I saw this competition online for international students to give prospective students a impression of university life in England in the form of a letter to anyone back home. Or something equally mundane. I considered the few emails I sent explaining the ever so fascinating cotidial journey I endure in this blissless land. And decided to write the following:
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My fellow international students to be,
Let me take you through a mild journey of academic bliss, lethargy and challenge. Let me tell you about the epitome of friendship and the perils of an English social life. Let me open your mind to the conditions of employment and the embraces of voluntary work. Let me tell you about my England. For after all the British Museum holds my history and so must British history hold me too. Let us begin.
I have had very little choice in my presence in England. Three long summers ago I was under the impression that I was applying for a teaching job in Spain only to discover that in fact I had applied for a summer job in none other than Somerset, England. Oblivious to English geography I contented myself with the thought that if indeed London is the centre of England than Somerset could not possibly be too far off it (all matter of speaking). I accepted after telephonic verification of my ability to ‘speak’ let alone deliver English as a foreign language. Days before leaving my old career’s counselor (who I still discuss my life with) told me to apply for universities in England, while I was at it. He had a point. So I threw darts at a map of England (still oblivious) and they landed on the few universities I subsequently applied to rather late. This of course is not the way to do it. And this of course is an exaggeration of the truth. As the offers fluttered through the post I chose wisely based on faculty profiles. (Yes, this is the way to do it). I arrived by ferry, youngest of three in the first generation of university goers in the family, found the university (4 miles off centre), found my dorm and waited.
If we consider university to be a production line than the first year is the design stage. I saw students come in as blank canvasses upon which their designs were painted by the end of the first year. I watched and waited and saw their intricate life balance change with time. For some their consumption increased as their enthusiasm decreased and vice versa for others. For me, I watched and gained invaluable experience that no psychology degree can deliver in a 90 week course. I quickly etched a spot in the campus community as I became student representative in the second term by dumbfounded luck (hat draw I am guessing). I got to know the students and the faculty better and enjoyed the fluidity of the experience. Soon after I took on a job as a finance clerk in the student union and discovered just by how much students consumption had increased for my hourly minimum wage. My most notable experience was when I applied for my national insurance number. Treated with the utmost hostility until the interviewer noticed at which institute I had previously worked over the summer, suddenly I became worthy of the digits that minutes before I was blatantly denied as I could not answer why I had moved from my colony to this civilizational cesspool. So be it. That summer, after I finished my first year at university I taught again at that very same institute.
The second year is the production stage. Fabricating the design. My design was rather strong which can be a nuisance to fabricate to perfection. Thus the first term of my second year was spent erasing the strong lines. I moved off campus into a house with international students and professionals. I was finally going to discover the real England. The England that starred in many of my father’s stories. I was also to discover the importance of a tenancy agreement. I cannot stress to you the importance of a tenancy agreement. You could very well find yourself being kicked out of your house a month before the end of the year whilst in the midst of term papers and exams. This is not exaggeration of the truth. This a mild expression of reality. I found myself as a lodger in a house of rules where my water, gas and toilet consumption were closely monitored for elongated discrepancies. I have fond memories of dragging my dirty laundry to my friend's house up the road to get them washed to drag them all the way to university to get them dried to drag them all the way back down to subsequently get them all dirty again as they fell into a puddle of mud. I was Sisyphus and my dirty laundry was my great boulder. The term ended and before I knew it my books and dirty laundry were back in box storage and I was back in Somerset again teaching wealthy offspring about global inequalities... and the past tense.
Along came the third year. The final stage of the production line - marketing. Students are suddenly awash with the realization that this is it. In less than 9 months the bubble they call life will burst and reality will really commence. The first term I frantically spent applying for jobs, masters and internships. Any job - from law to finance to fashion to well.. even marketing. I picked my MA/MSc programs wisely and waited. And waited. And waited some more. And waited till I thought I would never ever get a response to any of my applications. And I had sent over 25 of them. Finally the responses came in. After plenty of rejections I finally got a few requests to attend interviews. Panic arose - I had no suit. This realization sadly came a day before my interview, I rushed to the streets and eventually found something that hung togethor and would blend in the City and all for under 50. I am a student after all. With every rejection another dagger fell through the roof barely missing my already dented ego. The last term is spent trying to find ways of spending the night at the library - out of sheer frustration with it shutting so early and opening so late. True to the style of the British educational system - its imminent lack. So, you give up on anything that once filled your day between 8am and 9pm and spend those hours locked up in the library (cept Friday, Saturday and Sunday--according to the library hours that is). You forget everything in those weeks. You forget your future, your past and only focus on your present. You forget how time works, you forget what food is for and you forget the meaning of the word shower. regurgitate what others before you have written and every opinion you think is yours becomes somebody else's as you assimilate references to your thoughts to authenticate them and authenticate evidence to authors who may have never said anything remotely close to what you think they meant to say. The circle of interpretation where certainty is always sought and never achieved. Before you know it its a day before the final deadline and you are locked in your room with an easypizza, 2 friends and an jammed printer panicking. The friends leave and you are left to disintegrate as your bones start to feel brittle and the wind howls through your single-glazed window panes firing insults of ice at you while you desperately try to reduce your word count and remember to double space. The result being a dead rainforest, a wired mind that keeps you up till 5 am and a face that looks like it has had all its pigments sucked out by the TF screen of your computer monitor. Eventually you fall on your bed and wake up an hour later, shower and hold on to your regurgitated rainforest of a dissertations like they hold the key to pandoras box. Before you know it you have signed them off and cheered like someone who hasnt seen daylight in weeks. You celebrate and spend the next 3 days sleeping off the fatigue in your bones. You wake up on day 4 to realise that you have to deal with your life now. The figment of freedom is suddenly revoked and there you are, back to promoting your own life. Life up for grabs. What have I learnt? What skills can I market? Patience.
So my dearest of students. Think hard, think long and then stop thinking completely. Give that mouse on the wheel in your brain rest, fire the oxbridge debating team in your psyche as well, delete the temp back up files of previous conversations with your id and ego and just for once realise you really have no choice. So go to university, do what they tell you, write the damn essays, do the damn exams, do them all well, join a society, become a president of one, go to lectures, go to seminars, get frustrated, take it out on a badly written article but do not give in . You are too petty to enjoy the "luxary of regret" by not doing it. Remember that.
Yeah.
H.
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So be it. So be it indeed.
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