Life as a Rubbish Catering Assistant (part the second)

Can I get you some verbal abuse with your cappuccino?

We left the first half of my adventures with my metaphorically building a crockery-fort that could shelter me from the difficulties of my new job - the biggest problem, frankly, being my lack of general competence. 

The reason for the fort, you’ll remember, was the OCD that seemed only to hit me during the washing and drying of dishes. Luckily, after a few nightmare sessions of such cleaning it was gently pointed out to me that my teaspoons didn’t have to possess the sparkle of Barry Scott’s molars;they had to be clean. At first I was unconvinced, remaining terrifyingly certain I was the heroic barrier between Mononucleosis and your grandmother.

"Bang!" And, just like that, Barry was gone forever.

As the weeks flitted by, though, I began to absorb the advice and put it into practice. Dishes arrived; dishes were washed; dishes were dried; dishes were stacked. I become one with the matrix of saucers and soup bowls and was able to operate a fairly tidy work area without crying like a little child. 

My washing/drying wasn’t fast to the point of uncleanliness, yet at the same time the Lattes no longer had the aftertaste of the industrial equivalent to Fairy liquid: in this area, my slow journey towards adequacy was close enough to complete.

We will, therefore, leave the dish-side of the job and wander back out to the counter to observe my progress there.

Which is lucky for you, reader(s)- although I was past the stage where every sale would set my heart beating until it wanted to tear out my ribcage and give the customer a strong piece of its mind, I still found talking to the average customer a bit of a hassle, mostly because I'm endowed with the talent of saying the wrong thing at exactly the best time. It should be stressed I mostly come across as awkwardly charming (or maybe one of those two), but things still often fall out my mouth that should really be thrown back in and locked away.

One sleepy weekday afternoon, for example, I was quietly wiping down some trays in a fairly vacant cafe when I was nearly swept away by a barrage of middle-aged faces that had suddenly stormed the place with the intensity of a military insurgency. One of the happier faces at the helm of the group smiled at me as I hastily began serving.

“Sorry”, she said, “there’s a lot of us, I know. We’ve all just come down from a prophecy conference down at central.”

“Really?”, the words spilled out,  “I never saw that coming.”

The helms-woman tilted her head. “Sorry, son?”

“I said can I get you some tea with your muffin?”

Here we have an accidental slip of almost-wit - generally when I say something stupid I’m the last to be know it. 

To demonstrate, i’ll give you a second example. One lunchtime, a fairly heavy gentleman and a woman strolled in together and took their place in line. When the queue had shuffled forward I took the pair as a couple and asked them what I could fetch them.

“Just a quiche, please.” The hefty man replied.

“Sure." I responded, "But we’ve only got the one left. Is that okay?”

The sparkle in the man’s eyes died, quietly. 

Quiche: lowering self-esteem since 14thC

“I only wanted one.” he said, this time in a far less jolly tone.

As it transpired, man and wife were ordering separately. Very modern, perhaps, but still was the root cause of my frantic apologising. Incidentally, it was difficult to say sorry while trying to not make reference to the rather weighty reason why this customer may have taken particular offense at my mistake. 

I probably failed in finding that balance.

However, insulting the Glaswegian populace (regardless of gender and age), couldn’t last forever - firstly because  I eventually reached levels of social acceptability. The days of dish forts and wanting to duck behind the counter gave way to the age of being able to exchange a few sentences without facial spasms. 

Second: I left the job almost two weeks ago. Yes, that’s right: I hung up my dishcloth and wandered out of the cafe and into the sunset where my bus had probably just taken off. 

At the end of that final shift, then, what had I taken away? The ability to multitask, for one; the ability to weave away from numerous near-accidents and spills;  the satisfaction that I had entered an establishment and walked away with a new skill set; and, not least, a best wishes card and a cake my quiche-inclined friend might be more than a little envious of. More important is what I didn’t take away: black eyes from accidental insults; a bill for all the equipment I annihilated over the months; the ability to serve coffee to a stranger without my left eyebrow twitching like Jack the Ripper’s great-grandson.

Now there’s an idea for a cheap paperback.  

If you missed part one, why on earth did you read this far?

Here if you enjoyed the quasi-joke about the myriad difficulties surrounding Glaswegian public transport

And because I’m still in exam period, I'm probably wearing something in here

By the way, if I don’t come across as awkwardly charming, keep that knowledge to yourself and let me live that lie.

