Fiff Birfdee

Tomorrow, I will graduate.

Where will you be in five years' time? Five years ago, I was going all over the country, attending open days for university, looking at what I would study, to where I should apply. Five years ago, I was halfway through A levels:  chemistry, maths, physics. I suppose my course was already decided by those choices. 

Five years ago, on this day, I started a blog. I'm not quite sure why, really. I suppose I was feeling alone and unloved and looked to the internet to solve that. Did I think that five years later I'd still be here? I don't think I thought that far ahead, to be honest. I still can't. There's people with Careers and Goals and Five Year Plans and I'm stuck with a big fat I Don't Know on my forehead. Some may say it's a waste of four years of a science degree to not go into the field afterwards, or at least have some sort of graduate scheme or further qualification in mind. But, as everyone is aware, university is so much more than the academic side so if that's all you take from it, well you're not doing it right. 

Never mind. Tomorrow, I graduate and officially become a Mistress of Chemistry. It sounds so much better than a Spinster of Science, don't you think? It's a wonder they don't use gender-specific degree titles...

Happy 5th Birthday, Flix

On the jukebox: Laura Marling ~ Alas, I Cannot Swim - work more, earn more, live more, have more fun.

Chapter 2:1

Today, I have been a graduand.

I have the dress. I need the shoes. I have the haircut booked and the gown ordered.

This year has been tough, but also, terrific. The points at which I’ve felt most attractive have frequently combined with the points at which the academic side has suffered the most. I’ve no doubt that those two aspects are somewhat related, but I’m also confident that correlation does not directly imply causation and that many other factors contributed to the scholarly mess and social success that was my final year of university.

Never mind. Next week, I graduate as a Master in Science and that’s all that matters in the end. Obviously, not all that matters in the grand scheme of things. I have my health, I have my family and friends and I am ostensibly happy. Therefore, if - and this is not a far-away wistful what if, but a very real possibility were there one or two minor alternative outcomes - if I had ended up with a lower or higher class, it wouldn’t have been the most significant thing in the world, because I am not defined by my degree.

There is more to me than chemistry.

5 AM

Five o'clock in the morning. 

The sun peeps through the clouds

blue skies; pink-tinted

Silence. 

Speeding along the motorway.

It's quiet at this time of day. 

Half past six in the morning. 

People pass through the crowds

black coffee; tear-stained

Goodbye. 

Four hundred pills: one a day

It keeps malaria at bay. 

I don't know what else to say.