1
the column
“
‘My candle burns at both ends It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends It gives a lovely light.’ - Edna St. Vincent Millay The Confessions of The KCL Creative Writing Society We are Literary Lions - hear us roar!
Welcome to my Life: UniLife
”
Yes, welcome to our Life, dear Reader: University Life. We pride ourselves with sleepless nights filled with wonders of mens rea and the Battle of Waterloo, with fractals and the Arctic Ocean, and of course with lots of coffee and Sainsbury’s Pizza on the side, topped with a delightful desert of too many 2 for 1 Jaffa Cakes... No wonder they say that youth is wasted on the young... Dear Reader: throw that coffee away and pour yourself a glass of Chardonnay, just this once. The story is about to unfold:
A 4,000 WORDS MARATHON
You walk down the corridor, telling yourself that this is definitely the last time that you’re going to miss a lecture. Knowing yourself, it’s definitely not going to be the last time but in situations like this one, it’s better to lie to yourself rather than sit down by Nussaibah Raja in one of those pink chairs and play Chicken Invaders on your laptop. Or it’s better to acknowledge that to make deadlines, sacrifices need to be made. Yes, you like that option. You have 4,000 words due at 12.30 p.m. tomorrow which means, less than twenty-four hours to go and your word count is still embarrassingly low or inexistent, for that matter. It’s not that you left it for the last minute, it’s just that there were just more important things to do like… Awkward silence. Okay, maybe you shouldn’t have gone to that party last night, or the night before…. Or the night before? You are not usually such a party animal. Really, you might sound as if you are trying to convince yourself here but you prefer staying at home drinking hot chocolate and weeping over your stupid soaps rather than going out and meeting with the crowd. But when meeting with the same crowd consists of leaving your desperately blank word document and forgetting about it until it’s actually time to worry about it – LIKE NOW – things tend to get a bit ‘wild’. The smell of coffee tempting you, you stop at the small Café Direct stand in the reception area and smile at the lady. Coffee is what you need, right now. To wake you up or rather, to make sure you don’t fall asleep. You haven’t had a good night sleep in days and yes, you blame yourself for that. You open your purse to look for a coin or two, enough to get you some cappuccino but your penny-full purse is just what it is, full of pennies (and two 20p coins). Surprise
2
THE COLUMN there, or rather not. As a student, you’re allowed to be poor but now you are so poor that you cannot even afford a bloody coffee. You retrace your steps, hoping that you’ll have more luck with the vending machines (which doesn’t sell coffee) but of course, everything being so bloody expensive, you don’t have enough to buy a Kit Kat. Tough shit. Maybe it’s a sign that you should just go home and get on with whatever you have to do. Oh yes, the coursework. You take a deep sign hoping that the weird feeling in your stomach – no, you’re not hungry – will go away but no, it doesn’t. That’s it! With your resolution taken, you wall in long strides to the exit, only to get stuck because of some fool in the rotating doors. Well, you never had any luck anyway with these doors anyway. You miss your bus, never had any luck with that either. No! You’re not unlucky! Just… unlucky… I guess…. Awkward silence again. You wait a few minutes or two, for another bus and weirdly thank god just because your oyster card worked. You get out your Kindle and start reading one of the trashy novels that you bought for £2.31 on Amazon. You blame your current tastes in books on their prices; as much as you would like to read Jed Rubenfield’s new book, you cannot afford it and your local library has 43 reservations on it. The usual. You are deeply involved in the story, with the male protagonist acting arrogantly as always and the female protagonist thinking about how she shouldn’t love him, when you feel someone standing just next to you. An old lady, who, by the looks of it, wants your seat. Of course, she would, you are sitting on one of the ‘priority’ seats. You slowly stand up, tumbling over (but not over the lady) as the bus starts moving again, and just move near to the exit; your stop is next anyway. You get off and walk to your place, only to find your flatmate sitting on the bright red used sofa, at the expense of your Jamaican landlady, with a big box of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough and an equally large spoon. God, you don’t have time for one of her weekly heartbreaks right now. You just ignore her and walk to your room, banging the door behind you – meaning that you do not want to be disturbed, under any kind of circumstances (excluding fires which are very likely if your flatmate decided she wanted to indulge into some therapy cooking). You go back to your depressing and very uncomfortable chair and wait for your laptop to boot up. You try to get into the mood for some serious writing, something about deforestation and desertification, which you seriously do not give a damn about, but right now that’s not really working. It’s a very stubborn and silent staring battle between you and MS Word and you give up. You open your browser and a blue and white website appears. Yes, Facebook is your homepage and no, you’re not addicted. You update your status. Eva Naki is not going to move from this chair until she finishes this bloody coursework. Anybody done yet? One notification. Two. Ashish Mahadoo I am so fucking struggling with this. I’m almost tempted to claim mitigating circumstances. Chloe W. Yeah, I finished yesterday and handed it in. Need any help? Of course, you have, bitch. Eva Naki @Ash, seems like an all-nighter for us. @ Chloe, lucky you! What did you talk about? How many words for each section.
