Heart of Darkness

The first semester is almost over and the method in my madness is slowly closing in on Bangor University, like a python on a hamster or Columbo on his next unwitting murder suspect. Or maybe like an old man with tinnitus closing in on the job centre? I’m not sure. There are just five more semesters to go after this one. After that I can’t imagine what I’ll do with my life. I quite like the idea of being a millionaire, I wonder if there are any vacancies...

On Monday I went to Raisa and Laura’s child lit lecture and played Words with Friends on my phone (if you play as well, hit me up), occasionally looking up and tuning into what they were saying and then tuning out again. Raisa singled out a passage in Philip Pullover's Northern Lights where he said we should make the most of the now and that thinking about the afterlife can distract us from that. It's a good point. A life could certainly be wasted focusing on the hereafter to the detriment of what we certainly know we have and should make the most of; that is a material existence. She described his insight as "genius", but isn't it a common humanist trope (perhaps in sympathy with her outlook)? Even believers in the afterlife (or sometimes just mindfulness) have a similar one, 'Be Here Now'. The fact is, common new age belief is that if you don't get the now right you are sent back to Earth until you do, so focusing on the now is very important. And is the average liberal atheist really attending to the here and now, anyways? Or are they worrying about Palestine and Israel? (You could waste a life trying to solve the Middle East conflict). 

I wonder if Philip has considered that if there is an afterlife, perhaps it's so well hidden to him so as not distract him from his tasks on Earth? At least perhaps, unless he thinks it's impossible for a super intelligent force to theoretically build a virtual reality in which the dramatis personae are unable to verify or even think of the super reality that underpins it. (It's catch 22 for him if he is designed to be an atheist). After all, there is a certain utility to believing that this life is your last. For one, it tests how well you behave, despite thinking that nobody is keeping score. 

Fun fact, I often think of that Michael Hutchence lyric, All you got is this moment when my mind starts to monkey around. 

The take-out from Laura was that one should be “endlessly curious” but then she always retreats to her comfort zone at the end of lectures, which is close conference with Raisa and I to mine, which is the exit.

I skipped Alex’s Heart of Darkness lecture (I know what I want to say about books I read, er, I think) on Tuesday morning and the 11.00 lecture was cancelled because the children’s author Philip Pullover delivered a lecture on Friday morning, followed by a book signing. At lunchtime I drove over to Morrison’s, parked in their 2 hour car park and then nipped over to the English school, where student reps were in a small room inviting feedback on the courses in return for a mince pie. There was a student there I see in poetry (he looks likes a Viking and, curiously, is interested in Norse mythology) who had a deck of Tarot cards. I picked one. It was the chariot.

“Glory and success are coming your way,” he said. Then the gentle and actually rather learned giant put his big Marshall headphones back on and engrossed himself happily in some pursuit at a small table he had to himself. I don’t think it was anything to do with the feedback.

I gave some verbally, but I became irrationally uncomfortable with the presence of one of the lecturers. She was hovering in the room having an entirely acceptable and blameless but to my mind inane and vapid conversation in a beautiful-creepy thick Irish accent with the students whilst I was trying to organise my thoughts on a question sheet.

Just imagine the following sentence multiplied by five:

“The North-West feels very far away, but the North-East doesn’t...”

I knew it was me and not her but I had to get out the room fast.

She called after me, “You can keep the pen.”

“No thanks,” I said. I didn’t even get a mince pie.

I enjoyed the afternoon lesson with Laura. We read each other’s homework assignments and commented on them and Laura rightly pointed out that I read out Aurelie’s story very well.

“I can’t decide if it sounded so good because of the way James read it or the way it was written. Probably both,” Laura said, diplomatically. Or maybe not. I’m simply putting the suggestion out there into the ether, where it will somehow always exist.

Later, I had my writer’s meeting. The cruise ship murder mystery so far is mostly me, partly because with the exception of Nicholas and me, personnel keep changing and Nicholas is mostly collating ideas rather than creating. Or maybe mine just keep winning? Anyway, no other writer has attended more than once, whereas I have been to all five meetings. It seems like collaboration means, I write it and everyone will turn up when they feel like it but mostly later and take the credit, but we’ll see.

In Matthew Durham’s Wednesday morning seminar we talked about Heart of Darkness, not that anybody had finished it. In these classes I would guess there are around fifteen students and it tends to be me and two others who do most of the talking. It counts for nothing. You don’t get marks for being the classroom smarty pants. Matthew is happiest when someone says something he agrees with. But then, aren’t we all?

In Diane’s seminar I said Hemingway’s story about an abortion (we had to read for homework, discussed in class) was better if you gave it all your attention, rather than the 30% I’d given it.

“Sounds like a reading problem, rather than a textual one,” Diane said, slap-downish , no right of reply (which is fair enough, the seminars go at a fair clip). So I’ll reply here. No, not necessarily, because the writer generally has a duty to make his story engaging enough to persuade the reader to pay attention. And let me tell you: Hemingway’s story is not particularly interested in wooing its reader as I try to with my pithy blog beginnings, if not the boring bits that come afterwards.

