Writing Rites.

Upon writing this I have now returned to daily life on the lean mean streets of University learnin’ for one  long, painful, event filled week.

As you may know, I have long been chasing the, somewhat elusive, dream of completing my doctorate in a field that I have absolutely no intention of working in. As the result of some misled decision making of mine in my (very) early twenties, I decided that science was where my genius was going to come into light. Make no mistake (as I obviously did in making this decision) the decision to major and bury my academic energy into science, namely, Physiology, was not easily come by.

For the first 12 years of my schooling life, it had been a general understanding that all I would need is good grades to get into the University course of choice, being Medicine. Now, me being the undiscovered academic savant of the 21st century, this wasn’t considered too much of a hurdle. However, the year before I began university, they decided to change the admission criteria, which, to this day, I’m unshakeable in my belief that this was a personal conspiracy against me. Firstly, it was stipulated that everyone would have to sit a three hour exam testing every angle of your brain. Secondly, those who survived the first round of herd thinning were subjected to a torturous round of interviews. Suffice to say, the panel were made of bigoted/racist/ageist/smartist/narrowminded/nepotistic snobs…who had been trained since birth to ask the most irrelevant questions to eventually choose a group of 70 from thousands of applicatns. Adding insult to injury, it was decided that taking grades into consideration were no longer an important part of the decision making process as they decreased the cut off score to a piddling 90 out of a possible 100!

*wanders off in a senseless rant about the inhumane practises of university admission officers*

*clears throat*

Anyway, the medical field obviously felt that my genius would be of better use in a different area. Despite this crippling setback, I knew I had greatness ahead of me that was awaiting me to grow out of my boy obsessed teen years.

So, I began my, what would prove to be a never ending, university career life in the corpse ridden (and I don’t mean just the subject matter, but also the professors) world of forensic science, with the lofty dream of delving into the minds of criminals to solve every crime that was even committed. My inspiration came in the form of a Reader’s Digest article, I’m afraid to admit, and have previously felt free to keep to myself, where a heinous crime was solved via the genius of a profiler who’s attention to detail led to the capture of the murderer. Attention to detail, that was totally me to a T, I thought, I’m the queen of “Spot the Difference” games after all, right? I envisaged crime journals and TV interviews galore in my future, breakfasting with Katie Couric as she worshipped the coffee cup I drank out of as I humbly described how I’d solved the death of Kurt Cobain telling of how I knew I was destined for a life as a celebrity forensic psychologist when I guessed it was Maggie who’d shot Mr Burns. And this was all pre-CSI, but who knew some dude with a beard who’s name had to be a play off the word “gruesome” would steal my thunder, but, never mind, it was a mere 5 months before I was un-enrolled in Forensic and became a student of the School of Psychology.

Here’s what I learned in 18 months of studying Psychology: Psychologists must truly suck at persuading the powers that be in charge of the University piggy bank for funding. Considering the amount of students enrolled in Psychology you’d think they’d get a bigger piece of the money tree pie. In fact, I often wondered why the competition for psychologists wasn’t greater in my city, rather than the current situation, which was a gross lack of counseling professionals. The answer came during a lecture late one Wednesday afternoon. I was woken from my nap by the sound of part of the antiquated ceiling crumbling to the ground and the lecturer yelping in…something, not quite fear nor surprise, but more like annoyance at being interrupted from his droning on about…something, wha? I was napping! Anyway, his yelp of something was quickly followed by a group of men rushing in, wearing, what I can only describe as, Hazmat suits. Taking a quick look at the hole in the ceiling, and the suspicious white dust rising from the pile of debris on the ground, those awake among us were ushered from the lecture theatre, then herded into a nearby room, where, in hushed tones, we were “jokingly” requested to not mention the world crumbling down around our ears to anyone else. I am not joking when I say “jokingly”, it was very important, the hushed “joking” voice told us, that he was of course “joking” when he told us “jokingly” not to tell anyone, because, of course there would be no need to try to cover up our close encounter with death…and no one need be afraid that the white dust was asbestos. That would be the point when he said he was “joking”.

And yet, even knowing that half my class would be dead from contracting mysterious respiratory diseases before the end of the year, leaving me, upon graduating, my very own corner in the niche market of obsessive compulsive psychology (study what you know, after all), my interest in all things Freudian slipped; I crossed the road over to the medical science building and enrolled myself into Biochemistry, where I figured I had better chances with whatever mass murdering concoction the 2nd year molecular biologists were coming up with.

Two very unfortunate biochemistry pub crawl one night stands later, I was a university major orphan once again.

One after another, my majors fell like beer bottles off the wall at my feet until one sunny November day, when my guidance counselor gave me a shake of the head to go with the shake of my shoulders, as she emphasized her desperation, pleading with me, “will you just stick with a goddamn major!”.

Sheesh, I told her, all you had to do was ask.

And I did.

Fast forward 8 years later, one double degree, one failed business, 3 years and counting, working in an area of which I previously had no interest nor experience, and 2 years of my doctorate under my belt, I’m back pounding the hallowed hallways of University. My doctorate deferred for a year while I go try to “find” myself, my work taking up more time than ever and paying less, last Tuesday, I sat in a class room and was assigned homework. A class, I might, whose title I don’t even understand, I mean Communication: Rhetoric and Reasoning? To anyone who knows me, does that sound like that a class I have any chance of passing?

And this, this is my note, to get out of having to do it.

Why?

Because I’m the oldest person in my class, and I’ll cry “I don’t wanna do it” if I want to.

Who ever it was who’d stood on his soap box and demanded give him liberty or give him death, must’ve never undertaken an arts degree. Liberty! I’ll settle for 8 hour practicals four days a week like in the good ol’ days of my science degrees. Give me the toxic fumes, give me the diseased mice, the unexplained explosions and walking around with no eyebrows. Just don’t make me sit in another classroom having my feeble attempts at writing critiqued by 18 year olds in ugg boots. And as part of this class who’s name doesn’t include any words I’m familiar with, I have to keep a daily journal, of anything that pops up into my head, apparently.

And this, appears to be it.

This is my first entry.

I told you. This class is sneaky, even in my attempt to try to get out of doing the homework, I’ve inadvertently done the homework.

Harumph.

I’ll show them.

I’m gonna communicate my reasonable rhetorical ass off.