Tuesday

Okay, so Monday was a negative day. An emotional day. An 'act your age' day. On the one hand it's embarrassing to read but on the other I believe it's nothing other than a transcription of my thoughts and feelings, be what they are. I can see I am fallible, but I am documenting that just as much as I am the world around me. So hold tight because, there's still a bit of turbulence.

Alex Weaver emailed me a few minutes before midnight Monday to suggest I come at 12.00 after one of the lectures. I attended a child lit lecture Tuesday morning with Laura and Raisa. Laura managed to get in three references to politics. A brief anti-Brexit statement ('wary about Brexit'), telling us she was 'a working class poet', and something about how good the recent adaptation of The Handmaiden's Tale was. Then I went and saw Alex. 

I don't know what he has a PhD in, but I would suggest it might be warmth. He just exudes human kindness. It would be quite interesting to write a farce with him pushed to his wit's end. A road rage incident, perhaps.

My first seminar was held by a 27 year old (Daniel Hughes) just finishing up his PhD. He was very competent and wholesome but spoke very LOUDLY. Like he was a Shakespearean actor projecting his voice to the back of a very large auditorium and in a very deep register at that, when we were all packed into a room the size of a lounge. 

He gave us a Sylvia Plath poem. It seemed fairly easy to get the measure of. A grim, nihilistic affair- essentially intimating that the darkness vanquishes the light (or even the dark is immortal, the light is finite) very reminiscent of Macbeth's brief candle speech, I thought.

 And it seemed to invoke a fairytale like image in the third stanza to contrast with how Plath sees life. In fairytales people live forever, and perhaps I should have noted that you toast somebody's health, but we all must die. There is no happy ending. 

One of the girls in my group seemed to feel alienated by my cocksureness- because she thought the poem had positive connotations. After the class she went up to Daniel and asked him if the poem could also be interpreted as positive. I didn't stay to hear Daniel's answer. Probably he said that a poem can be interpreted many ways, there's no right or wrong way, etc. And that may be true but at the same time Plath probably knew exactly what she meant and I suspect she was doing a variation on the 'life is pointless and then you die' trope, just as I think Macbeth was.

I also made the point that it seemed to be saying unless you're immortal you don't really exist, you're not invited to the party, as it were, and I would actually agree with Plath if it were the case that there is no afterlife. Life is a sacred gift containing infinite possibilities that we only very briefly taste and taste constricted by the physical world, as if being horribly taunted, as if being shown what we can have, only to have it taken a way. And the idea that it may never be fully realised or taken away with no explanation at any second is a profoundly disturbing thought...    

Next paragraph. Then we did a Shakespeare sonnet. It means love is blind said the girl who disagreed with me about the Plath. Correctly, I think. But it's perhaps a little more complicated than that. It's really saying love isn't blind. We can see a person's faults, even as we look past them. And it's also saying people are full of shit, which I found funny.

For lunch I had one of Morrison's meal deals. It's 3 things for a pound and if you go for the most expensive sandwich, snack, drink combination you're getting a very good deal indeed because it's any sandwich at all including one of the luxury ones, any drink at all and all kinds of different snacks. However, a plague of student locusts had ravaged the counters by the time I arrived and I had to make do with a halloumi cheese wrap, still Sicilian lemonade and a fresh fruit shake. You couldn't dream of getting this sort of food in China- they barely know what a sandwich is- but there is lots of propaganda you can eat telling you that China has the best food in the world. Shut up. (Me, I mean).

I had a creative writing class with Laura in the afternoon. It was a bit of a drag. I used the words 'metaphysics' and 'catalyst' and it pissed off one of the girl students, who shouted 'I don't know even know what metaphysics is, mate' proudly, which might have been vaguely fair comment if I'd been using the words to show off, but they were warranted.

Then towards the end of the class Laura asked half us to draw a villain and half a hero. After we'd drawn our pictures she said they would form the basis of a fairytale we were going to write with a partner. Now the problem THERE was firstly I had drawn a picture of Laura with a cape on and called her 'Lisa's best version of herself'. Laura did not look at all amused. In fact, she looked disturbed. 

Second, I underwent the indignity of being the last person who hadn't paired up with anybody, bar a girl who looked distressed to be paired up with me. I went over to her and asked what she had drawn. "I don't even know what it is," she said. 
"You can call her low-self esteem woman," I replied.