I saw Diane in the corridor after her seminar. I’ve shown her four of my stories and she said that I keep mentioning breasts and I write in my own voice and for that reason she’ll mark me down. I asked for a ball park mark on my story Tears in Hailar, which came third in an international competition with 800 entrants. She said a B minus.

Later, I did a search on my laptop and discovered that out of the fifty or so stories I’ve written only four mention breasts, and it was coincidence Diane read three of them. Second, I’ve written many stories in a voice other than my own but she hadn’t seen them. But I take her point. Sort of.

So after Diane’s class I had a date to be getting to. I went home, freshened up, drove to a cemetery in Carnaerfon, parking in front of some dodgy council flats. My date had arrived first, so she’d got the coffees and was waiting outside the church in her van. I noticed that her business was called, ‘Nature retreats’, and I said, “So it’s about getting back to nature?” She was very impressed that I realised it was about that and not spas.

“You’re the first person that’s said that,” she said. “And my ovaries are absolutely fine with that.”

But what else would it be about? She manages holiday cottages.

It was raining and the cemetery was heavily overgrown, so after a muddy mis-adventure we sat in her Citroen Berlingo, which badly needed a hoover but was warm and spacious. Radio 1 was on silent.

After an hour I had to excuse myself and take a piss in the cemetery. I came back sooner than she expected and she was having a cigarette. A nice woman with large teeth, like mine, looking like they belong to a person ten years older. Has taught in Liaoning province, China, like me. Has never stayed in one place for very long, like me. Has never been in a proper relationship, like me. Her best job was possibly selling tyres. She was very good at it. The job I probably made the least mess of was probably also when I was a salesman, which I too was very good at. She never said it but I know she’s been through a lot of heartache and sadness, buffeted by life's storms and scarred by self-harming. I was looking in a mirror. Her entire existence and that of all her forefathers had brought her to this point in time, as had mine. Here we were, two middle-aged rejects left on the shelf meeting the opposite version of our gender about to not make a mistake. Because although she was up for round two I don’t want to be somebody’s panic buy, I don’t want to mess her around and I’m in no hurry. 

I lied about the ovaries.

Poetry class on Thursday. Nothing much to say. You know what Carol’s lessons are like. Nice, pleasant, gossamer.

I had my first intimation that I do exist as a person in people’s minds in the Thursday afternoon lecture and that they may even talk about me. Andy asked me “You were a teacher, weren’t you?” He must have been told that by Laura.

Then I went to a meeting with four girls in my child lit seminar I’m working with on a story about gang girls pimping themselves out to boy gangs. (One of two topical stories given to us by Laura). They were unsure what to do, so I suggested a concept (a Newsnight parody) and then went and wrote it up in the evening. We were supposed to be collaborate on it via Google docs but only Ruth added some small bits here and there. The 'me' show again, but I wasn’t trying to trample on anyone’s human rights, just trying to get the thing done.

On Friday I’m really humbled and impressed by the fact that my essay has been marked and returned with comments. I got my students to do loads of essays in China, and very seldom marked any of them. They just piled up in my room gathering neglect, along with lots of other half-baked ideas. I’m not sure what the marks equate to, somewhere in the B spectrum, I think. The Keats one was described as highly intelligent, but poorly structured, which is essentially a perfect description of my mind. The child lit essay, which scored higher than the Keats one, was “assertive” with “sweeping statements”, which again describes me. That’s the one I had to knock out quickly and submit half-finished, though.

Friday morning was the famous author, Philip “I’m not going to teach you anything, and if I do, you have permission to reject it,” Pullover. His talk then took on a very teacherly air, which was by no means unwelcome. I would embrace his sage advice to try and emulate a paragraph of Jane Austen, save for the fact that I've already tried it. I certainly won’t reject his exhortation to read The Just So stories of Kipling, which I never did, but one of which I was exposed to in Laura’s seminar and enjoyed. I've also made a note of his admiration for Conrad's Victory. However, his remark that, “Of course, no one ever sees ghosts,” is in the reject pile, along with, “There is no other intelligent life in this galaxy,” (Brian Cox, darling of the masses and serial cuckholder in many women’s fantasies) and people who see ghosts need to “see a good psychiatrist”, (Richard Dawkins, scientist, so they say).

In the Q&A I bit my tongue whilst the students asked some pretty decent questions. Someone asked him about the mystical poet Blake, who he loves. Referring to Blake's 'four senses' Philip said, "The first is Newton’s sense, that of love being created by the neurons and electrical impulses in the brain. The second is imagination which blah blah blah, the third is poetry, which blah blah blah and the fourth -I'm not sure-, esctasy or mystery or something,” with a wave of his hand, as if the 4^th was the a curious piece of decoration. And that essentially is what materialists do. They wave away the 4th dimension and the mystery of existence- and make it go away.

  
For me, the talk was airwave filler one could happily listen to doing the washing up and turn off at any time without feeling that parting was such sweet sorrow. As I had no washing up to do, I was feeling kind of fidgety. Laura said she could listen to Philip talk all day and I can see that being the case. Philip's trusty walking schtick, in the minds of the left wing self-congratulatory Liberal elite is the ideal thinking person's companion to swipe those age-old chestnuts with. Those materialists who have never done any serious research into Near Death Experiences, ghosts, UFOS and those other marginalised exotica that can't even find a dark and unloved corner of Radio faux-intelligent to make their case in. And I bet she has ‘Philip Pullover essence’ in a squeezy bottle which she rubs on herself in the shower to ward away inconvenient truths. This is turning a bit ranty...time to say ta ra?

