Oh yes, that reminds me: I must share with you the thing I wrote to try and get back those penalty marks for being late on Individual Project. Now there was a piece of writing I enjoyed in the creating. Not sure yet if it’s achieved its task – though apparently don’t need it to get those precious letters – but I’d be really disappointed if not. After all, who couldn’t be moved by this?
“I had to complete my Individual Project piece and for the weeks leading up to the deadline I spent all day every day on the computer trying to force something to come out but nothing would come. It was really frustrating and annoying and not something I’d experienced before: all through my BA I’d been very much a “last minute” kind of student but had NEVER missed a deadline or struggled for words. But I felt bonkers. Part of the problem could have been that, during the study of this project, I’d been working on the idea that ALL writing was kind of pointless – mostly just distraction – the product of degenerates – and maybe that leaked into my brain – like when I was a kid and I apparently used to sing like an angel but then decided it would be funny to sing really out of tune and could then never sing again (except horrendously) (and same with swimming). Like how they say your face will stick if the wind changes. Also, I was writing one day and I suddenly realised that I was wasn’t really writing anything, I was merely taking dictation. Like I was listening to my thoughts and then typing them down. I thought, who’s giving me these words? Where are they coming from? I think – used to think – I was making them up myself but now I realise that it’s someone else. I tried really hard to find out where they were coming from and I got this vision of a little bee-like creature in my head, pulling levers, directing everything I did. That sort of sent me into crisis I suppose – I thought I was a man and then I SAW I was actually just a puppet of a tiny little bee sending me this way and that, making me type things for reasons I didn’t understand. For why? What for? So that kind of stopped me too: who wants to be constantly taking mad dictation from a bee? Especially when I realised that he too had a bee in HIS head – and so on, and so on. An infinite string of bees. And me at the end of it. Even now I’m not sure who’s pulling the strings, where these words are coming from…
In any case, those are some of the reasons that made it hard. Other reasons are more difficult to put my finger on: all I know is what they looked like, which is me sitting constantly at the computer internally screaming and crying and trying to type sentences and maybe after several hours eventually getting a paragraph and then grinding to a halt and hating it and deleting it and second guessing everything and wondering why, knowing that all I had to do was hit the word count to get my pass but still sitting there week after week watching as the deadline loomed larger and larger – and then watching and crying as it went whistling past and still nothing would come. Dozens of failed beginnings. Hundreds and maybe thousands of words typed and then deleted. Finally I just said “to hell with it all” and started writing crazy and angry and mad and began by saying “It’s about time I wrote something honest” and wildly hammered out several paragraphs of expletives and frustration and talked about the things above and that I was sweating my balls off and many unacademic things besides just not caring any more I was so exhausted and beyond it all – it sounded a bit like a friend of mine’s nervous breakdown – and I just didn’t give a shit what the result was because I had to be free.
Anyways, whaddya know? The expletives and madness eventually turned into something that was half-passable and once I’d deleted the first crazy paragraphs it just about hit the word count exactly and I figured, what the hell, that’ll do. Even more crazily, it made a 62 – which just gets me shaking my head and was part of the whole problem to begin with…
So the bit that I’m appealing/hoping for some compassion and leniency for is the late penalty marks. This piece of work was in two parts and it weighted 60/40 and, before penalties, I got 71 and 62 respectively. That adds up to 67, I think, which would have been nice. But because of my difficulties I handed in the first part a day late and the third part three days late, which meant deductions of 5 and 20 points (I do believe it should have been 15, but apparently one minute to midnight and one minute after is when the change takes places) and which took my mark down to 56. That would have been okay too and I wouldn’t have minded but there were some things I didn’t realise: one, that a pass mark at MA has to be 50 and above; and two, that both portions of the assignment had to be passed. This was part of the reason for my not seeking help and/or an extension from my tutor: first, I kept thinking I would get it done – it was always right there on the tip of my fingers, I couldn’t believe it was being so elusive – and second, once I’d lost all will and caring and just didn’t bother what happened I figured well at the very least I’ll hit 40 even with penalties and stuff and even though that’s embarrassing and poor at least it’ll get me passed. I was right in my figuring of hitting 40 – but I was wrong in thinking – I was thinking BA marks – that 40 would be enough. Also didn’t realise that both parts needed to be 50. Which is why I didn’t go see anyone beforehand cos I just didn’t realise that it was 50 I was aiming at all along. But I guess ignorance is no defence.
