Year 2 - Semester 1

After the first week of the first semester (the semester in which our results start to mean something) I realised I wasn't going to enjoy two of my three modules. From there things went downhill. I had no motivation. I put little effort into my work and revised very little. I read even less. Most of this, I believe, is due to the fact I worked so hard in Year 1. I finished with a First - and if not a First, a very high 2-1. A low mark in my final essay, an essay into which I put all my energy, really affected me. I felt like there was little point in putting hard work into something if some touchy Irish bint could give me a below par score.

So I struggled. And because I struggles I started to feel low. Because I felt low, I found it hard to revise and do my work. It spiraled forever down. It was only at the last minute that I could find the motivation to complete my work. I simply took quotes from the first page I found or a random page further into the text.

And then, in the penultimate week of the course, I had a meltdown. I was alienated by my peers, but given overwhelming support by one of my tutors and support from another. I was going to leave university, but knew it was impossible to do this. Unfortunately, even though I knew I was going to be lucky to pass my assessments, I knew that if I left university, that meant having to go to the job centre. It was a horrible place to be. I then lost my sister and was called a racist by an ignorant, black lesbian feminist. She ticked all the boxes for minority privilege. Colour, sexuality and gender. She called me racist because she misunderstood a Facebook status about Star Wars.

Christmas was a good one. Imke and Djodi (my niece's mother and my niece) visited. It was nice to be with family and feel loved.

In the New Year, I managed to somehow complete my final assignment. I didn't feel confident. Up until this point I had only found out two results: a disappointing 67% (a high 2-1) and a disappointing 72% (a low First). I could not face finding out my other results.

I knew I would have failed something. I was basically now just waiting for an e-mail confirming this. The stress was increasing, but I was trying to ignore it. And then I received an e-mail. The e-mail contained my results. It was telling me about how to go about preparing for re-sits (in case of fail) and so I knew I'd failed something. And because of this, I opened the e-mail...

I've never got more than 68% for an essay. I saw at the bottom it said 'assessment incomplete'. Fucking brilliant. There it was - I'd got no mark.

I then looked above this and saw the words PASS three times. I had six assessments and so I deduced I had passed three and failed three. But then I saw six different module titles. I was looking at the whole Year's modules. The three passes where in the first semester. Three modules: three passes. I had got 60s and 70s. My average marks were in the 70s. In all three. I had achieved three Firsts. I had achieved 73% on two of my essays. 72% on another. 66 & 67% on two presentations and 70% on a combined practical and essay assessment.

I didn't feel any relief, but I know there must be relief in there somewhere as I felt happier afterwards. I had achieved a First in:

Contemporary Approaches to Writing and Performance - 72%

Literature, Adaptation and the Screen - 70%

Page to Stage: Drama Text in Translation - 71%

From about week 3 I knew that I would get my lowest mark in Lit, Adap., but I didn't think that lowest mark would be a First. And now I can carry on and try to build on an undeserved mark and try to drag it with me to the end of Year 3 and somehow fluke a degree with a First.

This was really badly written.

Minimum Opus

‘Sometimes’, wrote Oscar Wilde, ‘the anticipation of the memorable line exceeds its rendition’.

There is a feeling that comes over me when I know a line is about to emerge. It’s quite similar to the feeling I get when I am doing mental arithmetic and the answer is about to show itself. I ‘feel’ the answer and I say it before I even see the number in my head. The story I am about to tell contains no mathematics, but it does reveal what happens when you add ignorance to self-loathing and multiply it by paranoia. The result:

In November 2014 (or thereabouts) I was chatting quite leisurely with a fellow student on Facebook. University was still new and exciting and there was a presentation coming up for the module Intro to Drama. It was our first presentation and the word ‘presentation’ at this time conveyed all the nuance and terror of the word ‘execution’. We both agreed that the prospect of talking in front of almost ten people whom we both knew was – well it was too much to ask of any mere Northerner let alone mortal and quite frankly the nerves were becoming a distraction. She seemed to be more daunted than I and this calmed me some. I know that I can fake confidence, but inside it still feels like a bag of cats. Still, I attempted to reassure her, but she was having none of it.

'If I get too stressed out during my presentation' she said, 'I'll just start crying'.

-  I felt something witty a-stirring in me noggin -

'Oh, that's not possible for me', I wrote, 'I only ever cry after sex'.

I pressed [ENTER].

Even before I’d written the first word of my reply I had started to giggle. It was that feeling, you see, when you can sense the one-liner coming from somewhere in your brain. I had known before I’d put finger to keyboard there would be 'crying' and self-loathing at its core and two seconds later, my minimum opus was complete. To me – the guy who had written the thing and the person who was now laughing out loud – it was a work of art. It was a DaVinci. A Zinedine Zidane. A Black Forest Gateau of a line.

Good old Facebook. I sat back in my chair, still guffawing and waited for the 'likes' to come flooding in.