No wait. Saturday. Had a blast with the girls filming our “News Light” video. My Fiat Punto was christened, I mean this is the first time I’ve given anybody a ride in it, and there were five of us. Instead of turning left out of my halls car park we turned right and within half a minute you’re in country lanes and open countryside with snow capped mountains surrounding. As part of the film I played a gang member picking one of the girls up in the car and I put my foot down to pull away as fast as I could. I’ve never tested my car before in this way and I was impressed by how nippy it acutally is. It’s not really very fast. It does 0-60 in about 19 seconds, but it sounds really goooood. Grace is going to edit it in Premier Pro and, who knows, you may get to see it? 

You've hopefully read all this post. If so, thanks for giving it a fair shake. My heart gets more than a little dark sometimes, but I don't mean any harm.

Unpublishable

 ** PLEASE NOTE. THIS WEEK I HAVE CHANGED NAMES TO PSEUDONYMNS. YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT WHO IS WHO IF YOU HAVE BEEN READING **

It’s been a mild case of three buses coming at once of late, I wonder if it’s something to do with people fearing lomesoneness at Christmas. You may recall I use the dating app ‘Plenty of Fish’? It’s been time consuming without being fruitful but I’ve had some minor success, of late. Last week I met a discus thrower and though she’s nice I don’t think she's a good fit and I've gently said as much to her. She said lots of couples have nothing in common and not to over-think things. Two, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to a carer who appreciates bad jokes. Given time it might have turned into a date, a nice relationship and then a break up due to differences which were always obvious, but not necessarily because her favourite song is The Tower, by Chris de Burgh but then third... A biker approached me this week and moved with bikeresque swiftness and guile. She kept disappearing for long stretches, a numbers game I expect, but within about three days she asked if I wanted to meet for a coffee. As she’s only about twenty minutes drive away I said yes, but at this stage if she cancelled I wouldn’t mind.

We’re meeting outside a cemetery (my idea) and I’ve got to bring two coffees from a nearby McDonald’s drive-thru (her idea). She’s selected ‘Prefer not to say’ under the ‘Do you want children’ question in her profile, which I would think means ‘I don’t want to scare anyone off’ and given that we’ve hardly said much to each other the whole thing feels a bit biological clocky. I’d be very surprised if she turned out to be my soulmate.

Still, my date’s profile pics are weirdly appropriate. Women normally put pictures up that show how sorted and wonderful their live is. Them with ten friends, them with white teeth and healthy gums, them in their well appointed kitchen. Of course, the obligatory picture of their lovely children, so you know what you’re signing up for.

Her pictures are drab and sad. The main one is an underexposed one of her in front of her computer with what looks like a year's supply of rubber gloves behind her*, the second just her motorbike, number three a picture of her drinking a cocktail with nobody else in the shot. Another is her at what appears to be a rugby game from the POV of someone who appears not to be with her, i.e a few seats along. And then another picture of her drinking. Compare those with a selfie in my bathroom, then a picture of me in front of my car, me putting my arm around a random large middle-aged woman I met in a bathhouse, a selfie in another bathroom, me in a hotel room, another selfie in a bathroom, a selfie in my lounge. Both our pictures say: this person has no life and no friends.

* Or maybe boxes of printer paper. She wiles away the evenings making origami sculptures out of second hand books.
 

And now on to this week’s round up.

Monday

Raisa’s child lit lecture. Her dress was noveau medieval romance, her boots helpful pixie.

“Have you noticed the absence of the feminine in The Hobbit?” she asked. No, Raisa, because I haven’t read it, but I'll keep a look out for it if I ever do.

Tuesday

I skipped The Magic Toyshop lecture at 9.00 AM, mainly because it’s ungodly hour but also because I’m genuinely finding the lectures to be pleasant and well structured but not that thought provoking. There’s nothing in them you can’t find in a book or your own head, if you are of an enquiring mind, and that was maybe proven today.

Alex gave a lecture on Harry Potter and the Philisopher’s Stone at 11.00 and that was an interesting prospect for me because I’d written about this book for my mid-term review. It seems I’d picked up on  the core points Alex made (that I could make in the very small word count allotted to me) and I think I spotted one or two possibly deeper and more ironic ones but I won't bore you with them here. 

In my view, Alex said something a bit daft about Hogwarts, Harry Potter's school. He was making a point about how Harry Potter the novel “re-packages Britain’s past” and that Hogwarts is “19^th century”. “They have to wear silly scarves and call the teachers ‘master’. Nobody goes to school like that anymore,” Alex said. Surely he's not unfamiliar with the concept of the contemporary public boarding school, which Hogwarts is so very obviously akin to? Places like Eton, Charterhouse and even my alma mater Lord Wandsworth College, where we called the teachers ‘master’, had four boarding houses- as there are in Hogwarts- and had fancy uniforms. Plus, Hogwarts is mixed, which would not apply to a 19th century boarding school. I can only assume Alex said that because he really means places like that shouldn’t exist and that Bangor University should really be called Bangor University for Marxists.

