6th week: the essay crisis.

Sixth week is a funny one. It feels like your so close to the end that your body already wants to stop. You just want to go home and relax but you can't. You're painfully close to the end but not quite there yet. You have to keep going. In fact, there are still actually 3 weeks left, that's basically a month! In this state of wanting it all to be over, of wanting to be able to watch mindless TV for twenty minutes without feeling guilty about it, I had my first essay crisis of term. 

How do these things creep up on you just when you're feeling so in control? This time it was actually caused by too much preparation rather than too little. I had been sitting in the library for a few hours in between classes every day since it had been set, typing up ideas, reading critics etc. until I suddenly found myself, the day before the deadline, with 8 pages of notes, in a completely random order and often repeating themselves, feeling even more confused than ever. Now I don't mind writing new ideas down so much, when they're fresh in your mind, but re-organising what you have already written, looking back at those moments when you reached a new depth on knowledge, having lost it again, really makes your brain twitch (no - I didn't know brains could twitch either, but apparently they can.)  Aside from that, it also actually takes a lot more time than you might think. I sat on my computer in the library for 4 hours after dinner and decided to go home to get a fresher perspective. Much to my surprise, it actually really helped. 

On the bike ride home, as I cycled further and further away, I remembered that the world still continues to exist outside of college and actually, this essay that I was getting so worked up about was pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. As a result of this enlightening journey,(yes I know- you can tell I have just been writing a Dante essay - its difficult to turn off from essay mode!) by the time I got home, I looked back at my essay with a fresh perspective and rather than worrying about it so much, I just did it (yes Nike.) It got to 1am and I still hadn't finished but it wasn't due till 3pm the next day -although I had lectures in the morning - one of which was given by the tutor said essay was for- so I just woke up early the next morning and kept working on it. 

This is how days really roll into each other when you're essay writing. You forget about normal life routines, your room turns into a total tip, you don't even think about exercising and you eat whatever is closest to hand if you get hungry, even if it is not exactly 'nutritious.'  I finished my essay at 4pm on the dot, and sent it off, then jumped on my bike and cycled like crazy to get to an essay class which unfortunately started at 4pm on the dot too. I sat in the classroom, my mind still bursting with all these ideas from the essay and slowly adapted to being back in the real world. The lack of sleep and shock at how I had somehow managed to pull it off, send off the essay and get to my class on time gave me a crazy adrenaline rush and my heart was beating so fast I actually got a bit freaked out. You don't even realise how much your work has affected you, until it's over and your body finally allows itself to relax. At the same time though, I felt incredibly free and satisfied. I suppose what I felt was a sense of achievement, I had truly put my best into it - that's a pretty nice feeling. 

I had forgotten what that post-essay-crisis feeling was like. You feel kind of elated, almost hysterically happy, self-satisified, free. You feel a strange desire to do something wild, get drunk or run through a field, dance, sing, find some outlet for the tension that has built up inside of you up until that final moment when you click the send/print button. Of course this is fairly short-lived and unlike 1st and 2nd year when I would always have some social event to rush off to straight after finishing an essay as nice reward, as a 4th year, once the adrenaline had slowly drained away I was left feeling exhausted, although still equally satisfied, and rather than treasuring the moment of freedom and living in the moment, I thought about what was still left to do and how I needed to use this time for 're-fortification' in preparation for the next attack with the next deadline. So rather than going wild, I opted for a 'crazy' night in, in true 4th year style.

When I got home later I walked into the house with my books strewn across the table, my bed covered in a chaotic mess of clothes and things dotted all over the floor. I scrubbed the blue ink from my hand to make myself feel human again, tidied my room, took time to cook a wholesome meal and enjoyed my cosy night in, so that I would be ready to face it all again the next day. You think it's all over, it never really is. Final year is truly relentless.

5th week blues?

