The usual whinge

I've not posted for a while- what with the holiday 'n all-but the time to speak up or forever let this blog dwell in its necessity has come. Actually, I fell silent before the last semester trailed off and there was still more to come. First, I had to attend an unfair practice hearing for plagiarising 17% of my own story. I was acquitted with a gentle caution and treated with the utmost kindness and civility by the board (Laura, Diane and Miss Ozymandias) but the damage has kind of been done. For one thing, they said it was in the Terrence Conran room and nobody seemed to know where this was. Certainly not reception, who pointed me to a building behind the music school. Completely the wrong direction and I ended up somewhat panicked and asking a bunch of faces I vaguely know if they knew where the disciplinary hearing was, so now they knew. Anyways, finally I found the place and as I sat outside waiting to be called in Alex Weaver and whispered to one of tutors, asking them why I was there. Alex Weaver, the man who congratulated on my 80% mark on Magic Toy Shop. So now he thinks I cheat in my essays. 

I was completely honest in my hearing. I said I wanted to get an edit on old story I was most fond of and I was showing off because I wanted to show Diane that something I'd written prior to her class was good. Thing is, I thought I had already been punished for that plagiarism business. I'd been marked down by Diane for it already and nobody had asked me about it after that. So to suddenly drop it on me at the end of the semester was punishing me twice and though I was spared the most serious charges I was marked down further to 40% for that module.

I must re-iterate, the women were exceptionally nice. It was like having a life review conducted by angels. I was sat at along table with me at one end and Diane at the other smiling kindly at me the whole time. Only Ozymandias played a bit of bad cop but not really. At the hearing they informed me that Zoe is 'busy' and won't be my tutor anymore. The truth is, I managed to piss my tutor off so much she dropped me (I told her the lectures weren't intellectually stimulating). They said Laura was taking over and she was going to give me a lot of help.

Another thing that sucks about last term is Diane absolutely gushed about a piece I wrote for class so I submitted it for my portfolio. She then gave it a low mark saying my re-drafting of it had spoilt it. Thing is, I'd barely changed anything so I saw her in her office about it with my original copy and asked her to point out the differences. She was essentially cornered and had to bullshit her way out of it. She was able to tell me why she thought it needed improvement but not why she'd never told me any of this before. She'd led me to believe I'd done a great piece of work and then marked it down anyway. 

At that same tete a tete Diane suggested I join a local adult writer's group and- no pressure- if I wanted I could attend her book launch. I said I would and I wanted to but I didn't. It was held in a small cafe and I didn't want to be in a confined space with people I didn't know and wasn't comfortable with. I'm not a literary, materialist left wing type. Not that she would have noticed. 

And during the holiday there was also more shenanigans with the writers' group; I think I more or less felled the group's enthusiasm for our play in one fell swoop by simply typing 'For me Act 1 Scene 1 is not there yet. Same goes for aspects of Nathanael's scenes but happy to let those be.' in a group message and maybe hurting some egos in the process. Thing is, every time Nathanael reads a scene his perhaps too kind critical contribution is to say 'Yep, I see no problems' whereas I break scenes down with suggestions on why things don't work and, if necessary, tell them what to write that will make for an effective scene, whilst at the same time saying this is just my opinion, write whatever you want. This has proved very effective with a scene of Nathan's. Briony (writers coordinator) was afraid to criticise it but I told him straight it would be better to start afresh and essentially told him what to write. He went away and did it and everyone was delighted with the results, whilst at the same forgetting I'd fought for the change and shaped the content. The sad truth is, a whole year has passed with very little to show for it and I fear that short of being the writer's co-ordinator myself it's an exercise in time wasting. 

So anyways, I'm back, and I'm in new digs in a huge brick building built in 1950 that has that austere but faintly classical look that buildings of that thrifty postwar era often had before they fully embraced 60s brutalism. It even has a Latin motto above the main entrance. My plan to pay £5 more a week (£103, I think the cheapest is £98) for a bigger room has paid off.I've worked out it's about the size of my so called studio flat from last term, if not bigger. It is certainly considerably larger than the ensuites, which I think are about £118 (my studio was £156). And choosing the one room that's between the shower room on one side and toilet on the other was also a good idea. I have very easy access to both and it means my room is cushioned from noise. Well, some noise. See below.

The downsides. There is there is just one toilet (complete with broken seat, sometimes on the toilet, sometimes not) for the whole corridor, which has ten rooms. This morning it was sprinkled in urine, as was the floor in front. Why there are three clean showers in spacious cubicles with a chair in one room (with four accompanying sinks) and only one dodgy toilet in another, I don't know, but I find it amusing. Fortunately, the toilet doesn't seem to get used as much as one might think. Hopefully it'll end up just being me and the girl(s) and the boys (I think this corridor is mostly boys) will end up using their sinks.

Another drawback is the noise, in spite of my room's position. If you read the blog last term you'll be aware that there was scarcely a day when I didn't hear students coming past my window between midnight and 4.00 AM in a rowdy mood. That noise is now coming from the corridor. Yesterday, a haphazard health and safety meeting was arranged by the wardens (rather than designating a time that all students can be there, they simply knock on your door an grab whoever happens to be in). Besides learning where to to go in the event of a fire drill, and what we can't use in our rooms, we were told that the university have a 'zero tolerance' policy to noise after 11.00 PM. This is such an egregious falsehood that I'm probably going to be angry about it for the next 8 months. The truth is that students invariably roll in drunk of a night (long after 11.00 PM) with no regard whatsoever for anybody that may be trying to sleep and without security anywhere near the corridor, or even in the building, so a zero tolerance policy isn't worth the air its spoken into. Somebody has posted an ad hoc survey on their door asking 'Do you think Brexit is going well so far? Yes or no?' Surely 'Do you think we are good neighbours?' would be more to the point.

Finally, the downside is my food bill is going to be higher. There is a nice enough kitchen in the corridor but I'm not going to be using it.

My modules this term: Renaissance and Reformation, Poetry and Short Fiction and Transformative Fiction.