Sorry, I’m ranting. Do you know, when he said “nobody goes to school like that anymore” it annoyed me so much that I called out (I was front row), “It’s a public boarding school.”

Raisa looked across at me and smiled.

Wednesday

Let’s get onto Wednesday, which is Matthew and Diane. Matthew's was fine. A bit of lesson filler conversation which I can't remember and Diane's was a nice class, as well, but again if I’m honest I enjoy Diane’s classes because I like her. Her humanity, her eyes, the way she enjoys people and responds so affectionately to them. And her, well I can't talk about that in polite society. She is lovely and time spent in the company of someone you like is never wasted. Her actual teaching philosophies aren’t all getting into my thick skull. I’ve picked up that I need to plan my stories and I’m fine with that but her diagram that shows you how to do this I can make neither head nor tail of and most of the other stuff we’ve done is kind of obvious and you could read in a how to write a short story book you buy off Amazon for 99 pence. I shit you not.

Also, on Wednesday another compliment from a student that took me by surprise. A totally unfamiliar face greeted me on the stairs and I wondered why, I knew it wasn't someone on our course. She said,"I just wanted to say- about the film auditions- you were my favourite and your attention to detail was really good and you should keep doing what you're doing." Then she ran off smiling and shy. 

Thursday

So having just been hard on Alex I have to say his lectures on essay writing are very good. Very meticulous, and really no student should have an excuse for not getting an A or B in an essay. Unlike with child literature, there is a much clearer sense of what is expected of us in reading, writing and thinking. Alex pretty much gives you a template for success that can be followed like a dot the dot drawing and his observations about The Road to Wigan Pier are not especially deep, so if he’s giving himself an A, hey! We should all be able to get one.

Friday

Shut up.

Saturday

Sorry, my head’s exploded. Clearing up the mess. Um, final remarks. I enjoyed this week because I had fun bantering with Lorane. It was sad trying to let down my discus lover gently and not really succeeding in quite killing it off. I came up with a plan to write a murder novel and an erotic romance and half a dozen other books. It will be my New Year’s Resolution to write an Amazon Kindle book every 6 weeks. Hold me to it.

The blame game

I wonder if it is actually possible for me to write an entertaining blog without finding fault or engaging in a bit of casual character assassination. Of course, nothing is ‘perfect’ – whatever that means– and it’s a mug’s game expecting it to be. As soon as one realises that, there’s not a lot more to say…

...unless one can somehow say it better, which I will try.

My problem, beneath all the literary subterfuge, can really be illustrated by a Google search, which currently returns:

No results found for "how to make sure you have sex on tap everyday"

and one or two others, involving cuddles, a social life, my sense of gaudy, guilty personal inadequacy. I admit it.

Okay, back in the saddle.

Monday

Enjoyed Laura’s child lit lecture and dropped a line to tell her so. She didn’t reply. She may have thought I was winding her up, but it touched on themes that interested me, like the child ‘falling out of love’ with the parent and the novel, Charlie and the chocolate factory. She also did a make up lecture on ‘Junk’ later on, which I think I’m supposed to have read. I was worried about my shopping thawing out, so I sat in the coldest part of the room I could find. Goodbye Monday, it was nice knowing you.

Tuesday

The most memorable thing about today was probably the writers meeting in the evening. It didn’t start auspiciously because the two writers who turned up last week were absent and this week there were three new ones. Oooo, change, I don’t like it. We were working on the murder mystery idea again and it was slightly too many cooksy but it doesn’t matter. It’ll be written by students for students and I expect the audience will be very indulgent with whatever’s served up.

So far the fundamental structure of our play is mostly based on my reportedly dark inspirations. The setting is a slowly sinking cruise ship and starts with a twenty year old girl who openly admits that she went to prison for murder and served four years as a juvenile. She then retires to her cabin with her rich eighty year old husband who wants to play a game of ‘stab me with the knife’. Unfortunately the game goes wrong and he is stabbed. Realising that the finger will be pointed at her she comes up with an alibi. However, somebody knows the alibi isn’t true and that person is murdered. Is it her? We don’t know. After that the self-appointed detective is pushed overboard and the murder suspect, returns disguised as him, wearing his clothes. I’m not sure how, I guess she got involved in some kind of sex game and they swapped.

Nathan included ideas from the others about the murdered all being entertainers and character ideas. A girl called Sian has this thing about there being lots of complete idiots.

I wanted the play to be set in various locations around the ship but I was out-voted. Sian wants it all set in one room and to me that doesn’t make a lot of sense. For instance, we now have to convey the cabin stabbing through audio and are missing out on the visual comedy, as we will be by not showing the deck scene visually. You obviously have certain creative possibilities by making it audio only and one room only but I don’t think we actually need them.

Am I right? I don’t know. Do I want to be? Not particularly, it’s all good. When I submit my own play I will have total control over that, if it's accepted and that is the one that I wouldn’t want to see compromised by ideas I don’t agree with. And when my play fails you can be sure I’ll find someone else to blame.