At the end I asked Lisa about the novel dissertation we do in year three. I wanted to know the upper limit for words. I was hoping it would be somewhere in the ballpark of a novel length, up to 100,000 words perhaps. She said 8,000. That's right. 8000 flimsy words. I queried that because that's about the length I would expect a mouse to write, not a human being. Well you don't submit a whole novel, she said.

The glass is definitely half empty

I feel so unloved at the moment. If I were a five year old I would be that boy crying in the corner of the playground. So as you may know, on Wednesday I made up my mind to change my course. On Thursday morning I went to my tutor's office and there was a sign on her door saying her hours were 2-3 pm, so I returned in the afternoon. She wasn't there so I emailed her and she said she was tied up and to come back Friday afternoon. That was cutting it fine because it left me with no time to arrange my new course and when it came down to it all I really needed was her signature. When I saw her was okay with me leaving but unsure of who I needed to speak to in the English department. We found the school administrator, who said I need to speak to Alex Weaver, the Senior Lecturer and Head of the School (I know their titles because I looked them up). Come back 9.30 am, Monday, she said.

Why am I not doing Chinese? A sudden realisation that I'm no linguist, that I need good hearing, that it would be no bad thing ending my association with China. I was getting wound up just counting the number of times the two Chinese tutors mentioned 'Confucius Insitute', A Chinese government Trojan Horse/propaganda agency that entices universities with hard cash. It was almost as if they'd been sent a missive from some department back home explicitly instructing them to keep repeating the name.


On Saturday I went to a squash taster. I proved fairly proficient for a beginner but skipped the pub crawl afterwards. Not that anybody asked.:-(

Sunday I was mostly selecting women on the 'meet me' feature on Plenty of Fish. I must have said yes to hundreds. Three have said yes to me. That's how it goes. There is one pretty 33 year old with a 3 year old I'm talking to but conversation with her is hard work. I was also talking to a 40 year old who was a mature student at Bangor 7 years ago but that conversation seems to be petering out, as well.

Today I returned to the English department but Alex Weaver wasn't in his office. There was a picture of a Penguin book he's had published, though. Something about Welsh literature, I think. Someone helpful called Helen saw me loitering with intent. I'd met her in the mature students welcome last week. I remember her saying that the uni absolutely loves mature students. Perhaps the truth is she loves mature students. She was very friendly and connected me with Dr Laura Dryer. I explained my predicament to Laura and we hastily figured out that besides my compulsory modules I will study Children's Fiction this semester.

Laura was very kind to me and smiled a lot. It must be said, although some people are hard to get hold of lots of others are just waiting to pounce on you if they see you looking lost or help if you ask them a question, and that is just as well because that is clearly what keeps Bangor functioning. Laura also told me to send an urgent email to Alex Weaver, which I duly did and he hasn't yet answered. And we had a brief conversation about China, which made me feel an instant disconnection. 'You were in China? Isn't it an amazing country?' etc. I also got the feeling from talking to her that she assumes I've done no writing. I could have killed two birds with one stone and told her I've written a series of stories about losers in China but I didn't get the chance. However, I've done my homework and I know she's won a BBC prize and written a novel which is not the kind of thing I would consider reading, unfortunately. Even the sub-title annoys me (If you're not angry you're not listening). But I would like to read at least one of her short stories. 

Then I went and got a haircut. The barber said that when he was young he used to beat Bangor students up but now he's a businessman and values the custom they bring. He also said many of the Chinese students studying business and finance speak next to no English. They come in and when he asks them what they want they point at his clippers. He says he's heard that they swipe in at lectures, sit at the back and gamble on Bet 365 on their laptops, then swipe out again and get the recording of the lecture translated into Chinese. Why does the uni take students who barely speak English, he asked. I said money talks, or words to that effect.

I'm not officially on the English Lit and Creative Writing course yet but Lisa had given me the details of the Children's lit lecture at 2.00 and I went to it. I'm not sure if you're supposed to swipe a card to show you've attended. Even if you are the system still thinks I'm a Chinese and Creative studies student and presumably one playing truant.

40 minutes of the child lit lecture was given by a Romanian professor (I assume) and the last ten minutes by Laura Dryer.I found the content interesting and the talk was really efficient and well organised but two things perturbed me. First, at the end of the term we have to do an exam saying how much the children's stories we've been reading have influenced our own work. But what if they haven't? It is possible to read books that leave no impression on one's style, especially at my age. Obviously if I don't play the game I'll be punished and this is the fundamental problem with academia. It isn't long before it asks you to lie.

