dreaming of the post-covid

The past few days have been bleak for us all (see: covid restrictions, limited Christmas, Brexit chaos, threatened food shortages), so here I am on Christmas eve-eve, surrounded by wrapping paper, drinking cider and musing about my gap year in Berlin. 

Yes, a second gap year. It's happening, I know it's ridiculous and privileged and honestly girl put that £30k to good use and get yourself a career.

But no. I want to mess about for a year, in a ridiculously naive blur of ignorance. And come on, I missed out on almost a year of my 20s!

But for reals, I've had a lot of conversations with myself on dark runs where I think about what I should do and what I want to do. 

I should be applying to jobs, or at least masters, and I should be taking my future a bit more seriously. 

I want to spend a year working a bit, and finding my post-degree feet, and mostly just living in Berlin. Entirely unrealistic as I can speak no German, but honestly it is what my heart is dreaming of.

And I really do think, what is the point of not doing what you want. This degree has been, and probs will be, one of the hardest things I ever do, with a pandemic on top of it, the world needs to catch a break – and that's what I intend to do. 

So, before I justify my break from the capitalist cycle of perpetual labour anymore, here are some muses that have been getting me through the grim Tier 4 news. 

Enjoy my loves!

What are your plans for next year (if you're graduating) or things you are dreaming of. 

Firstly – this song. Because it starts with 'it's my first night in Berlin, and I wanna dance', and honestly. That is all I want. Similarly, Ananas by Bleu Toucan transports me immediately to a hot, sweaty club and I've found myself almost dancing on the street numerous times as I listen to it on my walks. And Peggy Gou, mostly Starry Night. Again, just a vision of me, my friends, pres in an apartment, and hours dancing to make up for all the nights we spent at home. I also saw this quote in my reading yesterday: '...found release by dancing the night away in various gay clubs in East Berlin', and honestly – what a mood. 

My extended essay for the Christmas vac is all about the revolutions of 1989 and whether they were indeed revolutionary. Debate and semantics aside, if there was one historical event I wish I could experience, I think it would be the fall of the Berlin Wall. Beyond the discourse of what it meant, it just looked a fuckin' sick party, and I'd love to feel that momentary thrill that comes round on such improbable occasions (i.e. what I imagine the first night out post-'rona being). 

But I am also just somewhat fascinated by Germany, historically and transformatively. Man, I wanna be there. I wanna see the history I've read about play out for for real. I wanna see the Plattenbau housing and the remaining Soviet architecture and I wanna drink beer and fancy every person that walks down the street.

This is all entirely idealistic and existing in no realm of reality, but, in a year that has taken almost everything, a girl can dream, 'eh!

I had a lovely, drunken conversation with Vassia last week, over fish and chips (tier 2 vibes, am I right?), where we mused over gap year possibilities. Maybe visit her friend in Paris, or her sister in South Korea, or just live together and make up for 2020. But really – I'll go anywhere. Do anything. 

And then real work will begin, I promise! (I have actually got tangible gap year goals – get NGO experience (esp. try and volunteer with a refugee organisation), apply for a masters, join a netball club, run a half marathon, write as much as possible because I've found that is what makes me happy (even writing essays!).

(also I know this is all such a horrible privileged cliche, but today has been v. rough in terms of news (Tier 4 lockdowns, 3rd strain of corona, hospital admissions almost at peak) so I am really just trying to manifest something better for 2021)

(all pics from here)

reading, watching, thinking

I've been home just over a week and it has been a blissful sort of boredom. Early bedtimes and long runs and a lot of reading and much else. I've consumed a lot of good things, so here we go! Enjoy!

Reading:

Mid-term I read Such A Fun Age, which was easy but also super interesting exposing a sort of white-feminism-girl-boss-saviour-complex. It felt very current, and was funny in parts, and was just a good side read as I ate breakfast or before I fell asleep. 

I devoured On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous in the first three days of being home. It was shattering and raw, but so beautifully written. It was perhaps occasionally a little dominated by a 'stream of consciousness-esque' narrative, but much of it was just breath taking. It explores the legacies of migration and war, sexuality and the drug epidemic in America. It is written in the form of a letter to the narrators mother, exposing the things he never felt he could. I think I'd like to re-read it just to get a real sense of the language and poetry. 

Now I am reading The Shadow King. It seems to be a modern (and real!) take on the Madeleine Miller feminist re-telling of Greek myths. It focusses on women in the Ethiopian-Italian war of the 1930s. Again, it is beautifully written and the characters have that skilful complexity of being simultaneously good and bad. There is a lot of foreshadowing, which I feel I haven't read in a while, and I love the way the narrative jumps perspective between the chapters. I shall report back. 

Obvs also so much reading for uni, inc. the sequel to Slavenka Drakulic's 'How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed', which I just happened to stumble upon whilst in Amnesty International yesterday. How fortuitous. My brother disdainfully commented this morning, 'god, is reading all you do?', and honestly at the moment, it is. But I suppose that it is the price you gotta pay!