Today I discovered that Nicholas has been at Bangor seven years and is not even a student any more. It explains why he seemed so mature for eighteen or nineteen, he must actually be in his mid-twenties. I ended Tuesday wiser for that reason, if none other that will consciously stay with me.

Wednesday

Good ole Wednesday. I’ve mentioned before that the university has a left wing bias. I don’t really detail all the ways it manifests in my blog, I guess because I’ve got better things to do, but I’ll include an anecdote today.

It’s hard to summarise my own politics. I’ve always been a bit of both spectrums, certainly not inclined to accept the whole left wing package. And it’s not an emotive subject for me. No party promises me a girlfriend in its manifesto, so why should it be? So anyway, Matthew Durham has asked us before if we think women still get a raw deal in publishing and today he asked us if we considered ourselves feminists. I said, “No, but then I don’t consider myself a masculinist either.” (We were discussing The Magic Toyshop, which I happened to like, so much so that I’ve bought Carter’s first book). Matthew said that feminism just means equality for women and if that’s the case then yes, I’m a feminist. But honestly, who would say, ‘no I don’t believe in equality for women’? So really, the question must mean something more. Perhaps it means, ‘do you believe that consciousness is created by the brain?’ No, I believe it is facilitated by it and funnily enough, most career feminists probably don’t. (Discuss).

Anyway, Matthew said the English language is biased in favour of men. We walk into a room and say ‘hello guys’ and we could be saying hello to men exclusively, or to men and women. The word man exists independent of woman, but the word woman defines woman by her not being a man. That seems reasonable and I agree we need to look at the language we use. I’ve never liked the word ‘slut’. Why do we honour men for promiscuity but berate women for it? I say ‘we’ actually meaning other men, because I’ve never done that. But to me it was ironic that Matthew was arguing that words shouldn’t be biased and the very word- which is supposed to be about fairness- is about women. Fairness cannot just be about women and therefore I’d rather be called a fairest. Interestingly, on my weekendly browse of women’s dating profiles I came across one woman saying that she was ‘decidedly not a feminist’. Why is that, I wonder? (Discuss).

And of course, on Wednesday I went to spiritualist church looking for clues about getting my life on track. Preferably an electrified one. It was chucking it down and I figured I had a decent chance of a reading, due to low attendance. How right I was. I think there were about seven people, and they were all old. Two fell asleep. We had to sing hymns and without an organ so everyone sang their own tune. The medium described herself as ‘moderately awful’, and I agree and yet...and yet...was she? I got my reading and it’s hard to say if it was made up or what it was. She said that when I came to Bangor I had higher expectations and that is true. That is the one thing I can say which I in no way fed to her. No earth shattering revelations, just that I will start to put a small social life together at some point. Dots will connect.

On the way back I drove into a traffic island. It was the weather and my steamed up windows. Could hardly see where I was going.

Thursday

Catherine presented a poem of mine in class, I think because she thought it rather good and assumed the others would think so, but I don’t think they did particularly. It was a reply to Philip Larkin’s Auerbach. I would paste here but when I submit my portfolio Turnit In will find anything on the web and shout, “Plagiarism!” Of course, I can prove it’s mine, but for the sake of simplicity...

Friday

I met a discus thrower on online dating. Probably nothing will come of it but you never know.

Saturday

Depressed all day. Cheered up a bit in the evening. A bit, mind. I definitely know how to unsteam my windows, now. Fear not. They were as clear as the cold air on the way to Morrisons.

Sunday

And so to Sunday. Not an especially eventful week. I should say thanks to James and Lorane for keeping me cyber company, because otherwise it’s mostly me talking to myself.

A good week, I suppose

It’s been a good week. In some ways it’s a case of plus ca change. Did I roll up to another class of Diane Cloche's minus assignment? Affirmative. Did the insomnia return? At least for one night, yes. Maybe I need to up the dosage. Is the trickle of students who get drunk and then walk past my window shouting and singing throughout up to about 3 or 4 am just another hassle I could do without? Absolutely. I’m pleased they’re enjoying themselves and it’s a comforting reminder that this quiet enclave is also a vibrant city that never sleeps, but the intrusion annoys me. Perhaps because I resent their thoughtlessness or that their behaviour is unpredictable. If they were trains I’d know they were just passing through, but you never quite know how long the noise will last with teenage human beings or what it portends. Perhaps I secretly wish I was one of them. The students are clearly having a very large helping of joy…

And what about my audition? Did I get a part? As a tree, perchance? Nada. Perhaps there’s a missed call on my phone.

And there’s been that whole essay business.

On the other hand, day by day, I felt pretty comfortable about things. That might simply be because I’m on amitriptyline, ostensibly for my insomnia, but it’s also used to treat depression. These past few days I’ve found myself more in the present. I was sat on my bed reading The Magic Toyshop the other evening and I suddenly realised I was just content sat there reading and it reminded me of being a child. Normally I don’t have the patience for book reading, albeit that I surround myself with them, I’m lucky if I read two a year, but a little more positivity has crept into my mind. It must have, because I’ve started liking Radio 6 more and usually the DJs annoy me.

On Monday I skipped Raisa’s child lecture for the first time. I had the child fiction essay to do and I don’t find the lectures particularly useful. They’re good but it’s food for thought, or spoon feeding, depending on your viewpoint.