Second, at the end of the lecture Laura put on a very loud YouTube video (I thought it rude to press my fingers on my ears but I figured that was preferable to risking damaging my hearing even further). It was Michael Rosen telling a story called No breathing in class and fine, I've no problem with that. Personally I didn't find it amusing or interesting and it was achingly obvious where it was going but it's part of the course and that's fine. What I didn't like was Laura periodically looking at us at bits she found funny, as if WE SHOULD FIND THEM FUNNY TOO. "Rosen makes it looks so easy, but it's actually very hard," she said. And I couldn't disagree more.

And no, I DID NOT BELIEVE IN FAIRIES AND THE MONSTER IN THE ATTIC when I was a child.

After the lecture I tried the squash again but my heart wasn't in it. It's not so much the squash as the feeling of no connection with the people there. No connection with anybody really. Not the women on POF who have all been married and had children. Not the 18 year olds that filled my children's lit class. Not the really friendly socialist lecturer who thinks that China is amazing and Michael Rosen very funny. It would be nice if I wasn't so bloody picky, wouldn't it?

Welcome week wobble

So, mid-way through the welcome week and the uni looks great but I still have my ear problem and that is casting a shadow over the horizon. It's as I thought. Unis are noisy places, where students like to socialise excitedly in loud groups and go to boisterous pubs. Recently I acquired a condition that is marginalising me because I can't hear people well in noisy rooms and my ear rings when I hear loud music. And I don't even have a GP yet, a referral is months away. Crazy situation.

Part of the welcome week is a two day event called Serendipity, where students set out their stalls for all the different clubs. And there are so many of them. It seems there is everything from medieval battle renactment societies, to acrobatic girls that stand on top of eachother. Some of it is in tents, some outside on the grass, some in the main hall we had out first meeting in where speakers on the stage were blasting out music way louder than is healthy.

Don't get me wrong, it looks tremendously exciting, but I feel like one of those people at a banquet who can't eat food because he's just been to the dentist. I can't help but feel depressed that I've waited years to have a social life and as soon as I go to uni- which seems like it's all about having a social life on steroids- I acquire a very specific health problem that makes socialising difficult. Then add in the fact that I am 41 and I do feel odd surrounded by young people, but also odd when I meet the occasional mature student; because I have nothing in common with them, either. They tend to be parents, I am not, they tend to live off campus, I live on it.

And then add the fact that I am thinking of changing my four year Chinese-Creative Studies course to a three year one that drops the Chinese and the year abroad because I don't really think I'm cut out to be a linguist. Shame not to capitalise on seven years of experience in China, but perhaps also wise to accept it's best to be done with it. My current thinking is I'll go for an English Lit-Creative Writing joint honours, if they'll even let me.

So right now, I'm in a dark place. I'll let you know if I find the light switch. 

   

Excess baggage

I've sold a chest of drawers, an Imperial typewriter and a brass bed. I'm currently waiting for the Heart Foundation to pick up a bunch of other stuff and I hope they're not too picky. I'm offering 2 hard wood dining chairs, a repro antique desk, a red arm chair, a sofa, a fridge, a flat screen TV, a  VCR, a DVD player and a nice standard lamp. Probably they'll take the nice things and leave me lumbered with the heavy furniture. My neighbour is blowing hot and cold about the washing machine I've offered him for nothing.

Besides all the above, there is a room full of other clutter that needs sorting. Alot of it detritus that goes way back into my childhood. I think this is a chance for me to make a break from the past and not do my usual thing of heaving stuff from address to address that is no use to me.

Moving on

I know, I know. I said no more Emma but I can't help my dreams.

