Having sat through my graduation ceremony for my BA yesterday, I have come to the conclusion that graduation is utterly wank.
Don't get me wrong, I had a blast. Got to see a load of my friends again, got a degree, had a composer the size of Hagrid bellow "We are the champions" at us as we stood to leave. "I've got 5 degrees and this is what I've been reduced to - Freddie Mercury impressions" he later told me.
Afterwards I got to go drinking with my friends (always good to have an excuse). I don't quite remember how I got back from Kingston to Surbiton and I apparently passed out on the back seat of my car on the way home. What I do remember is falling over. I don't know why though. I distinctly remember Dilia shouting "you were supposed to CATCH me!". That is all.
So why, when I had such a great time, is graduation wank?
Because rather than actually be a congratulatory affair to celebrate a group of young people getting their degrees - it's just another excuse for them to take your fucking money!
£20-odd a ticket for family or friends who want to come. Then they sting you for pictures because they have those pretty backgrounds and they know that you need them. Then they try and get you to upgrade to the fancier, much more expensive background, "well that's the background I want for when my children graduate. Yes, it's slightly more expensive, but they're worth it". Shut up. I doubt you even have children troll. I'll take the cheap background thanks. But that's not enough. Then there are photos of you shaking hands on the stage. T-shirts with your name on it. Fridge magnets. Teddy bears. Scarfs! Then of course there's the DVD. Do you really want to relive the 90 minutes of clapping and boring speeches for something ridiculous like £40 a disc? No - but you know what - I'm going to buy it, I know I will, just because I want to see Hagrid sing again!
The £9600 I paid them for their fees was clearly not enough.
Utter wank. I could have been very happy with turning up, prancing across the stage and getting my degree. But instead I am confronted with more merchandise than a tacky tourist shop in London. Bastards.
But like I said, the drinking was good
Thursday 21 January 2010
Monday 11 January 2010
The Road
I woke up this morning to that familiar old feeling that I had lost the will to live. I rolled over, switched my alarm off, put my ipod on and stared at the ceiling for three hours. I had been telling myself that I would be going to university to hand in a portfolio early...get ahead with my work. It never came to fruition. Barely mustering the energy to go downstairs and let the dog out, I dragged a pile of magazines back to bed with me and have done nothing more than read them ever since.
However, I also spent much of my otherwise useless day, pondering my sudden reasons for such melancholia. I have ultimately opted to blame The Road. I went to see this film the other day with my family and I won't lie to you, I loved it. But I can't help but feel that it has left me hollow, empty and feeling more than a little inadequate. An outstanding, often disturbing film; it offers a bleak outlook on the future of mankind, a different kind of disaster movie. A film about one man and his son, years into an apocalypse where any survivors you encounter are more likely to rob, rape, kill or eat you than they are to be grateful of the company. A story of one mans only charge to protect his son, it offers no explanations, no solutions, no happy endings - only a haunting possibility of things to come.
As astounding as I found the film it left me feeling rather numb which has since progressed to me barely wanting to move from my own bed. Could it be that I am all too aware that should any form of apocalypse occur, I wouldn't survive a day and should I have a son at the time, I'd be able to do nothing to safe his life? I don't think so. I have determined that this was merely a starting point and I am now simply realising that I am barely able to function in the real world, let alone a post-apocalyptic one.
I am not ready to join society. I never have been and I fear I never will be. I look around me at the people I know and I see their amazing skills and talents and intelligence, and I know that they can and will flourish in the real world. Me, I can't even face the idea of a real job - I opted to do an MA in Magazine Journalism to defer the job issue for another year. Why though? I have no discernible talent for it. I wonder whatever possessed me to enroll into two of the most competitive areas - journalism and film - but what is a 'good' degree to take in our society? What course is there that will guarantee a job at the end of it? To the best of my knowledge, nothing. Other than for the exceptional students, those people who you know are going to succeed immediately.
So I stand here and I gaze down my own impending road. But unlike the man and his son, I do not carry the "fire within". I can't see an inch in front of my nose and I have nothing but uncertainty clouding my every movement. In a few short months I will have to start down my road, to join the rest of the world. I am fighting every urge I have to just run away, only because I know it will lead me to another road. The only thing I know for sure is that when the time comes to join real life I won't have a gentle amble, I will be dragged kicking and screaming down that road and fuck knows what I'm doing when we reach the end.
I'm not ready to join the real world yet.
However, I also spent much of my otherwise useless day, pondering my sudden reasons for such melancholia. I have ultimately opted to blame The Road. I went to see this film the other day with my family and I won't lie to you, I loved it. But I can't help but feel that it has left me hollow, empty and feeling more than a little inadequate. An outstanding, often disturbing film; it offers a bleak outlook on the future of mankind, a different kind of disaster movie. A film about one man and his son, years into an apocalypse where any survivors you encounter are more likely to rob, rape, kill or eat you than they are to be grateful of the company. A story of one mans only charge to protect his son, it offers no explanations, no solutions, no happy endings - only a haunting possibility of things to come.
