Part Two – which if I flick back to my dabble I can see is all about my MA, and the culmination of my studies – begins, I suppose, at the end, with the news that I did actually hand in my last piece of work and that, miracle upon miracle, it scraped a pass mark, and I suppose at some point soon someone’s going to tack the words “Master of Arts” onto the end of my name. It really was a miracle: man, by the end of it I’d lost all interest and inclination. There was barely a bone in my being that cared.
My final piece of work was for a module entitled “Research Project”. They call it Research Project because universities these days have to be seen to be doing “research” in order to get their funding and such. There was a lot of that on my course: dressing arty, creative things up as “research” because otherwise the faculty might not get their money and all the stern-browed bods who make the decisions and frown upon things that aren’t science and test tubes would give them the boot. But you call a turd by any other name: it was all just writing. They say research and society and blah blah this and that – but what it really comes down to is this: “write something – anything – whatever you like – and just try and justify it in academic terms and we really don’t give a monkey’s so long as you pay your fees and play the game.”
At least, that’s what I think.
Research Project started in January. It really was just that: write 10,000 words about anything, and another 2,000 analysing your piece in a critical commentary, and take nine months to do it. In the meantime, you see your tutor every two or three months for maybe twenty minutes to discuss “the work in progress” and then off you go to lovingly slave on it – or, as I believe most people did, push it completely and totally to one side and go off and do more interesting things instead.
I had good intentions at one point. I thought I’d do something about the Beatniks and the Bohemians and tie it all into one grand unified theory. Then I was going to go off and break into America and write it all up in Gonzo frenzy, the journalist as mad adventurer, the outcome of the story unknown and unknowable until, probably, it’s time for it to be writ. But in the end that died and shrivelled in the summer of madness and by the time September came I hadn’t an ounce of caring for how it was going to come out. I knew I’d do something but I didn’t know what. Maybe an in-depth investigation into iboga: something good, not only investigative from the inside, but also all about the history of it, the legalities, the curiosity of a medical society and government that shows so little interest an apparently ‘miracle cure’. You know, stuff you could find on the internet. But that passed and faded as well. On the day of deadline I still hadn’t started anything but managed to acquire a four-month extension. And on the day of that deadline the situation remained the same.
I got up early. I went to the computer room. I sat down and I – I surfed the net. Read stuff about stuff that I can’t quite remember. Did my squash and football admin: appointed referees, updated scores. Answered emails. Watched the hours tick by. And then around noon I started to get down to it. I thought, fuck it, who am I doing this thing for anyway? Why sweat my balls off? Who really cares? So what if I even write something amazing – something I’ve dedicated months to – that has my professors ooing and cooing and coming in their shorts? Even then: what of it? And so I –
Well, it’s no secret that I have no regard for university education. My BA was a joke and my MA even more so. I’m so glad I didn’t pay a penny for either of them. And I pity those that do. They stretch it out over all those years but – I swear, the BA I could have done in two or three months, and the MA in less. Four hours of classes a week? Two essays a term? Some of those undergrad essays would take me a total of four hours to research andwrite. I never could start them till the last minute. And I always got good grades. I guess I just lost respect for the whole thing because of how easy it was. And also how low quality the work done by others. I’d spy their essays and I didn’t think them any more well writ than some of the kids I’d taught in high school – and I’m thinking certain Year 9s here. Plus, full of spelling errors and bad grammar – and that just won’t do (you’re allowed in a blog; you’re not required to proofread).
The killer for me was an essay I read a month or two before my deadline, sent to me by a PhD student in response to an advert I’d posted for proofreading and editing. Sure, he was a foreign student, and I take my hat off to him for even attempting a course in our weird, twisted language, but – my God! It was atrocious! I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. I sent it to a couple of friends for a second opinion – I know how critical and unbelievably exacting I am of the writing of others – and they said the same. In fact, one felt I was playing a joke on her. It was a hundred thousand word PhD project – and it made as much sense as the gibberings of a child. It was dreadful. The poor chap was writing about the relationship between Egypt and Rome. It made me want to cry.
And there it was, plain to see: not just his personal tragedy but the tragedy of so many students who are enrolled to not necessarily learn the things that only university could teach them. Sure, chemistry and molecular physics and neuroscience and law – but English, theology, the humanities, history? What could they teach you that you couldn’t just learn in a book from the library, or in a conversation with someone wise? I mean, I did theology for a while and it was certainly a backwards step – and a big backwards step – from what I’d already learned on my own.
But, you know, I’m kind of getting off the point of what that PhD assignment showed me: the point was, this poor foreign kid had come over here, had given his money to take his studies, and had then given his time – immense amounts of time, no doubt – and all he’d got to show for it was a massive pile of nonsensical poop. I swear to you, it was crap. It was –
Well maybe an example would help (you’ll probably get the idea pretty quick):
“1- Rome and Egypt before Augustus
The contact between Rome and Egypt passed through several stages before the appearance of Augustus on the political scene. This contact began as reciprocal contacts between the two countries, then developed to the advice and guidance, and then evolved back to a part to request protection from the other part, up in the end that Egypt became a Provincia Romana.