On Tuesday I went to the Reading, Writing and Thinking lecture (again not necessary to me personally, but I learnt that the word fabulous comes from the word ‘fable’) at 9.00, taken by Professor Helen Wilcox who had come jet lagged from South America. (She’s not yet replied to my email asking for Paul’s number). I skipped the child lit lecture at 11.00. (We have one usually given by Raisa on Monday, one usually given by Laura, Tuesday).

I went to Laura’s child lit seminar in the afternoon. At the end, Laura looked like she was steeling herself when I approached her and I don’t blame her. As my mother once observed, I’m a cross between Basil Fawlty and Frank Spencer. That’s reason enough, but it was ‘all good’ as we say in modern parlance. I only want to know what the essay title needed to be. She pointed at me with two hands like someone brandishing pistols and said, “Everything okay now?” (or I’ll shoot) or words to that effect. It was, but it wasn’t long before I was causing trouble again, which we’ll get to shortly.

Then I went to my second meeting at Bangor English Dramatic Society and I felt welcome and enjoyed the company. It was a writer’s meeting and though I might put myself forward as an actor at some point I’ve joined on that basis. The organiser, Nicholas, is one of those people I associate with the name ‘Merlin’. He is thin with long blonde hair and a wizardish goatee. There may be some tints in the hair, or I may be a confused 42 year old, tints are common amongst the students, let’s put it that way. He is mature beyond his years in the manner that some geeks are because they are interested in relatively thoughtful pursuits. Amber is a mixed race and matronly girl who radiates a sense of chill like a large, satisfied cat. I’m not sure what her role is but it’s probably quite significant. As for the writers, there were only three of us in attendance. There was a pretty, intelligent slim girl who I see in Diane’s seminar and a pleasant, shy, small toothed young man who, like lots of people, reminds me of someone else. They all do, it comes with age.

We were in an open plan area opposite a lift in Pontio and we just bounced around ideas for a murder mystery we’ll write together. I suggested it could be set on a cruise on a ship that is sinking very slowly, or in a newsroom, and the detective an android who blames the murder on the cat. Surprisingly Nathan readily accepted these suggestions and copied them down. What was also nice was how we working together well and integrating our thoughts without friction.

Besides that we will be pitching our own 20 minute plays, if we so desire, and if we want there are opportunities to pitch a (minimum) 90 minute play in December and sometime next year. I also suggested that they consider adapting The London Cuckholds. It’s out of print but there’s a copy of it in Bangor library.

Then I went to The Menai pub afterwards to do the Words Aloud open mic poetry event but I decided not to stay because it was very loud and I figured I would find it hard to converse with people. However, the organiser Aidan wrote to me later to ask if I was there and when I explained the situation he kindly said he would try and sort out a better venue at some point. As I walked back down the road after leaving The Menai I saw a silhouette appear that looked rather like Zoe, my tutor, who is a published poet. She stopped and asked after me but I didn’t tell her why I’d left.

Now, about the mess-ay. I’d had notification on Tuesday that my extension request had been granted and extended by 5 days but it didn’t indicate whether this was 5 days from the time of notification, request or deadline. So on Wednesday morning I duly emailed Michelle Harrison (admin) and Laura about this. Laura wrote back to say it was counted from the submission deadline and was due Thursday by 12pm. I didn’t see how it could be. The submission deadline had been Friday noon so counting 5 days it would be Wednesday noon. I immediately wrote back to Laura to ask, are you sure, isn’t it blah blah blah? She never got back but I figured I’d take her at her word.

Wednesday lessons were fine. Nobody had done the reading required for Matthew Durham’s class, as per usual and he was as restrained about it as ever. I wonder if he’s planning his escape to a higher grade university but at least he knows the deal, he’s Bangor alumni himself. Everything was okay in DeAnn’s class. I quickly wrote a dialogue whilst the other students read out theirs and it passed muster.

 Now here’s the thing. I should have finished off that damned essay. But I figured, well, Laura says I’ve got until midnight tomorrow so I’ll do the poem for Catherine instead and some Magic Toyshop. But the fact is, I had plenty of time, in fact I was unable to sleep until gone 4.00am. And all this time I was up in bed unable to sleep a little voice kept saying, “Do Laura’s essay, do Laura’s essay.” And I kept saying, “No, I’m tired and I don’t need to get it in until tomorrow midnight.”

Of course, Michelle Harrison rang me up Thursday morning and said it should have been in the day before. I said I thought as much but Laura told me otherwise. “Well, we’ll have to honour that but you need to get it in now.”

“But I was going to tidy it up this afternoon.”

“Too bad, you’ve had long enough.”

Long enough? I’d had three and a half days (counting from when I realised I had an essay), the students had sixteen. And why didn’t I know? Because the Bangor university website erroneously states the essay is due at the end of term. Because I was ill on the day Laura discussed it. Because there was no email to announce the essay. Because...okay, I’ll shut up. Fact is, I should have checked the somewhat labyrinthine online system to see if we had anything. That I cannot deny. So anyway, my essay was not an essay I would consider to be A grade. It was a rush job, and I talked too much about my chosen texts and not enough about their effect on my writing process (very little, actually) so I expect a B at best and quite conceivably a C. If I don’t get a lowish A for the Keats, though, I’ll be having dark thoughts.