As astounding as I found the film it left me feeling rather numb which has since progressed to me barely wanting to move from my own bed. Could it be that I am all too aware that should any form of apocalypse occur, I wouldn't survive a day and should I have a son at the time, I'd be able to do nothing to safe his life? I don't think so. I have determined that this was merely a starting point and I am now simply realising that I am barely able to function in the real world, let alone a post-apocalyptic one.
I am not ready to join society. I never have been and I fear I never will be. I look around me at the people I know and I see their amazing skills and talents and intelligence, and I know that they can and will flourish in the real world. Me, I can't even face the idea of a real job - I opted to do an MA in Magazine Journalism to defer the job issue for another year. Why though? I have no discernible talent for it. I wonder whatever possessed me to enroll into two of the most competitive areas - journalism and film - but what is a 'good' degree to take in our society? What course is there that will guarantee a job at the end of it? To the best of my knowledge, nothing. Other than for the exceptional students, those people who you know are going to succeed immediately.
So I stand here and I gaze down my own impending road. But unlike the man and his son, I do not carry the "fire within". I can't see an inch in front of my nose and I have nothing but uncertainty clouding my every movement. In a few short months I will have to start down my road, to join the rest of the world. I am fighting every urge I have to just run away, only because I know it will lead me to another road. The only thing I know for sure is that when the time comes to join real life I won't have a gentle amble, I will be dragged kicking and screaming down that road and fuck knows what I'm doing when we reach the end.
I'm not ready to join the real world yet.
Wednesday 6 January 2010
Angry
As I sit here sipping Zinfandel from a glass the size of a small bucket, I ponder why people consider me such an angry person. Admittedly I can be a little cantankerous, I'm more the equivalent of a grumpy old man in my own mind. But apparently not. I am seemingly the angriest person any of my friends know.
It seems a long time ago that a close friend told me that I was the angriest person they had ever met. This is the same person I should add that told me that I should never smile at people because I looked like a "sarcastic pervert" when I did. So I paid no real heed. But as it turns out, almost every person I know has now consented that I am indeed the angriest person they have ever met. Including my boss.
Well, I recently quit my job so she's no longer my boss. But in a hypothetical conversation I was having with a colleague she intervened to say "ooh, I wouldn't ever mess with Joe - he's one of the quiet ones. You never mess with the quiet ones, they're usually the worst of all". Errr, thanks?
This has now been furthered by most of my friends and even some near strangers. When I meet people I am fairly careful not to let them see the 'real' me as it were as I am aware that I more than a little abrasive at times. So I guard myself, make sure I don't say anything too inappropriate. Apparently it doesn't work though as within a few weeks of having met someone on my course, upon learning I did boxercise from a Facebook update - she turned to me and said "Do you do boxercise Joe? I bet that must help with your anger issues". I don't think I said anything back but in reality what I should have done was turned around and put my fist through a table to see what she did.
But it's making me wonder - do you people know something I don't? Am I really that angry a person that many of my friends fear me? I know I'm a grumpy, curmudgeonly, mean-spirited fucker who laughs at (awful) things, but do I really have anger issues?
Fuck off do I!
It seems a long time ago that a close friend told me that I was the angriest person they had ever met. This is the same person I should add that told me that I should never smile at people because I looked like a "sarcastic pervert" when I did. So I paid no real heed. But as it turns out, almost every person I know has now consented that I am indeed the angriest person they have ever met. Including my boss.
Well, I recently quit my job so she's no longer my boss. But in a hypothetical conversation I was having with a colleague she intervened to say "ooh, I wouldn't ever mess with Joe - he's one of the quiet ones. You never mess with the quiet ones, they're usually the worst of all". Errr, thanks?
This has now been furthered by most of my friends and even some near strangers. When I meet people I am fairly careful not to let them see the 'real' me as it were as I am aware that I more than a little abrasive at times. So I guard myself, make sure I don't say anything too inappropriate. Apparently it doesn't work though as within a few weeks of having met someone on my course, upon learning I did boxercise from a Facebook update - she turned to me and said "Do you do boxercise Joe? I bet that must help with your anger issues". I don't think I said anything back but in reality what I should have done was turned around and put my fist through a table to see what she did.
But it's making me wonder - do you people know something I don't? Am I really that angry a person that many of my friends fear me? I know I'm a grumpy, curmudgeonly, mean-spirited fucker who laughs at (awful) things, but do I really have anger issues?
Fuck off do I!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)