Rome started its contact with Egypt directly after the death of Alexander the Great. This contact was separate in one hand , and amicable in the other. Augustus stated in his Res Gestae that the "added Egypt to the rule of the Roman People ". This sentence gives us an impression that there was no relations between the two countries at all. But the truth is that there were open doors between Egypt and Rome . These doors first opened after the death of Alexander the Great and the division of his empire. Egypt was for the Ptolemies. The first king of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Ptolemy I Soter (303 - 285 B.C.), was the first of them who established the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt. Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285 - 246 B.C.) , his successor , was the first to open the doors and established a political and diplomatic relations between Egypt and Rome. Ptolemy II Philadelphus helped King Pyrrhus when he intended to invade Italy first in 280B.C. and then in 275B.C.2 But we can say that the real start of relation between Egypt under the Ptolemies and Rome was in 273B.C. as Ptolemy II Philadelphus countries. We can confirm that this friendship was value for both Egypt and Rome at this time. That it was for Egypt as a protection from any dangers in the future , and for Rome, of course, a value in an economic point of view.
Next contact between Rome and Egypt happened in 210B.C. when Hannibal intended with his army to invade Italy and intended to sabotaged all its countryside. Egypt supplied Rome with grain and other resources to help the Romans against this horrible time. Rome , we can say, kept for Egypt that favour and intended to do the same but in other way. In the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes (203 BC-181 BC), who was only five years old at that time, and his young age made a big problem as how come to this child to be the king of the Ptolemaic Kingdom, so many internal conflicts happened in Alexandria. Antiochus III, king of Seleucids in Syria was near from what was going on in Egypt. He took the chance and sent send an official embassy to Rome to confirm friendship between the two...”
Well you tell me whether I’m being unduly harsh – or whether there really is something truly wrong with this picture. This poor guy – hammering away in his non-native tongue – has paid all that money and given all that time, and this is what he has to show for it. How have the professors let him get this far? Why couldn’t somebody have said, look, this isn’t a good idea, it’s not going to come to anything, maybe try and find something more useful instead. On our course there were Chinese girls who could barely utter a word of English. How on Earth are they getting through lectures and writing essays? But all the university wants is their money, cares not a jot for their well-being, and so it is with me, and a thousand million others – why didn’t Sarah Kane’s professors say, my God, girl, you need some help, and fast, instead of, hm, interesting work, you should do something with that? – and that’s why I care not a jot for them.
In the end, I submitted several chapters from Discovering Beautiful. Editing and re-working that took till 6pm. Then I went for a walk and had a snack and then I got stuck into my Critical Commentary. I was kind of dreading this ‘cos that’s where I’d come unstuck on my last piece – the so-called “Individual Project” (write what you want, 5000-words’ worth, plus a critical commentary) – going mad over it for like a week or so, and handing it in four days late, and even though I finally only got started on it by ranting and raving and typing expletives and saying God only knows what, I was beyond caring, they still gave me like 62 for it, which just added to the feeling that it was all bullshit. I wrote it in desperation. I didn’t know what I was saying. I’ve talked to students who said they got higher marks for work they wrote drunk in a few hours than work they wrote over the course of weeks. It really is just a massive joke. I don’t feel bad at all. And –
This time, I thought, I’m really going to go for it. The critical commentary for Individual Project may have begun with expletives and venom – there was definitely a sentence in the first paragraph or so about “sweating my balls off” – but by the time the bee had taken over and I’d gotten to the end, I realised that it was half decent and I could just lop off the mad first bit and hand it in. For Research Project, though, there was no going back. Nothing left in me to conform. My last ever piece of academic work and I’d gone beyond giving a fuck. I was high on joy and freedom. Let them fail me: I don’t care. I began it, in letters 34 pixels high, in non-standard font:
“IT’S TIME WE STOPPED PRETENDING THAT THE WRITER EXISTS IN A BUBBLE; THAT HE IS NOT FLESH AND BLOOD; THAT ALL THOSE NEAT WORDS AREN’T BEING TYPED OUT BY A THINKING FEELING HUMAN BEING MOST LIKELY SWEATING HIS BALLS OFF AND WONDERING CONFUSED AND HATING SOMETHING OR OTHER DESPITE WHAT HIS WORDS MAY SAY. IT’S TIME TO GET BRAVE AND TRY SOMETHING REAL.”
And then continued with some gibberish, off-the-top-of-my-head story – this is supposed to be an analytical academic essay, by the way – about being strapped in a chair and held at gunpoint by CeCe Peniston while being interrogated about my writing style plus some random, for no reason Spanish and French and glorious bizarre footnotes that were actually longer than the critical commentary itself. Plus the word “exclutter”. Plus references to Messiah complexes, Hendrix, Universal Enlightenment, God.
“The man who has seen through the chimera of what Castaneda called “consensus reality” has no option but to nod his head in agreement when contemplating Thomas Aquinas’s realisation of straw. What need to envy the mass-pleasing, piss-poor prose of the Dan Browns and Erika Leonards of this world and the silly little piles of money said literary abominations bring them? And yet, envy them I do.”
I ended it with the word “BANG!” I didn’t give a damn. I was still finishing the last bit of bibliography at one minute to midnight; saved it and converted it to pdf and uploaded it with probably milliseconds to spare. The clock ticked over just as the essay was being accepted. The absolute final, once-and-for-all deadline. I wasn’t sure if I’d made it. And then the digital receipt came into my inbox displaying 23:59 and I was done – until marking day, that is. I couldn’t bring myself to re-read what I’d written. It seemed so crazy and unlikely to pass. But what’s done is done. And like I think I already said, when the marks came in I got 52, when a 50 was required to get through. I haven’t been brave enough yet to read my tutor’s comments. No doubt they’ll be disappointed – but then, who am I living this life for?
University schmoonerversity, that’s what I says...
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