3
THE COLUMN A few more notifications (and 2 hours) later, you are back to your lost battle with MS Word. At least, you now have your title written and the page doesn’t look as blank as before. After 5 hours of serious working (with several Facebook breaks), you now have a well-crafted introduction. Actually, you think it’s crap but you are proud you have something down. You make a quick run to the kitchen, ignoring your flatmate who’s still where you left her, to get some food, i.e. cheese on toast and black coffee. Which, by the way, is not even yours. Ah, nobody’s gonna notice. Between chewing your toast and burning your tongue with the coffee, you go through some of your bestie’s pictures of her new boyfriend, jealous that she actually has a life compared to yours. Like. Like. Like. Like. Okay, that’s enough. No need to make yourself feel so miserable. Word count: 302. You log on to ScienceDirect but of course, the site is down because of a fucking maintenance going on. Guess, you are left with poor old Google Scholar. You finally are in the mood for some Facebook-less writing and you still have no inspiration. You try reading the journal articles full of technical jargon and cannot bloody understand anything. You can’t take it anymore. Nobody’s going to know that you took everything from Wikipedia if you rephrase and reference everything properly. You’re good at that. You are feeling better. You can feel the motivation. You manage to craft two more paragraphs before giving up again. You go for the blue again but now, it’s Skype’s turn. Group conversation with the girls. 22: 56 You: Word count is currently 856. I’m good, aren’t I? 22: 57 Yuuki: Arrghh, this is so frustrating. I can’t think of anything to write. 22:57 You: Yeah, same. And Chloe already finished. Bitch. How does she do it? 22:58 Shab: I’m finished as well. Just referencing. 22:58 Me: Fuck you Shab. I’m so depressed now. 22.58: Shab: Lol. Which bit are you writing? 22.59 Yuuki: Do table captions go on top or bottom? . . . . 00.34 Me: Okay, I should probably get back to work now. Bye girlies. <3 Okay, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to get on chat with the girl. You have less than twelve hours left and you haven’t even written half of the coursework. You. Are. In. Serious. Trouble. You sit there, just blankly looking at your screen, which is not blank anymore, trying to come up with something. You reach for a textbook, go through some of the pages, looking for something to write about. Anything would do right now. Adrenaline. You start typing at some ungodly speed, glancing at the clock from time to time just for reassurance. 3.45 a.m., word count: 1238. Maybe it’s time for another ‘real’ break. The lights are off; your flatmate has finally decided it was time to leave the calories and go to bed. She’ll be stressing about her weight tomorrow, you prepare yourself mentally. Toast with Nutella this time – it again doesn’t belong to you – and boring black coffee. Recharged. You log on Facebook, just to check on some people, check your notifications but resist commenting on anything and chat with some of the all-nighter lovers. Your conscience nagging you, you switch back to your document and the ungodly speed is back.
Eva Naki Fucking printer not working now. Have to run to uni to print coursework.
4
THE COLUMN You are in one of the computer rooms at the college, waiting for the printer to be done with the 16 queued jobs for it to print yours. You recognise a few people from your course, looking as sleep deprived as yourself. They smile and you smile back. You chit-chat, asking how it went. Your coursework is now being printed. Okay, it’s not printing anymore. Load paper. How do you expect someone to load paper when there’s a fucking lock on it? Why today? You make a run to the basement to find another printer. You swipe your card, rush to a computer and log on. Your credit has run out because your college is so cheap that the printer eats all your money even when it doesn’t print. You top-up, hoping that you have enough money on your account. Yay. It works. You have fifteen minutes to print this shit and hand it in. You can do it! The papers in your hand, you run up the stairs to the fourth floor wishing you had been more regular with that gym thing, staple your piece of coursework, ignore the barking lady, fill in the required forms and put everything in the basket. Relief. You’ve done it. You’ve never felt more happy, except from the times that you’ve handed in coursework and that one time your parents planned a surprise birthday party for you. Oh, and when you and your ex-boyfriend… Okay, you get the point, you are happy. You feel your phone – not a Blackberry – vibrating in your pocket. SMS. From: Ash Hey Eva, up 4 sm fun 2nite? x To: Ash Sure! How’s 8? x
5
THE COLUMN FEAST HOUR - KCL CREATIVE WRITING SOCIETY EVENTS We ignite our literary passion with ghosts in crypts and verse and music. Join us in a feast to remember! Hoodies The Literary Lions are about to change their coats, but never their dispositions. Prepare yourselves for the launch of our very own Creative Writing Society branded hoodies! Details on colours, sizes and the like, are soon to be released but for now, please tell the Committee if you are interested in putting your hand on that memorabilia, so that we save one for you! Annual General Meeting This is the very last official meeting of this academic year, scheduled on the 30th March. This is your chance to challenge potential candidates and to vote for your Committee for academic year 2011-2012! Make sure you don’t miss this very important meeting, if you want to have your say! Ghost Anthology The Ghost Anthology is soon to be launched, bringing together the works of our most talented Creative Writers in one impressive project. It includes, no wonder!, stories about ghosts, materials from the Creative Crafts session and many more creative bits that will remind you of the brilliant Creative Writing year that has just passed! Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Regents Park The very last event of this Creative Writing year, this lazy Sunday afternoon is shaping up to be brilliant, with prize competitions and lots of cake! This will be happening sometime after the last exams, with the date and time to be confirmed later on. Please tell us your dates of availability, because we wouldn’t want you to miss our Farewell Academic year 2010-2011 party for that all important internship or trip to Paris! Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing ~ Ben Franklin Why don’t you do both?! Sign up here for all the membership benefits: http://www.fixtureslive.com/kcl/signup.aspx?clubID=35681 And check out our delightful website for updates on events: http://kclcreativewriting. wordpress.com And of course, follow us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=91411185323&ref=ts Editor ~ SIMONA CORCOZ, The Quill Pen
6