For the first time since I have been here, this week (5th week) I got that really warm, comforting feeling of being on top of it all. And this came on Doomsday Tuesday of 5th week of all days! (Fifth week is renowned for being the week when everything crumbles for a lot of students, we are just over half way, so close, yet so far. People tend to get sick/ break down -this student 'epidemic' is referred to as "5th week blues")

I woke up at 7am, packed my bag carefully making sure I didn't forget anything, went to my oral class and was the first to arrive. Felt incredibly awake in the class and did a lot of talking. I cycled to a Leopardi lecture straight afterwards, felt like I finally understood some things I had never understood in second year about him, scribbled my notes so fast and so fiercely that when I came out I looked like I was turning into an avatar with the side of my palm completely stained with blue ink. Cycled to another lecture which was equally insightful, cycled to lunch, but limited it to half an hour (that's over-the-top self-control for me- since for the 11 months I was in France lunches always lasted at least an hour!) went to the library in my 45 minute gap (when I would normally go to the coffee shop to clear my head) to revise French vocab and grammar, before rushing to a French prose class, where I had a very nasty translation of Treasure Island to do in exam conditions. Normally this would have totally changed my mood but I was in such a composed state not even that could knock me out of it! I went back to the library and -for the first time this term- sat down with Dante and had a real heart to heart with him, finally giving him the attention he had been seeking all this time. Then, suddenly realizing that this was the first time me and Dante had been so close, had a bit of a freak out at the fact that we have only just managed to click now, in 5th week, after 5 weeks of studying him. But really, after a year abroad, I suppose it's normal that it's taken me this long to really settle back into things. That wasn't even the end of it though, after two hours in the library I rushed off to my Dante seminar - just in case I hadn't had enough of him for that day, to prove my absolute devotion.

At the end of it all, I went to STACs (the St. Anne's coffee shop) and finally had that hot drink I had missed out on earlier- but I actually savored it so much more than usual precisely because I had really worked for it. I went home feeling really pleased with myself. I know not all days can be like this, but even just a few days like this are what you need to feel really in control. Let's hope I can keep up this composure for the next 3 weeks at least!

4th week Graduation (not mine).

So, I'm going to be honest, I'm writing this blog post in hindsight; I failed to keep up with my weekly blog post challenge, but there is a good reason for that- as you will see- and at least I'm making up for it now with this back-tracking.

Basically, 4th week marked a kind of turning point in Michaelmas term for me. This week was quite an inspirational one and it reached it's pinnacle at the weekend when all of my old uni friends came back for their graduation ceremony. Graduation is always a special day: All the graduates turned up with their families, with big smiles on their faces, looking smart in their gowns and mortar boards. It was all very Harry-Potter-esque and you could almost hear the end of film music in the background as you watched them all flock into college. I was so happy to see all of my old gang of friends back together again, and the friendly faces I used to love seeing around college so much. It was like going back in time and remember what the college atmosphere used to feel like. Nostalgia for them, but nostalgia for me too, which was weird because obviously I'm still here. 

In the midst of all of this, I had lots of work to do, and the longer I stood waiting for them all to arrive, chatting to them all, sharing the special day with them, the more guilty I felt about not being in the place I knew I should be - the library. I watched them all come out of the Sheldonian theatre, took lots of pictures and it all just felt so surreal. You could just sense the aura of pride and satisfaction floating around all of them. They had all been down to the depths of exam stress and had managed to emerge from it all, standing tall looking glorious after a summer of celebration (and life-planning.) I admired them all and so it was a great motivation, it made me want to work hard, push myself to my limits, because I realised that the more I do now, the better this feeling at the end of it all will be. They had come through it all together, and there was such a strong feeling of team spirit, they were like a surviving troops returning from battle. What they had been through together meant that they will probably all be friends for a long long time, and meant that now they could celebrate it all together too. 

After this, I just felt like getting totally serious about all of my work. I went back to the library and my concentration was the highest it had been all term. I did one essay after another, and somehow seemed to understand it all better than I had before. I stopped over-thinking it all and just got on with it. They reminded me of what I'm working towards, where I'm heading. That's why I didn't write a blog post this week, I focused completely on work and didn't allow any distractions. It was also pretty emotional to see them all, and have to say goodbye again, but c'est la vie. I'm lucky to have such a good group of 4th years with me this year, we have really tied together and now we have the vision of graduation to keep us all going too. At least, I hope I make it that far... Here's trying!