Oh Hello 2018

Hello!

Lovely to see you, it's been a while. How have you been? And how's 2018 treating you? Are you, like me, both baffled that it's already 2018 while finding it inexplicable that it's still January?

Anyway, I thought I'd drop by to let you know that I am still alive. The end of 2017 was hectic to say the least: once I started my MA in September life became a bit of a whirlwind.

I knew before I started university that it would bring challenges. The fact that I started off my post about beginning an MA by reflecting on my (largely negative) undergrad experiences suggests I had an awareness, perhaps subconscious, of what some of those challenges would be. But I've still been pretty blindsided by how returning to study is affecting me.

First of all, there's the obvious challenges of being a learner after twelve years in the role of teacher, which is undeniably strange and at times difficult. I don't deal at all well with feeling inexpert, and thus far I feel inexpert pretty much every day. Added to that is a severe case of Imposter Syndrome: a little voice in my head that's trying to tell me that everyone else on my course is brilliant and I am stupid; everyone else gets it, so why can't I? Because this shit is hard. I'm realising how little I've been intellectually challenged in recent years, how I need to learn to flex mental muscles that have long gone unused.

Equally, I think if I'd known beforehand how difficult trying to do an MA while living 120 miles from university is, I'd have had second thoughts. But I didn't, and in truth there are many positives about doing the MA now, not least of which is that I get to see my mum every week when I stay with her, and see much more of my brothers and nieces, too.

But as well as being hectic and challenging, the last few months have also been full of positives.

Thomas and I spent a wonderful long weekend in Norfolk at the start of December: four days of no internet, no photographs, no phones, just lots of open fires and books and long walks. In other words, bliss.

Having felt that I was struggling with the MA, I was surprised to find myself really enjoying researching and writing my first assignment, and was even more surprised when I did really well. To know I was doing ok made the struggles of the first semester feel more worthwhile.

I made it to the end of 2017 well within budget for my Buyer's Archive challenge, and although blogging my buys has gone by the wayside, I'm still keeping a record of my spending and am aiming to keep it below £500 in 2018 (ahem, we won't talk about how much I've spent in January...).

We've booked our long-overdue honeymoon to Canada this June, and I'm looking forward to spending time with family while we're there.

Oh! And while we're on the subject, Thomas and I made it legal. As much as we would have both liked to maintain our "fuck the man and fuck marriage" stance, it unfortunately makes so many things complicated (I lived in fear that he'd have an accident while cycling and I wouldn't have had a say in his treatment). So we popped down to the town hall one Saturday with a couple of friends, got into trouble for giggling during the ceremony, then went out for a massive pizza afterwards. And now, in response to anyone who asks why we got married, I can quite genuinely say, "so I can turn his life support machine off"!

So yeah, a busy few months.

Thanks to the MA, I won't be around here much until summer at the earliest (apart from posting some stuff that's languished in my draft folders for ages). But I'm finding Instagram increasingly useful as a sort of micro-blogging platform so if you do want to know what I'm up to, you can find me there.

Back To School

"Conkers lying on the ground, the air is cooler. And I feel like I've just started uni."

Zorbing by Stornoway

Every late September I can't help but remember the autumn that I was 18. Seeing the streets of Leicester suddenly clogged with excited, fresh-faced students takes me back to the year I was one of them.

1996. I'd dyed my hair black over the summer, listened to too much gloomy indie music, and been suffering from what I now recognize as crippling anxiety attacks. I hid in my room when the phone rang; I panicked if I received any post. The world suddenly felt too big and too wide and I was about to go out into it.

I went to university in pursuit of adventure. My most fervent hope was to find my people, which at the time meant slim-hipped boys with floppy hair and eyeliner; girls in Manics t-shirts and glittery nail polish. I thought that if I could just find these people I'd finally be happy (conveniently ignoring the fact that I'd spent the previous two years hanging out with people who exactly matched that description, and it hadn't got me anything except a self-harm problem and the editorship of a mildly successful indie fanzine).

I was nothing short of devastated, then, to meet the students at Leicester University and discover that they were so far from being my people it was almost laughable. My fellow halls of residence, erm, residents were genuinely nice but, from the rugby-playing law students downstairs to the Home Counties public school girls on my corridor, I had nothing in common with them. For their part, they viewed me as something akin to an exotic animal in a zoo: something to be gazed at from afar, but not got too close to.

Having been planning my escape from Bradford since the age of ten, the reality of life at university was a disappointment to say the least. I'd sincerely hoped that, after years of being the brightest kid in class, further education would finally provide me with the challenge and intellectual debate I so sorely wished for (and yes, I do realise that makes me sound like a particularly pretentious Adrian Mole). My hope was quickly dashed against the rocks of a dull curriculum taught by indifferent lecturers. I'll readily admit that I gave up, decided not to bother trying, and emerged a few years later with a 2:2 degree that I barely deserved.

So it's with no little trepidation that, this week, I start a Masters degree in Gender Studies at the University of Leeds.

My first assignment is to write about a text that inspired me to study this course I'm struggling. I was born into a family in which political activism comes as naturally as breathing. My mum raised me as a feminist and I grew up in a house lined with books by Germaine Greer, Audre Lorde, Sheila Rowbotham and numerous other feminist luminaries. When I was at school (and later, during my undergraduate degree) I was the person who brought every discussion back to feminism or queer theory. Whether discussing the works of Charlotte Bronte or the sociology of the city, my preoccupying thought was always, "what's the feminist perspective on this?"

It's difficult, therefore, to pinpoint a single text or moment in time that made me think, "Aha! I want to study gender!" Honestly, as long as I can remember in my adult life, this course has been my dream. I still have, stashed away somewhere, the Gender Studies MA prospectus from 2001. And every few years since then I've opened the Leeds University website and idly looked through the course content thinking, "If only." But it always felt like an impossible goal - too far away from my work in Leicester, too competitive for someone with my crappy degree and, most importantly, too expensive.

As with so many things in our unfortunately couple-centric world, what seemed impossible when I was on my own became within reach once I met a partner. Since Thomas moved in I've been able to put more into savings than was possible before and, because he now has a three year contract at Loughborough University on a very decent salary, we're able to take the financial hit of me cutting my hours at work. More than anything, though, he has been my cheerleader and chief encourager, telling me that of course I should apply, that of course I'd be accepted, and that of course I'll manage the work. Whenever I have wobbles about the huge reading list or the added stress, I have an actual academic on hand to talk me down, find the journal articles I need, make me cups of tea, and remind me just what the hell Harvard referencing is.

I have no doubt that the next two years will be challenging. That at times, between the workload and the six hour weekly commutes, I'll feel like giving up. But for now, at least, I'm looking forward to being one of those excited and fresh-faced (ahem) students again. Because how many people can say that their dreams come true?