A Year in Words

Simon Balmuth

“I’m feeling rough; I’m feeling raw in the prime of my life”.
-A time to pretend, MGMT.

The end of the year approaches like some dark shadow cast by the setting sun, bringing with it the ominous presence of exams. As I sit above this vast chasm, I feel an underlying urge to reflect. To look back on a year, which has played host to a constant battering of the senses, through various avenues. Bottle after bottle, night after night, too comfortably numb to appreciate the enormity of it all.

I feel the year has only just begun, but here I stand in the twilight of my initial university expedition. As time has lurched on at it’s relentless pace, waiting for no man, I have lost myself in the depths of independence. Not without direction but treading a precarious road without the utmost certainty. The existence of the unknown is refreshing in the sense that it provides an alternative to the constraints of structure, which have governed life from the outset. University provides an outlet, a response to the years of the conformity of schooling.

A thrill ride, a theme park, this year has been about moving from one high to another. Chasing pleasure, the inexplicable dilation of the pupils, brief in it’s enjoyment but the motive behind hours of action. The year has been constructed out of moments not days, brief fleeting moments over in the blink of an eye. On a journey? Where do I get off? where do you get off? more importantly do we ever get off at all?. If these days are the first of the rest of your life, is this a sign of the madness to come? The train rumbles on while people stop and stare, some get off, few stay while my finger hovers precariously above the self destruct button.

Amongst this backdrop of intoxicating madness, one strives to better oneself through the pursuit of knowledge. The sum total of my academic endeavors, reams of paper countless pages of words each as convincing as the last. Late nights spent endlessly battering the keyboard seeking to construct something of depth, of purpose, something to stand up and be accounted for. As I rush from one task to the next, climbing an obstacle without sign of relief. This is what is to be a student, to truly study, a process which many go through but few question. It is accepted as a norm of society in order to better ourselves we study, to fill our heads with information ordained by a higher set of intellectuals. We accept this as a way of life a sacrifice to enter a higher set, the so called upper reaches of mankind. It was the path taken by generations before us, a well trodden one with a variety of destinations.

So where has the year gone? The time has been filtered into a variation of fields. From enlightenment to travesty, at times so disgustingly self righteous waiting for a slap in the face that never comes. 2008 has been a year for words. These are my words and this is my year.

Letter to Younger Self

Dear Amy

I hope your voice has come back after being sick in ‘o-week’ and trying to keep up with the partying and drinking every night. The term has now begun and you should be prepared for a hectic year ahead. And yes, now it’s time to knuckle down and work! I know you think University is going to be one big party and you are going to have so much fun, but I’m sorry to say it’s not going to be like that. Many of your nights are going to be spent working into the early hours of the morning or sometimes not sleeping at all, only finishing your assignment half an hour before it’s due the next day. You will become very familiar with the term “all-nighter”! This is because the night before (and all the weeks before when you already knew about the assignment) you chose to go out to the Union, Rat and Friars, got drunk (‘cane-trains’ are dangerous) and stumbled into Res at 5:am the next morning. Because of this you will most likely miss all your lectures the next day and can only start recovering from your hang-over at 8pm, about the time when you realise you are ‘screwed’ for your essay. You will do more work this year than you have ever done in your life and often wonder how it is humanly possible to do three major assignments in one night, but this is your fault! So stop feeling sorry for yourself. Learn to manage your time and work in advance, instead of watching every series possible on DC++, and you won’t put so much pressure on yourself in the future. I’m not saying you are going to do badly at university, actually you will do pretty well (amazingly), but you don’t want to spend your days tired, hung-over and guilty with an assignment looming in the back of your mind. Stop letting other people influence you so much, especially when it comes to going out, maybe if you listen to yourself for once you won’t make half the mistakes you are going to make. Don’t care about what they think or even feel because half of them won’t be your friends by the end of the year anyway. What is important is your happiness, not their's. Tell yourself everyday that everything will be alright.

Love,
Your older self