Life as a Rubbish Catering Assistant, Part the First

The adventures of an undeserving employee

This just cries out for some googly eyes

Picture the scene: a little less than a year ago, I shuffled to my job interview at a cafe in the centre of Glasgow dressed largely like a Mafia henchman on Atkins. My suit (and by ‘my suit’ I mean ‘my brother’s suit’ (and by ‘my brother’s suit’ I mean ‘my temporarily commandeered formalwear’)) was far, far oversized and hung off my sweaty arms like a wizard’s robe. 

I was more than a little nervous - and being at the best of times endowed with the sociability of an Asperger’s-afflicted brick, feeling like the Coat-hanger Incarnate wasn’t boosting morale much. Nevertheless, I continued my bold shuffle to the till and squeakily announced my presence.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried about the interview itself. Ushered over to a table at the corner of the cafe, the interview lasted maybe six or seven minutes; the longest question asked of me was probably a tie between  “can you work saturdays?” and “do you have any questions for us?”; and, best of all, both the friendly interviewers pretended to ignore the gathering puddle of perspiration that began to create a moat between us and the rest of the room.

I may be exaggerating.

A few hours later, I was given a call inviting me to take the job as a part-time catering assistant asking whether I could come in the next day for a ‘little induction’. 

And so it came to pass the anti-social brick was hired. You can’t help but wonder who else was interviewed.

Fast forward twenty hours, and I was on the other side of the counter and staring in wide-eyed horror as my first customer approached, whistling and grinning mildly to himself. 

“What if he wants a coffee?” I wondered, my eyes momentarily stopping flicking for an escape route and instead zoned in at the coffee machine (which may well have spent its spare time moonlighting NASA’s spare remote control). All the while, the man was meandering closer. 

My brain kicked itself into a frenzied overdrive: 

“That machine looks way too complicated to be a coffee maker- Maybe I could wield one of those filter handles instead - battle my way out - go into hiding - find a nice cave somwhere-”

Having worked myself to this panic, It took me a few seconds to realise the whistling, grinning man was now standing opposite and looking right at me. A few seconds silence. Some more. His grey-black hair were ruffled into a baseball cap and his knuckles were blithely rapping a drumbeat on the countertop. Some more silence. Why? It had suddenly struck me I had no idea what I was supposed to say to him. 

My mind seemed to be drawing a blank on one of the most simple questions posed.

“How can I help?” I mentally tested alternatives, “What can I get you?”. 

The man had stopped whistling, letting his fingers drum the tune off into silence, and it was here my mind decided and leapt into action. My lips parsed, and

“What do you want?”

Gloriously burst forth. 

It wasn’t, on reflection, the politest of enquiries. My eyes bulged at the blunder and I tried to smooth the rudeness out with a smile, but found my facial muscles had packed up and headed south for the next several decades.

The cap-wearing whistler, however, luckily turned out to be a regular - if ‘regular’ encompasses people who exist in a state of tea-drinking hibernation - and didn’t really notice my complete lack of social protocol. He grinned again absent-mindedly. “Tea please”, he said. Tea was served, the next customer hopefully felt a little less interrogated.

Serving drinks to customers, though, was only half of my new job’s requirements. Compared to my dishwashing, in fact, each muscle spasm seemed a BAFTA-nominating smile. Thus, after half an hour so of customer-intimidating I was steered back through the kitchen, acquainted with the essentials of a dishtowel, pointed to the little hole in the wall where dishes came through and was given a go at drying. 

The problem herewasn’t that the dishes weren’t being cleaned properly - it was the opposite. Engulfed with the possibility that I was the Guardian of Hygiene, the sole gateway between a customer and potential sickness, I entered a state of OCD where I made absolutely sure each cup and saucer and teaspoon had been blitzed enough that it was the cleanest utensil this side of central station. This is all laudable but meant the inflow of dirtied dishes weren’t making the outflow look bad as much as holding the outflow’s lunch money above its head and giving it a serious wedgie.

I may have, once, spent a few minutes wondering if I could build a happy place out of porcelain and plastic trays.

Thus ends part the first of my adventures - it is exam time after all. Tune in next week for part the second

which includes such highlights as prophecy conferences, dancing with milk, and accidentally insulting the obese.

