed somewhere
Knew roughly the route
To take, to further hasten her pursuit,
But somewhere had forgotten
Quite where to alight,
Or deliberately shut her eyes,
Or made just one too many a digression.
In any case, she never did arrive.

It’s probably for the best.
Mercifully no one ever tapped her shoulder
And said, “Excuse me, but I think I’ve rather guessed
You’re on this track by accident,
Pretending that you know
Where it goes?”
Her intentions, I hope you are aware
Could not be faulted.
And yet the will behind them wasn’t there.
One cannot really fail a quest to nowhere.

_____________________________

Apologies for the extreme morbidity of this. I was reading 'How To Read A Poem' by Terry Eagleton yesterday afternoon, and he mentioned that W.B. Yeats wrote his own epitaph. Then I remembered Thomas Hardy's poem 'Afterwards', musing on how he might be remembered after death. And then I thought, 'Hey, I'll write an elegy for myself as though I were dead..." Cheery, I know. I didn't really focus on the death angle; I was thinking about how if I were to die now, it would be quite irritating as nearly everything worthwhile that I've done so far in my life has felt like a step towards some greater goal which, as you may have gathered, I haven't quite worked out the nature of yet. Needless to say, I'm not planning on dying any time soon, so it's all good!

Self-labelling: A Hobby

I watched an episode of The X Factor once (at the time I didn’t generally make a habit of this; since then things have rather taken a turn for the worse), where an auditionee walked into the room, ripped off the sticky label with her audition number on, and irately declared, ‘First of all, let’s sort this out. I am not a number, I am a human being.” 

People often seem to have a problem with labels. In the case of the aggressive X Factor contestant, it irritated her to be an identity-less one of many. That’s understandable, I suppose, though she could have been rather less bad-tempered about it. I found myself in much the same frame of mind during UCAS applications, when I imagined that it must be very easy for universities to reject applicant 105-220-0994, as opposed to an actual person with feelings on the matter.

When the label actually describes an aspect of the person in question, it’s even more of a touchy subject. It’s the reluctance to be defined as one thing, or to be viewed in a certain way. They’re restricting. I call someone wearing a tracksuit a chav and you assume they have a bad attitude, hang around on street corners and play rubbish music at full volume on buses. Whereas I’m sure there are some very nice chavs out there. Probably. So you hear people say things like, ‘I’m not a label, I’m me.”

The problem I have is that as a label, ‘me’ is not a very helpful one. It’s tautological: if I ask, “Who are you?” and you reply, “I am me,” I have gained precisely zero information on you apart from the fact that you’re probably one of those non-conformist types that refuses to be put into a mental box. It’s even less helpful when I ask myself, “Who are you?” and that is the answer I return.

For that reason, I love labels. Only self-applied labels, you understand, or those given to me by friends. For example, I’m happy to be called a nerd by people I like, but back in secondary school, it tended to mean ‘loser’ as opposed to ‘interested in things not generally considered cool’. I suppose the danger is when you only see the labels and not the person they're trying to unravel.

The thing is, ‘I am me’ is for people who understand exactly who they are and feel no need to explain themselves. And, as yours truly is your typical, always-trying–to-find-myself adolescent, in a permanent identity crisis, I’m still tirelessly striving to define what this ‘me’ is. I want to break it into chunks, however artificial they are, and fit myself into little boxes until there’s nothing unfathomable left.

I’m addicted to those psychological personality tests you can take on the internet that will give you a category that you belong to. I can tell you, for instance, that according to the Myers-Briggs Personality Types, out of sixteen personality types I am an INFP – Introversion, iNtuition over sensing when taking in information, Feeling over thinking when making decisions, and Perception over judgment when interacting with the external world. Meaning I prefer small groups of people to large ones, think abstractly as opposed to concretely, value personal considerations more than objective criteria and tend to withhold judgement and delay important decisions. I read the entry for INFPs on Wikipedia (source of all knowledge; don't you dare say it’s unreliable!) and was fascinated by how accurate the description was. It took this weird, complex thing that is myself and put it neatly into a nice, straightforward compartment that seemed to encompass a sizeable proportion of my odd self. Marvellous!

Of course, as a label it's not a perfect or definitive indicator of personality by any means. But it's better than the obscure and perplexing 'me'. And so I shall continue to nurture my little collection of pet labels - one of them is 'hoarder', so it's unsurprising really - and perhaps one day I will feel that I have discovered enough about myself to set them free, and just be me.