05.12.12- Masters, Marks and Meeting the Elderly

My 3 predominant thoughts for the day:

1) The education system makes me angry.
2) I must have an IQ superior to that of bag of Quavers.
3) If I get to 93 and my carer makes a shit cup of tea, I'm done with Earth.

Let's begin with my first thought. Britain's Current Education System. Because Britain's Current Education System does not care how hard you have worked academically all your life. It does not care if you once had pencils flung at your head for admitting that in Year 9, you could read books without pictures in it. Nor does it care that you're still working your bum off to get a First in your degree and are so passionate about your subject, you want to do an MA in it and write until your wrist dies of poetry overload (oi oi).

No. What Britain's Current Shitty Unfair Education System cares about is how much money rich Aunt Hilda is sending in her Christmas cards. A Masters costs money. Lots of money. And there used to be at least 3 scholarships available in Swansea for Creative Writing, on top of bursaries. But now due to massive cuts in spending all that is left is a mere one scholarship between 100+ applicants.
Excellent. I found out from my lovely tutor (he has a nice, Dumbledore-ish way which always makes me feel like I'm Harry Potter with a handbag) that combined with living costs, the damage for next year would be an estimated £8000.
I nearly swallowed a cat.
So this is it. I take my creative writing seriously every day. I push to get published in anthologies, I am constantly building my poetry portfolio, attending literary events and reading my work only to be told soz babe, you need money not passion. So if Half-Arsed Joe (I'm not giving him the surname "Bloggs" as I have no idea who Joe Bloggs is but he does a lot of average sort of things and thus he annoys me) waltzes in, says "meh, creative writing? Go on then, dunno what else to do, I fink I writ a story once," and hands over the cash that Mummy and Daddy have lavished on him, he gets to do an MA whereas the more passionate student whose part-time checkout work won't quite stretch to £8000 is told that it's tough.
Excellent. I mean, yeah I could try for this scholarship anyway. But realistically I'm now in a pickle for next year. Do I do the MA part-time and move home and take on more hours at Sainsbury's? Do I stay living out but get a full-time job? Visions of call centres and living on Spam leave me a little dismayed.
So naturally my solution to this sort of problem is to go to the gym, get some endorphins flowing and then get mindlessly drunk and come home alone to my imaginary cats (that's another thing. I like being single. I like having my cup of tea in bed. Alone. With no one pestering me by prodding me in the knee with a certain part of their body to "get me in the mood". Fuck off, I want my PG Tips, go home you're not staying).

The future of student pre-drinks?

On a more positive note, now that I've had a rant, I got my first assignment back for 3rd year today. 75 and a First, which I was extremely relieved about as Jasmine is a horrifically ruthless marker. It was a long whinge about my experiences with diabetes from my diagnosis aged 8 to the whole 'adolescent resentment' thing to my present day mild irritation/occasional spot of rage. This puts me in line for the First that I'm aiming for overall, but also I can really feel the pressure mounting for January's exams.
Particularly as I have read barely half the novels and have no thoughts on Great Expectations whatsoever except that Pip's a knob.

YAY exams

Finally, the latter part of my afternoon was spent doing my voluntary work. I visit old people who are lonely and don't get many visitors and so I try to brighten their day with my beautiful wonderful face. This generally only works because they are partially-sighted and don't know any better.
Today however I had a slight problem. Now I'm not a loud speaker unless I am angry or pissed, and neither states are appropriate for helping members of the community nor representing a charitable organisation. And I find it very hard to shout at people, because then I feel like I'm giving somebody a row and that makes me feel bad. But Mrs J is almost deaf and I am quiet, so this was going to be a wonderful and communicative afternoon.
I rang the doorbell. Outside it was fucking freezing. No reply. I tried the door. Locked. Rang again. No reply. Rang her house phone.
"Hello, it's Natalie, your volunteer. I'm here for your visit today."
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you."
And that was the end of the phone conversation. So I had to ring the office, get them to shout down the phone and stayed locked outside a bungalow on the doorstep for 15 minutes reading the Evening Post, dying of hypothermia and not getting paid for it.
Finally the door was opened and we had a chat, which was more me yelling and then feeling guilty.

My vision of the future

But it was lovely. She told me all about her 5 grandkids and 11 great-grandchildren. She told me how today was a good day because the sunlight was beautiful and made her garden look pretty in the morning with the frost glittering on the lawns. She appreciates all the simple things in life, because now all she can do in contrast to her past social life is sit in her chair and wait for her next carer to bring her a cup of tea and a meal. And this is why I volunteer. Just one hour out of your day, and you can make a massive difference to someone else's. Humans are social creatures (yeah, I know, sometimes I beg to differ when I'm alone in bed with my tea but then it's true that my friends are definitely up there with my favourite things in life) and loneliness is a terrible thing. I wish more people would do this. Old people appreciate learning from the young and teaching the young. The generation difference always means there's so much you can learn from one another.
When I got up to leave, there were no better words she could have said to me than, "Thank you. I've had a lovely afternoon with you and really appreciate it."
If I've made someone smile, then this for me is counted as a success in my day.
And old people like cats and tea and grumbling about doctors. I visit another old lady who is diabetic and we have a fabulous time admitting guilty dark deeds to each other concerning our sins against diabetes ("NATALIE, SHH, DON'T TELL THE CARERS ABOUT MY SNICKERS."
"IT'S OKAY, I DRANK EIGHT SHOTS OF VODKA LAST NIGHT.").
So I guess I won't mind being old too much so long as I'm not in pain, have regular visitors, a minimum of six cats, a toyboy or two, regular viewings of Bargain Hunt/University Challenge and my carers have the ability to make me a decent cup of tea.
Because if the tea goes wrong, then sorry but I'm done.