Ballad of a Postgrad

This is my fifth year in this town, and as winter closes in around us, it feels just the same as ever. Like a big woolly scarf wrapping around your neck, it’s comforting yet suffocating.

However, things are different now. When I finally summon up the courage to step my snowboot-clad feet out into the crisp fresh air, and make that oh-so-strenuous 5 minute commute to the library, there is a slight spring in my step. Why is that Jane? I hear you ask.

Well, my little undergrads, let me tell you. The stench of despair in the librarium, as I affectionately call it, only fuels my light-heartedness. As you struggle away at your revision, trying to make things stick in your head, I’m going home to relax. While you cram your brain with knowledge, I will be cramming my face with Mother’s cooking. You’ll be basking under the fluorescent lamps of the libratory (another knickname for my home-away-from-home) while I doze in front of a log fire with a frothy, marshmallow-filled hot chocolate. That’s right, I have no exams.

Most Read

Celebrity Traitors’ Sebastian Croft had three year relationship with co-star, and none of us knew

Wow, You’re Beautiful earns Celebrity Traitors’ James Blunt an obscene amount of money each day

Julie was voted off The Celebrity Traitors due to unaired drama with James Blunt

But wait for a second, chitlans, don’t get up in arms. I know you’re frustrated. You have all this stress ahead of you when usually you’d just have the festive period to pretend to work, and then the revision festival of January. Instead you’ll be able to party as hard as you like all Christmas/ Hannukah/ Kwanzaa/ Saturnalia/ Yule/ Winter Solstice/ THE END OF THE WORLD… All these things you have to look forward to- your reward for having (hopefully) passed your exams – and you Honours students gotta get that nice average 2:1!!! Me, on the other hand- oh how you’ll laugh – I may not have exams, but I have several essays to be starting on and a mothertrucking pooload of German and Latin Grammar to learn

So when you’re relaxing at home in the mild sunshine of California in front of your pool, or pulling that turkey out of your AGA as the Christmas Special of Doctor Who begins thrumming its eerie theme tune, spare a thought for this poor Academic Grandmother. I’ll most likely be rocking back and forth, embracing my library books and struggling to come up with a suitable MLitt Dissertation topic, all the while wondering why I came back to this little Mediaeval town in a wee nook of Fife to have a stab at another degree. Oh wait, that’s right: the other alternative was near-definite unemployment.

Headline image: rpm-therapy.com