By Thursday things are always pretty much plain sailing. Just Catherine’s super easy poetry class in the morning and Alex’s dull (as he himself admits) but cosy lecture series on how to write an essay. Actually, this is one I might actually come back to revise. I pretty much know innately how to structure an argument, it just comes naturally- what with my hyper critical tendencies- but I see no harm in learning the structure they suggest. I guess you could say there’s no harm in learning anything that’s suggested but a lot of it does seem to be quite obvious. Maybe it’s that little voice again. Where does it come from? I know not. It doesn’t speak actual words. It’s a feeling.

I usually work on my own when Alex asks us to discuss something with a partner but I showed my workings to Alli, one of the very few mature students on our course. She told me that she was at The Menai the other night and also thought it was too noisy. After the lecture I spoke to Alex and he was so sweet and understanding. He thanked me for pointing out that the website error and told me not to worry, first year marks don’t really count etc. I felt I’d just had a conversation with an angel. It was an ideal prelude to a shop at Morrisons afterwards. If he’s a father I imagine he’s a very good one. Alex for president, etc.

Okay, I’m rambling. Make up class with Catherine on Friday due to her being away. Spoke to a really chatty cashier last night in Tesco. Like my dentist, she fired all sorts of questions at me. Did I have a good day? What did I do? What was I studying at uni? What did I want to do after uni? But the fact that she was only 24 I might almost have thought she was chatting me up but some cashiers/human beings are like this and I appreciated the conversation. Today she’ll be celebrating her birthday with her twin brother and his fiancée.

Couple more things. We had two fire drills during the week, both after 1.00 am. Everyone seemed to enjoy them.

One thing I’ve not done is talk about the students. The truth is, I like them. They are probably the sort of category I would have slotted into when I was their age. When it comes down to it there is something wholesome and comforting about them, like a new Marks and Spencer wool rich jumper.

They all have nice teeth, nice skin, nice hair. One minute they seem as mature and intelligent as any adult but they have the vitality and certainty of the young and it’s nice to be around. I feel I’m learning from them. It’s probably the sleeping pills talking. I’ll be back to my grumpy self soon enough.

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

Well, it seems two essays were due in on November 10. I knew about the literature essay and I duly completed a critique of To Autumn by John Keats and submitted (pleased with it, bar a typo). As for the child lit essay, no. I would probably have known about it if I’d been to Laura’s class in week 6 but as you may recall I went to the doctor. I wrote to Laura to explain the situation at the time and she wrote back and said Ok, thanks, enjoy reading week. But I went onto Blackboard last night and saw that Laura had put an essay assignment up. I don’t really have an excuse for not having gone up there earlier except for Laura’ s reply to my email, which was perfectly innocent, I’m sure, but I took to mean that all we have to do is read in our week off. It’s just unfortunate but I'm sure by no means out of spite that she didn’t say, Oh by the way in class I announced your essay, good luck with it. In the case of the English lit essay it was impossible NOT to know we had it. It was announced a month in advance and Alex emailed us about it and it was mentioned in seminars. Hand on heart, I never heard this child lit essay mentioned once in any of my seminars with Laura and we weren’t emailed about it. It must have just been mentioned once when I wasn’t there. Of course, strictly speaking, I should have known it was coming anyway because there is probably a module description somewhere that says we do an essay mid-term.

So anyway, I immediately emailed Laura asking for an extension and copied Alex (head of English department) and Zoe (my tutor, though I hardly see her) into the email. I then wrote to Zoe asking if I could meet her next week. If they don’t already think I am an idiot they will now. I’m going to explain that I was at the doctors for insomnia and that I think it’s been affecting my short term memory and general ability to keep track. And on top of that I’ll try argue that I was absent on the day the essay would have been discussed in class and all what I've just told you. If my request for an extension is turned down I assume marks will be capped at 40%.

Now... all this said, I’m at odds with the essay requirement because in my view it doesn’t reflect what we have been doing in the seminars. But rather than drag the module through the mud on the internet I think it’s best to let off steam in private, which I will do.

The insomnia, the amitryptiline and the maroon Allegro

I've undergone some kind of metamorphosis. It started at 5.38 am on Tuesday when I awoke, having had maybe not 4 hours sleep and returned to bed unable to sleep again.

I got up and managed to get through an eco-critcism lecture and a child lit lecture but I felt so wrecked after weeks of insomnia and I decided this was the final straw. I skipped Laura’s writing for children seminar and visited the local apothecary. He prescribed amitryptaline and after taking it I slept for about 12 hours but it wasn’t restorative. It was a very light slumber punctuated by students celebrating halloween raucously outside my window. In the morning I awoke feeling awful- despite the 12 hours- but not quite the same kind of awful. Whilst I'd been in that strange sleep but not sleep I felt like my brain was whirring like a laptop doing millions of calculations. I felt like I was doing some kind of necessary work on myself. And I could at least attend class.

Later in the afternoon I slept a few more hours but this time it was good sleep because the sleeping pill had worn off. Then I slept again in the night and again had no issues with not being able to get off back after I awoke for a toilet break. At around 10 I awoke from deep, quality shut eye. So in two days I slept maybe 24 hours or more instead of 16 and goodness did I feel human compared to what I felt before.