I gave myself time to imagine what the next few minutes would hold for me. It was a montage in my mind, like those you get in films; you see the passing of time, the smiles and the laughter, you see the numbers adding up like the spinning wheels of a one-armed bandit.

100s ----

1000s ----

10s of 1000s of 'likes' would be rolling in.

As my laughter settled down I cleared my throat of the mucus that had been dislodged from my airways and smiled broadly. But the smile too started to falter. I realised that the replies of 'lol', 'lmfao', and 'roflmfao' were not coming through. Maybe my computer had had problems sending it. You get that sometimes. You just have to wait. Just wait for a moment or a minute for the, er, for the reply, for the other person/people to, er, to see what- maybe she'd left her keyboard momentarily. Or maybe she’d left it for more than a momentarily to go and make a cup of tea.

But none of her friends were ‘liking’, ‘rofling’ or splitting their hyperbolics either. They must be off-line too. It was the only explanation. No one was responding...

... and then a comment appeared! I eagerly read it expecting some kind of acknowledgment of my comedic genius.

'Dude you're so funny. Can I friend you?' Sure you can friend me.

Of course I'd feel a little awkward if this was the next comment, and I'd probably only 'friend' him temporarily until I got bored of seeing-

But no, they didn't acknowledge my genius, or ask to be my friend. I was shocked. It was some inane nonsense from some 'blah-person' saying about how she was 'sure my friend would do great in her presentation' and 'don't worry yourself, babes'.

For god's- I mean okay, that's fair enough, she probably saw my friend's status and thought she should reassure her. After all, that's what friends do, right...? But 'don't worry yourself, babes'... It was sickening.

No, all I needed to do was to wait. There were plenty of other comments she had to read on the thread before she reached my Rembrandt. She would then chortle heartily, hit 'like', say she wants to go out with me for a few drinks to be wined and dined and then further wined, and that would be that. We can all get on with our lives...

But she didn't. She didn't do any of that stuff. She was silent. It was like she'd just walked away. She'd typed in her reassuring crap and just left me... I mean, I'd given her a minute or two to read the comments above my joke – to read my joke – take a minute or two to control the laughter, compose herself, study my profile to see if I was marriage material and then write me my reply – a reply my wit deserved, by the way – but no… she'd just skedoodled.

But hold on, there was another comment... which completely ignored my joke. 

Followed by a reply to that comment – by my friend!

By my friend.

Ignoring my joke…

Maybe she'd just not seen it. Maybe she'd missed my impish revelry due to her distraction; making a cup of tea or crying or whatever. So I waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And- I was confused. Why were there no responses or likes to my- and then it hit me - like a bus load of slaps to the face it hit me. I'm 42. My friend is 19. My comment contained the word 'sex'. 'If I get too stressed out during my presentation' she said, 'I'll just start crying', she said. 'Oh, that's not possible for me', I wrote, 'I only ever cry after sex'. What a fucking idiot! They'll all think I'm a fucking paedophile. I'm fucked. I then had the vision; it was her in a classroom in secondary school; the teacher is telling the children how sex predators work. About how they lure the children in and make jokes using the word 'sex' as a punchline to acclimatise the child to the vernacular.

I could see my friend showing her parents the evidence – my joke – and then telling them my age.

I saw her on the phone to the police, her parents in the background with their arms around each other – the mother crying and the father looking like he could murder.

And then I saw myself... as I was at that very moment. A look of trepidation and perturbation and ominous acceptance on my face. That's it. I'm going to jail. I'm not only out of university, but I'm going to jail. On to the register for you mi-laddo. Why were you so stupid?! She's a child. You're 42. The word 'sex' was in the thing you wrote. You idiot. You stupid, stupid idiot!

I would go to bed that night knowing it was over. There was going to be a knock at the door in the wee small hours and I would be escorted off my own premises. This was my last night of freedom. My last night in a comfortable bed with my iPad by my bedside and a cool breeze blowing in through the window. I was going to be abused, beaten, belittled and sodomised. The only cool breeze I would feel from now on would be as it whistled up my painfully expanded rectum after conjugal shower time. I would never be able to vote again. I wouldn't be able to enter these United States of America. I would be unhireable for any kind of job above the status of dishwasher, roadsweeper, or bushwhacker. There was no future in my future. It was all going to end tonight. In misunderstanding. In disgrace. Indubitably. I was desolate and disconsolate.

This was the end.

My only friend- the end.

I reached for the mouse to turn off my computer; to shut it down just as I too was to be shut down. My friend's status sat there. Silently. Judging me. Mocking me. Laughing at my downfall. And what was worse, worse than knowing that nothing would ever have meaning for me anymore, that I was now living the life of a soon-to-be penis-receptacle, my joke, my perfect, beautiful joke, it didn't have one fucking 'like'.

Deathbed

I can't wait for my deathbed. Imagine being able to say and do anything you want and know there'll be no consequences for you. The sad thing being that I'll be saying and doing things in an empty room that's been doused with kerosene surrounded by dead people.

Also, there'll be no bed.