Hello friends. It’s good to be back.
I mean that in the twofold sense – I’ve rather missed writing this column, and I’ve also missed being in Oxford. I’m relishing this city at the moment. It is now, in my opinion, blossoming into its most beautiful form. After two terms of puddles, it’s a real pleasure not having constantly ever-so-slightly damp socks. I can now mooch around in my Birks feeling quite smug. And the sun seems to make people smile a little more. And Oxford does very good work when it comes to a pub garden. And I’ve started writing my thesis, which is intimidating and inspiring in equal measure. All things considered, life is quite sweet.
I’ve also made it through what is universally known to be the worst term, Hilary. Allegedly it’s sometimes affectionately termed ‘Hellary’. I wouldn’t like to go that far, but I do admit there were moments that felt, well, a little abyss-like. There’s always a point in term, usually after a few consecutive late night library stints, when you catch yourself in the mirror and think ‘oh’. Hilary had rather more ‘oh’ moments than I care to admit.
It was shortly after an ‘oh’ that I asked my dog to visit me for welfare purposes. (I’ve realised that I should probably have rearranged that syntax to, ‘I asked my mother to bring my dog to visit’, but I quite like the image of my one-eyed dog independently trotting along the A40). During said visit, my mother, who has a wonderful way with words, looked at me pensively and told me that I looked al dente. This was a very diplomatic way of letting me know that I in fact looked unduly pale and extinguished.
To be fair to me, I’m doing a degree which requires a lot (a lot) of reading and a lot (a lot) of writing. At least, I think so. My course is only nine months long, which means that everything is quite intensely packed in to what feels fittingly like a sort of gestational period in which I could have produced some form of offspring. But this offspring (in other words, my essays) sometimes feels more like a small beast than a beautiful mewing infant and I’m often not sure whether I love it or hate it or, indeed, who the father is. William Blake puts it better than me in his aptly titled poem, ‘Infant Sorrow’:
My mother groand! my father wept.
Into the dangerous world I leapt:
Helpless, naked, piping loud;
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
I think that if my essays could speak to me, they’d sound a little like Blake. It would be fair; there was a lot of groaning from myself and my peers last term. The fact is that we had to produce not one, but two big essays (twins!). When I say big, I’m not even referring to their size. I’ve reached the stage that 6,000 words feels pretty normal and I find myself saying insufferable things like ‘it’s actually so annoying that with an essay this sort of length there isn’t enough space to get in all of your research or fully complicate the claims you want to’. No, the issue was not the length. The issue was that these two essays combined will make up almost half of my final grade, which is a terrifying prospect and turned me quite waxy.
I was offered the sage advice to submit the first essay, forget about it, and focus on the next. The problem was that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I found myself waking up and pondering if I should have used a different critical lens, or rearranged the structure of my introduction. When I opened my laptop, the first thing I would do was find the PDF of my submitted and unalterable essay, only to trawl through it and find every tiny detail that I would like to theoretically alter. I knew there was nothing I could do to change it, and I knew this habit was bad for me. It is at this point in my column that I have reached my silliest/ most profound (delete at your discretion) metaphor: Writing an essay is like having a bad boyfriend.
I’m aware this column has the propensity to be a trifle hyperbolic, but hear me out. I will defend this metaphor to the hilt, and I feel I’m in a fairly qualified position to do so. I, of course, have written essays. And my knowledge of bad boyfriends comes both from extensive study (a listening ear) and from experience of a more personal nature (welp). In a few paragraphs time, I’m sure you’ll be equally convinced.
The parallels are blindingly obvious once you notice them. First and foremost, in both cases, you will not be able to stop going back for more. Not because either object of discussion is particularly good looking, impressive, or funny, but rather because you have the perpetually deluded idea that if you keep tweaking, it might start to behave a little better (it rarely does).
When tweaking an essay, you might add the occasional long word. You know that a ‘eidolon’ or a ‘mutatis mutandis’ won’t improve a fundamentally flawed argument, but it often makes you feel a little better about the state of things. It’s exactly like dating a man who’s generally quite suboptimal but has the redemptive asset of being tall, so when he behaves badly you can at least tell your friends he’s 6’4. In both cases, it’s often better to start again.
And both relationships play on your mind. They can become all-consuming. We’ve all known friends who suddenly go off the map when a new man comes on the scene. Likewise, last term, buried in essay-writing, I would often forget to eat meals or go to bed, and would doubtless have perished either of starvation or insomnia but for the capable and continuous solicitude of my WhatsApp notifications (admittedly, that was a trifle hyperbolic).
On reflection, it’s easy to wonder why all the bother. I sometimes look back at the essays I wrote during my first year as an undergraduate. I slogged over them, and at the time I considered them small tour de forces. Now when I read them, I cringe (though I must stress that I am aware of and very grateful for the processes of feedback and improvement). I similarly cringe when I reevaluate past relationships, though in my defence, I rarely considered these a tour de force; when one particularly bad boyfriend first asked me out, I believe I merely said ‘sure’, which didn’t bode well.
And then comes the break up. You’ll have been dwelling on this for a few days, even weeks. Often there is a deadline, either an official one which involves PDF documents and online portals, or a logistical one involving meeting places or a well-timed text. Afterwards, it can feel tricky knowing what to do with yourself (my friend, who is currently reading this over my shoulder, described submitting an essay as leaving a ‘gaping hole’).
But, on the whole, I think the whole process can be quite cathartic. I winnow my essay down to an acceptable length, with small pangs of regret for the sentences left out. I put together my bibliography (one of the most satisfying activities in academia). I double space my text, indent my paragraphs, add my page numbers. I might consult a trusty proof-reader. Then, and only then, do I convert my text into Times New Roman, which feels like a final reward. This process of final tweakments, to my mind, feels uncannily similar to the tweakments that are made before the similarly permanent decision to adiós a bad boyfriend: what not to include in a text, the consultation of proof-readers, whether to tell him that his father’s actually quite misogynistic. And then you wait for the results.
So there you have it. I hope you’re convinced. I also now realise that in my plight to put together a persuasive essay/ bad boyfriend argument I’ve forgotten to include the mildly pedagogic ‘Second Draft’ element of the column. This is a concern, as I fear it might have been the only redeeming factor for being quite so silly. I promise I’ll be frightfully serious next time. Mutatis mutandis.