Watching: 

I devoured Emily in Paris, which I hated and loved. Honestly, I'm craving the second series. I also, like everyone else, adored Queen's Gambit, which successfully portrayed chess as the sexiest game ever. Who knew! The Crown was wonderful, even though I only jumped in at the current Diana series. Although I controversially didn't think Gilian Anderson played a very good Thatcher. My heart broke for Diana, which was evidently the intention, and I realised I am partial to a posh man with a signet ring – which is a partiality that needs to quashed quickly. 

I've also been watching a ridiculous amount of Grackle, purely for the Christmas cooking content, and Helena Rose for the intuitive eating and positive food energy. Perfect in time for Christmas and all the bullshit insta content that is telling us how to not gain weight. Fuck off.  

Listening:

In terms of working entertainment, I am enjoying both this Christmas carol playlist and this one. My MT20 'body in the library playlist' still seems to kind of slap, and makes me happily nostalgic. 

For non-work, my 'time in between' playlist brings me a lot of joy – but mostly I am just listening to 'If It Wasn't For the Night' by ABBA on repeat

Feeling:

Honestly, pretty good. I had a very happy evening playing cards with my family and laughing. I perhaps feel a little resentful of the workload over Christmas (who sets an extended essay due January, after a term of relentless work?), but it also keeps me busy and thinking. I am feeling a little anxious about after, and the conflict between what I want to do and what I can realistically do. But I am hoping they will marry up. I am feeling a little challenged by food, but that always seems to happen when I come home, and distanced from and alien to my home friends – but again, what is to be expected?

Really, I just want to dance until 4am and be sweaty and achey again. Please?!

Doing:

Playing a lot of cards, going for a lot of runs listening to this playlist, spending so much time on Ebay looking for clothes (I just want something fun!), and making up for 9 weeks of no kitchen. One of my happiest moments when I got home was 2 hours in the kitchen, alone, with my tunes, making a ridiculously lavish Tuesday lunch. Bliss.

I miss my friends, libraries and the pub – but am also happy and blessed to be home. And I am seeing my best friend tomorrow! 

Good vibes yh!

both terrible and wonderful

'This has been both terrible and wonderful. At the end I am so grateful and it will all matter in a way you cannot fathom. You've got this, keep on keeping on'. 

This was scrawled on the walls of a toilet cubicle in the Sackler library, along with other sentiments of 'Oxford broke me inside so many times' and 'there is something so beautiful and so terrifying' about this city and this institution. My feelings of this week felt sort of heard. 

It is so deeply impossible to explain the paradox of hatred and adoration I have for this place and how both punitive and exhilarating it is. 

I love it, and have loved every second of it and what it means and how at home I feel, and know if I had a choice, I would never leave. But so many parts of me just want it to stop, so I can catch a breather. 

You get so ridiculously caught up in it, and the intoxication to work a little harder, read a little longer, sleep a little less is so palpable. Only when I look beyond this bubble do I see how intense and destructive it is. That most people aren't expected to work 40 hour weeks, and don't feel burdened by the pressure of everyone else seemingly working all the time. That most unis don't place their crippling mental health crises in the hands of students. That it actually isn't healthy to get up at 6, and have 6 hours sleep, and never be able to catch a break because if you do, you'll fall behind. 

But all of this seems so normal and so necessary and so important because it's what everyone else is doing.  The entire culture is work harder, push yourself further, because you'll probably still not be enough. 

And this 'not being enough' was an intense feeling this week. My tutor called me out in my class week, asking whether I had actually done the reading and reminding me that I could 'just pop in at any time with my thoughts'. Yes, I know, I thought – but why would I say anything when these seven boys are all so articulate and intelligent and confident? What would my stuttering hesitation bring to this discussion?

 I've cried quite a lot about feeling stupid this week. Feeling like I'm struggling, when it seems like everyone else is thriving (another problem: stoicism), and not even being able to comprehend half of what they are saying. It's rough, man. 

But, and here is the real contradiction, I can't even articulate how deeply I love it all, and how really I could just do this forever. And how, even in a pandemic, I am so happy and at peace. And how, finally, I realise the progress I have made and the things I have learned, and how I have academically developed. 

I have never felt the love, or the loneliness, or the happiness, or the pride, or the anger that I feel here. 

***

This was written three weeks ago, what a three weeks its been. Some decisions were made, some very difficult things were dealt with, my tutor was a queen, I cried every day for a week, and now it' the end of term. I still feel stupid and I am unfathomably exhausted but also so content lying in bed hungover knowing I finally can relax. And even if I am stupid, who cares, I'm here – I made it this far. I am excited to go home and eat proper food (not sitting in a perspex box), see my pup and avoid work for at least a day.