Shit! Its six, maybe seven weeks until my dissertation is due in, all 12,000 glorious words of it! Ive been squirreling away newspaper cuttings and web page print outs on my chosen subject for months now. Only one problem, I havent written a bloody word! Dont get me wrong, being the wrong side of thirty AND in full time education is an eternal source of amazement and joy to me. I mean, who else is gonna give me a fat cheque every couple of months for sauntering into work at midday, getting pissed and generally being a lazy cow? However, it would appear that rather than reading for a degree I have managed (for nigh on three years now and much to my dawning horror and shame) to have been blagging for one instead! While industrious little bastards like Daniel and Keron (couldnt her mother spell, for chrissakes!!!) beaver away on virtually complete literary masterpieces, I sit slack jawed and crapping myself in front of my new posh computer. Alas, its very poshness seems to highlight my total lack of work. double shit!
<*dv_0*> The problems started in the first year of my degree, as surrounded by homesick and pubescent fuckwits who barely knew how to boil an egg unaided, I shone as a model mature student. I was competent, I was confident, I threw myself into presentations and excelled at public speaking in front of my new chums. This apparent natural ability made me lazy (not that Ive ever been much of a grafter, you understand) and I soon became comfortably complacent and dare I say it, a teensy bit smug. Now, three years on and Im slowly disintegrating into a gibbering, socialist bore. This degree is ruining my life! My parents like me for crying out loud, my friends think Im brainy now (HELLO! How long have you guys known me!!!??) and my neighbours are intimidated by me lugging a copy of the Independent back to my council flat, while they read their crumpled Sun and avoid eye contact! Short of doffing their cap or tugging their proverbial forelocks my way, they couldnt make it more obvious.. a university education prices you out of the darts team in my local, believe me!
So, there you have it, three long years of living it up and what do I have to show for it? Eleven grands worth of debt, the vocabulary of someone very dull (how likely is it, Ill ever actually use the word hegemony, hmm?) and a growing awareness of imminent disaster. The truth is, I cant have it both ways at this stage of the game. In order to get this bloody degree Im going to have to make some tough decisions and fast. Do I want to be an academic and do the whole career and kudos thing or do I secretly want to lapse back into my comfortable life of drinking down my grubby local, rolling a joint, bitching about Eastenders and saving coupons for a Sun sunshine break in Cleethorpes?
So there we have it, only by abandoning my comfort zone and buckling down to real academic research can I hope to pass this thing. But if I do that and fail, Ill of lost my old life into the bargain and end up with nothing. The deadline for my dissertation seems to loom on the horizon like a bad smell and still Im paralysed with apathy and indecision. Time is definitely running out! Suddenly my joyful existence or drinking copious amount of cheap alcohol at student prices, feeling fashionable in corduroy and being surrounded by lots of girls who definitely dont give as good a blow job as me seem far,far away. Like I said earlier SHIT!
It would appear that you can take the girl out of the council flat but it takes a bit of shaking to get the council flat out of the girl. Its time to bite the bullet, lick the proverbial academia stamp and post myself to middle class education, first class and forthwith! I sense that the ride could be a bumpy one
<*dv_2*> Incidentally, in closing (and in the spirit of manic desperation, in which I find myself) does anyone out there know anything about The policy implications of the application of rational choice theory to the problem of the underclass in contemporary British society?! Just asking, you know, just, er, in case.
<*dv_1*> Thatll teach me to be a smug bitch
Piece submitted by Sarah Martin
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