In the meantime you might enjoy that time I went clubbing,

Or that time I ranted about busses,

Or you might enjoy another blog! - http://eilidhstewart.blogspot.co.uk

(Un)Musical Chairs: How to Face The Fear and Win

A Personal Essay concerning my being a rather large 'fraidy cat

 My career as a master mute musician reached its height during my membership of the school concert band. 

Let me explain.

Every Friday afternoon, for the last eighteen months of high school, I’d trudge away from the school exit and into the auditorium at the far end of the building and go through the same motions. Dump bag; assemble my flute; glumly mingle with animated peers. After a few minutes, this chipper mass would assemble, and then sit on, sets of cold blue straight-backed chairs. A chill would always be hanging in the auditorium, making goosebumps prickle up and chafe against trousers, shirts. None of the other band members were perturbed by the clinical surroundings - they always pulsed out enthusiasm, voices wavering excitedly to match fluttering hands. In fact, conversation would continue right up until our teacher  would stride to the podium and lift her baton. The band would raise their instruments, poised, and our conductor’s stick would drop and the bluesy notes would run like liquid silver from clarinets, saxophones, almost all the flutes.

Almost all. I would be miming along, my fingers stubbing the instrument to the tune but my mouth never daring to breathe life into the instrument. 

The reason for my silence was simple: I was consumed by a near-demonic emotion I call The Fear - terror that spawns inactivity. Convinced I wasn’t as good as the other band members, my fear of playing badly made me stop attempting to play at all, both during rehearsals and outside. It was self-perpetuating. I practiced less, so became less confident; I became less confident, so practiced less.

The Fear, however, doesn’t solely operate within the musical sphere, but can rather curl its fingers round hosts of activities. Avoiding going out for a run because that the (marginally) slimmer neighbor might see your flailing; allowing your pen’s ink to congeal for fear someone might snigger at your screenplay; keeping a competition flier firmly locked in a cupboard somewhere. All of these are instances of a prevailing sense of inadequacy that produces lifelessness. All these, then, are examples of The Fear.

This isn’t a feeling that people should blithely shrug their shoulders at, either. The Fear wastes legions of hours, both those belonging to the victim and those of others involved tangentially. It can distort self-esteem and create huge levels of cognitive dissonance, especially guilt. In my case, I’d waste two bloated hours pretending to be a flautist, then be driven home by a willing parent (“anything to support our musical child!”) while I sat beside glumly wondering how I got into this mess at all. For me, all the boxes were ticked.

We should, then, aspire to face The Fear wherever we spot it, should do our utmost win out. The framing out of this contention, however, is based on a presumption that all might share -namely, the idea that it’s all too common to be constricted by this emotion. Surely no-one can get themselves into such ridiculous situations that The Fear requires? Who would willingly sit down alongside a concert band and play dumb for so long?

But that’s the thing - The Fear can snare a victim in two distinct, equally effective ways. The first is what psychologists semi-poetically refer to as a ‘flashbulb memory’, widely regarded as a memory so vivid it sears itself into the mind and is able to affect a person from a single episode. I, for example, haven’t driven on the motorway since what was supposed to be a leisurely journey home from a conference at St. Andrews. I set off on the drive early, well before the sun was anywhere near setting. When it began to slide down the sky like a running egg (as it did an hour or so into the trip) I found myself hurtling down the M80, suddenly locked in a deathly staring contest with the sun. Blinded for a quarter of an hour, I was terrified, convinced of my imminent dispatch from the earth. Mercifully, I did somehow arrive home intact, but that memory, like a flashbulb, punches itself to the forefront of my mind every time I get into the driver’s seat. From now on, my longest driving sessions are usually no longer than a weekly sojourn to Tesco’s for some salsa (discussed in an earlier post - points for continuity).

In case you're wondering, I'm the one who looks like he's wandered in having just come from a fun day of murdering

The second way The Fear operates, however, is not through a definitive event but rather through gradual increments. Very rarely does The Fear blind - it often chooses to be subtle, delicate, more like the moon sneaking to its place than the sun lowering itself down.

Take my flute playing. After that first week or so of practice, aged nine or so, I was pleased to find I’d managed to get a kind of warbled sound out of the thing, and from there began to tackle increasingly complex tunes. To me, every note, pure or faulty, was helping me improve, so I’d play twenty minutes a day, constantly, consistently. It never felt like practice. Moving into the start of high school, everything was still only on the up. I started doing graded exams, and their reports gave me outside evidence of my progress. I played at weddings, joined the school band. 

