Trip to Uni

Last week, I handed in my MA dissertations at uni.  Going back there felt almost like coming home.  I have, after all, spend four years of my life studying there (even if it wasn't a continuous period) so I'd have to have some sort of serious memory issues if I didn't feel some strong sense of familiarity.

And yet despite this I still had to ask for directions from the kindly student helpers there, stationed around the campus to help freshers students.  They asked what I'd be studying there (cue sobbing and cries of "Nothing! It's all over!")  Yes, I was mistaken for a fresher proving that a) it's my own fault for asking for help in the first place, b) I do look eighteen, like that checkout lady in Asda thought that time and c) I must have looked sufficiently lost and clueless to pass as someone who had never been there before.

In my defence, there's still a lot of building work going on there and I didn't know where they'd put the Faculty of Arts office.  It turns out it's in the same place as it was when I handed in my dissertations the first time round (in some temporary cabins in the ditch), although the route I was taken to get there was one I'd never been before in all my years of attending.  Given that the first hand-in was a year ago, I think I can probably be forgiven for not assuming they'd still be housed in temporary accommodation.

As I entered the Faculty Office, it felt like a genuinely emotion experience, strange for me in that I don't often get upset at things which I think I ought to.  This was it, The Last One, the final time of coming here to submit my work.  After this, there was only the graduation ceremony in November.  The drama of the whole thing was squashed fairly quickly, however, in the almost comical effort of the staff member and myself testing out half-a-dozen pens, scratching and scrawling all over the place, trying and ultimately failing to find one that worked, in the end resorting to me digging one out of my Mary Poppins bag and the university lady seeming a little embarrassed that the uni couldn't provide writing implements.  Lucky, really, that I was a writing student and thus never go anywhere without a pen.

The dissertations contained an earlier draft of Hide and See, which I made a particular point of not looking at for fear of wanting to burn the things.  It's all about the book two now.  I've managed to do a little work on Hide and See's sequel this week (I NEED TO THINK OF A DAMN TITLE!!!!), though it's perhaps not as extensive as my bravely optimistic self pledged last week.  I've also added a fair bit to the notes of the piece I'm not supposed to be working on, which I'm finding increasingly interesting with each new thread I weave in.

In other news, it's my birthday on Thursday (alas, spent at work as usual) but I'll hopefully be getting some books because, let's face it, I don't have enough (though my overladen bookshelves might disagree).  Also, there might be chocolate waffles in the afternoon if the tea room still does them.  Books and chocolate waffles: what more could a girl ask for?