In Wednesday morning dream I dreamt about my maroon Austin Allegro, which I don't possess in real life but turns up every now and then in the dream world. It may be also be other colours. Then I awoke somehow knowing that I was going to stop sabotaging my time at Bangor. It was as if all that sleep had somehow reprogrammed me. The fear and anxiety were all strangely gone. So I went to an audition for the film society Thursday evening. Spent half an hour waiting in the wrong audition because the bloody drama society were auditioning in the same building but it didn’t matter. There was a girl outside the auditioning organising the audtionees and she was really nice. Like a flight attendant in first class nice. Like receptionist of the year.

A deep voiced mature student who I danced with the penultimate time I went to salsa came out the audition. I didn’t mention her but she’s from California- I’d say mid to late thirties- and in salsa she prefers to dance the lead. She stood flirting with the receptionist for about ten minutes. I guess everyone wants to hang with the really nice person. I think the flight attendant was straight but she enjoyed the attention and caressed her neck.

I then did my bit. It was a bit of a joke because they gave me this script from Pulp Fiction- a boyfriend and girlfriend getting ready to rob a fast food joint- which was so badly printed I could barely read it. But I did quite well and I was so pleased with myself because I felt bullet proof. Where had my anxiety gone? Was it swallowed by an avalanche of sleep?

But to rewind, on Monday I was sat in Raisa's child lit lecture wondering why I was even there. Yes, it's a requirement but I've got wise to the fact that I won't be doing an exam on any of these books she's lecturing us about because I'm doing the creative writing component. All I have to do is write a children's story and show how it's 'influenced' by a children's book I've read chosen from a large list they’ve give us which isn’t even necessarily one of the books they lecture us on.

At the beginning of Raisa's lecture she said, "It's nice to know that you've made so many friends, that there is so much talking. So that's really encouraging." She didn't comment on how discouraging it was that I had made none.

In the eco crit lecture on tired Tuesday I killed the boredom by talking to Lorane on Whatsapp, a woman I dated for a few weeks last year. I was running unsuitable names for a new YouTube account by her. Lost in Bangor, Bang her in Bangor, What an absolute Bangor, etc. Zoe (the lecturer) was playing Dylan Thomas too loud for my tinnitus so I stood outside. It reminded me that I need to progress things on that front so I went to disability services to arrange an appointment about my ear, (which I forgot about later and did not attend). After that I bumped into a professor in the library who had given the mature students a talk during the welcome week. She asked me how things were going. I said studies fine, but no social opportunities for mature students. She said call Paul, he'd love to have a drink with me. I don't know who Paul is. Perhaps I'll email her and ask. Then it was a child lit lecture again given by Alex on Peter Pan. He said Barrie would be locked up today and, "Quite rightly so."

After Alex's Peter Pan lecture I asked him how it fitted into the scheme of things for me. He said he didn't know, ask Lisa. Lisa flumbled something about how I should now be seeing themes running from all these stories. Can’t say I am. I would have to say that sitting through introductions to children's novels has not been that creative juicy and increasingly I find myself daydreaming. What is the ruddy point in reading Uncle Tom's Cabin, Robinson Crusoe, Peter and Wendy, The Lion and the Witch, and Harry Potter, and Dark Materials and so on when at the end of it all we're not required to write a novel style narrative, but a 1500 word piece? Isn' it like spending weeks being lectured about all the workings of a plane and then designing an arm rest at the end of it? If we’re only writing 1000 or 1500 words why don’t we just focus on stories of that length? Why not write four or five stories in a semester, not one pathetic one at the end? Anyway, it’s a whole different style of writing. C.S Lewis would take up 1500 words just getting you into the wardrobe. It's bullshit, it's just to minimize the work the lecturers have to do. Which is fair enough. Okay, rant over.

So yes, after not being able to sleep in the afternoon I took drastic action. Wednesday morning I had thinking, writing and speaking with Matthew Durham. I feel so sorry for Matthew, we all turn up never having done the assignment he’s asked us to do properly and never being able to say a damn thing about it that shows we are not all a bunch of nitwits. Today he asked us about the eco-criticism lecture. Although my brain was utterly fogged from sleep-deprivation and I wasn’t even in the lecture at times or texting Lorane I gave the most constructive input but even what I said was garbage and cobbled from a handout I had speed read. I asked Matthew privately, why do we need to keep looking at essays through all these different filters? Why not just look at it holistically (y,know, use your common sense). He said something along the lines of these sixth formers need arm bands to help them swim with because they can only see surface meaning. I guess I see what he’s saying. I’m probably moaning about nothing. I’m not moaning. Goodbye.

No wait. Thursday. Guess what? Another class with Diane where I HADN'T DONE THE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT. I promise, I really do, that is the old October James. The November James would never allow such a thing to happen on his watch.

Friday and Saturday I wrote the 1st draft of my Keats essay, which is due Nov 10. Quite pleased with it for a first go but needs refinement. Having sleeping problems again. I can only seem to sleep four or five hours a night. Might need to dance with amitryptiline, dream of maroon Allegros.