Anyways, it’s the penalty I’m hoping for some understanding of, nothing else. I suppose I just want to pass and I’m sad that I did end up after all that with decent grades but stupidly nothing to show for it just cos I lost the plot for a few weeks.
Also, the other thing that happened right there in the midst of that was that I split up with my girlfriend and also left the flat we shared with no plan of where to go or what to do thinking I’d be okay because I was always okay in my youth but not realising/having not yet learned that I’d changed since those days and couldn’t just get along with no fixed abode and not have it affect my well-being. Like, when we broke up and I left the flat I just thought, what the hell, I’ll be fine cos I’ve got my tent and sleeping bag and also there’s a room at uni I know about with couches in where nobody ever goes late at night so I’ll just sleep there. Back in my twenties I slept in places much worse than that and generally slept pretty darn good too – but time passes and things change: I couldn’t barely sleep a wink on the university couches, all haunted by visions of security guards and getting into bother – and then when I went in my tent it wasn’t much better, one rainy night on a golf course kept awake pretty much the whole of it by the pitter patter on the plastic and worrying about getting soaked – ten pound tent from Argos – which in the morning I found out had happened and I had a ruined phone that I had to throw away and after a few days of that everything stunk. Plus I got a crazy fever and, honestly, the most comfortable place I ended up was my friend’s shed shivering under binbags full of soon to be charity-shopped clothes where I slept real good while waiting for them to come home and put me out of my misery. It was a grim bloody time. I’m too old for that stuff. I didn’t know it but – by God! – I do now. I really appreciate the benefits of being settled these days.
All of this I guess would have stood me in good stead to have related before and/or at the time but I guess the thing about trying to tell people your head’s gone is that your head’s too gone to tell them. I did tell Adam about the bee in my head but I’m not sure what he made of it. I didn’t see a doctor cos I guess I always figure I’ll find my own way out – but I did talk to an occupational therapist friend (NHS employed) on a casual basis and they said I seemed a bit disasocciative and when I looked it up I figured they were probably right. Certainly, the world seemed pretty unreal. And the people in it – I couldn’t tell the difference between a wardrobe and a human being and I still can’t: it’s just a different arrangement of molecules that one day weren’t there and one day won’t be either. A wardrobe could collapse at any minute: and humans are always dying in really weird ways – you put so much time and effort into them and see them smile and age but then, who knows? They could live to a hundred and ten or they could fall in front of a train or get squashed by a lorry riding their bike – or swept away in floods or buried under landslides, even if they’re really kind and good. It don’t make much sense: just molecules really. And what she said made me look into counselling and I’ve been having some real nice sessions with a lady at the SCC on Clarendon Place and I think that’s helped me move on. But as far as *evidence* goes, I don’t know if that counts, cos that was after the fact too and mostly what we’ve talked about so far is other stuff.
Well, sheesh, I think that’s the whole story. It’s made me well sad and I know I should have done something beforehand/more at the time but I guess I didn’t know I had to. I don’t know what counts as mitigating circumstances but I’ve laid it all out there and now I guess someone’ll hear my case. I shall leave it with your good selves.
Many thanks,
Rory”
Well, university professors apparently: not one single message of concern or, my God, is this poor child all right? And then people wonder at bullied youtube teenagers who tell the world they’re going to commit suicide and, lo and behold, actually do it. Not that there’s any danger of that with me: I’m as happy as a bee in a nut. And, believe you and me, that’s a pretty happy bee. :-)
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