I had a bizarre one this morning. I was upstairs in my old childhood house near Salisbury. I suddenly became aware Emma was staying with me and wanted to be with her/realised I should be. I went downstairs to the lounge where she was sat on a sofa that had its back to the patio door, which it never did when I was there. She was upset and said she felt like a loser and I had a fleeting thought that might mean things had gone wrong with her current partner. But my overwhelming desire was to be alone with her to express my feelings and that couldn't be done in the house. My mum was hovering somewhere out of eye shot, my sister came and said something friendly to Em and then disappeared towards the patio door and I was aware that James Oxford was in the dining area. Besides, I remember thinking that in her current state Emma did not look at her best appearance wise and I didn't want my friend to judge her. (I don't know what you see in her sort of thing).I said I couldn't talk to her there, could we go for a walk? For some reason, in that brief exchange she became topless, only the breasts were not her real ones. They were a larger, pointier pair. No idea what that was about. Anyway, we left the house and I looked back through to the dining room, seeing James on his laptop. I knew he was in China but I also knew he was there and I knew there was no contradiction. At that point the dream started to break up as I surfaced too near waking consciousness. I kind of knew it was a dream, anyway. I am practically always intermittently and semi-lucid in my dreams. I know they are a conceptual tool and I often say to myself, "It's only a dream, anyway" or seem to have this meta awareness or underlying DVD commentary thing going on sometimes. The waking mind observing the dream mind. And my dreams have a very hazy and jump-cutty quality that could never be mistaken for real life. Not like Emma's dreams, which are hyper real. Anyway, extremely unusually the dream re-assembled again for a few more frames. We were now in the car. I was on the back seat, Emma seemed to be in the driver's seat and her partner sat infront of me. Emma said, "Say the words Emma and I have broken up." So I said, "Emma and I have broken up." Then her partner started asking me about Bangor. What course I was doing and so on, as if he didn't really believe I was going to university. After that I woke up.

Two or three weeks ago I reached the age Emma was when I met her. I dated her in reality for 3 months, I've been dating her in a strange fantasy world for 18 more. I've no doubt it is because I've had no life since Emma and I broke up. I've been stuck in a time capsule waiting for the next chapter.

Reasons to act like an 18 year old

The prospect of hanging round with 18 year olds is not a particularly enticing one, I thought they were immature when I was 18 myself, what am I going to think now? Here is a quick rundown on why it may not be so bad.

Reason 1. Like the average 18 year old, I've never had a proper relationship. I guess technically I lived with my first girlfriend for a short time but I was one of two lodgers and had my own room. Besides, she was 18 years older than me and it wasn't a relationship relationship. After that, I just had flings here and there and extremely long, dry spells. I mean, if you just picked a night of my life at random- post-puberty- you'd almost certainly find me in bed alone having a wank.

I promise I am not going to keep mentioning Emma. Not the old one, anyway. (The new one is my Fiat Punto SX). But to illustrate my point she is the closest I've come to a serious relationship and that lasted all of 3 months. Even then, we never actually got to spend the night together. She couldn't stay the night at mine because she had children. Sex at her place would be in the lounge after the kids were in bed. But her two youngest shared a room with her, so I'd catch a train home. That's how sad my life is. Not 'I just stepped on a landmine' sad. Just, 'I feel sorry for myself anyway' sad.

Incidentally, I won't be chasing 18 year olds as potential lovers. Quite apart from the fact that I'm sure they won't be interested in me, I am not interested in them. I think my lower limit in terms of a periodic tumble in the hay is about 27 and my realistic lower limit for a relationship is about 37 and my probable age in terms of who will be interested in me is about 48. I'm actually not kidding.

Reason 2. It's my destiny. These past 20 years I've had a recurring dream about going back to Lord Wandsworth College to be a sixth former. I never understood the dream and it felt weirder as I got older. But now it makes sense. 

Reason 3. 

I've been growing younger. When I was 18 I was actually middle-aged. I listened to Radio 3 and had a walking stick. I wore a tweed jacket I bought in a charity shop and tried to learn Latin. I now listen to Europe's best alternative music radio station, I'm a lot less uptight and I have all sorts of chops I wish I'd had at 18. And I think Latin is an absolute waste of time.

Baby baby

These past five years there’s been a bit of a baby rush. My old Prague friend Will started it off by putting an order in around 2012 and then another in 2014, or thereabouts, and my old actor friend from London days, Oliver, had one a year or two ago as well. Then in June my friend in China, James Oxford, had one and now another blast from my China past has just announced an order for his. What is more, I’ve noticed that our mutual friend DGS had just quit China after 10 years and I don’t doubt that is so he can go to America to reproduce. These last two friends are 35 and 36 years old respectively. I can’t help noticing that I am single, nearly 42 and about to spend 4 years in an environment not conducive to having a baby. At which point, you might ask, do I want one? Well, all of the above-mentioned are in stable relationships- to the best of my knowledge. I am not and I wouldn’t entertain filling out the order form unless I was. So if I ever am a pater it will probably be an old one. One of my favourite Facebook fathers is such a person. I don’t know him well but I know him through his love for his twin daughters, who seem to have had a wonderful childhood so far. He doesn’t waste his time posting soap box rubbish on his page, it’s all about his twins but not from an ego- ‘Look at me, I am the Dad of these twins,’ point of view- it’s all about them. And that is inspiring.