Then, one summer, I went on holiday. Somewhere in France - a trip with family -swimming, climbing, meandering, a bustling fortnight brimming with activity, so though I brought the flute and did play a little, it often lay dormant on some table. The week after, I was camping with  a mass of gruff adolescents aspiring to be like their cooler older siblings who viewed any music besides Nickelback as an utter waste of time. Although I played there, too, it was in even more sporadic, stubbed periods of time, only when well away from the judgment of those sharing my tent. Then, after this, I helped at several children’s holiday clubs at home, finding myself too exhausted to even think about playing. And so on, and so on.  By the end of this leviathan summer, my flute stayed packed up in its box on a windowsill, forgotten by everything but the odd burst of sunlight. 

At start of the new term I eventually picked the instrument back up, but when I blew into it, the notes seemed to come out flabby, despondent. My fingers felt like slugs, my eyes glazed over the notes that seemed to dance by themselves on the sheet in front. I was confused, disappointed - after ten minutes of stress, I clumsily stuck the parts in the case and thrust it back on the sill, promising myself I’d try again later.

Like Pokemon, the Fear can constrict.
As in Pokemon, it's very frustrating.

Of course, I didn’t try again for a long stretch of time, then a longer stretch after that. By gradually playing less and less, first without realising and then consciously shirking practice, The Fear was able to petrify me into silence. Eventually, I found myself going to the band I once enjoyed now out of obligation, too paralysed at my own inadequacy to play.

So, assume you’ve seen yourself in my example and self-diagnosed yourself with this malady: what can you do? How can you face The Fear and emerge victorious? There are two viable alternatives available:

Option one: keep playing and push through. The pursuit of a goal almost always brings difficulties, and often the best way to overcome them is to simply strive on. This may sound obvious to some, but others may need to hear that their self-doubt can be overcome:

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get Busy - Dale Carnegie.

An illustration, perhaps, to make this option less abstract. Several streets in my area, despite stopping at dead ends, are all connected by a river that runs behind the back gardens of the houses; a stream overgrown with trees and brambles and patches of soft marsh. Children, as a rule, are drawn to short cuts, and when I was younger I would cut by this grassy, slippery route to get to a friend’s house, dirtied, but a few minutes faster. 

Originally, the friend’s parents would thrust me back to my own house to change my disheveled, muddy clothes, but interestingly the more I travelled via shortcut the easier the journey became to navigate cleanly. As the tall grass was beaten down under foot, as the branches snapped back and the best stepping stones assaulted with marker pens, I managed to subdue the obstacles that seemed so dominant through regular treading and re-treading. 

Face your Fear

 (but wear a helmet and/or cup if your Fear has talons)

Similarly, putting on the shoes and running each day; applying each criticism of your script or novel (or essay); every mangled note will brush back the brambles a little more. In time, The Fear will have been exorcised through repetition.

In contrast to this, Option Two: walk away, might be seen as negative and defeatist, but it’s important to emphasise this strategy is not synonymous with giving up. Giving up, in this context, would be to sit in the chair continuing to mime. Walking away is about getting off the chair and finding a new skill to invest time in. Personally, it wasn’t until I gave up the flute that I was able to spend more time writing seriously, channeling those wasted hours into something that has since blossomed. Option two is not defeatist, then: it was through the pain of walking away that this essay is here to be read, critiqued. 

Ultimately, it doesn’t matter which option is chosen. What’s paramount is that the Fear’s pervasive consequences - wasted time, deflated self-esteem and guilt - are fended off. The worst thing that can be done is to sit dejectedly on that cold blue seat, too petrified to move away, too scared to play. Instead, let’s battle The Fear and make it too afraid to try attacking ever again.

If you're reading this on a bus - I'm so sorry. This might brighten your day, though.

If you're reading this to procrastinate studying, you might want to keep doing that with this.

If...If... I can't think of another one. Here are my puntastic thoughts on Assassin's Creed II.

50 Rules for Pain-free Bus Riding

I spend a large portion of my borderline-adult life being shuttled from university to home to work to university to home to work. In fact, I’ve harnessed all my mathematical prowess and worked out a four year degree will net me a full month’s worth sitting blithely.

Just kidding, I used a calculator. 

In order to make what’s left of that time more pleasant for everyone, I’ve taken the liberty of chartering up the following ideas that’ll hopefully make our future journeys together more bearable. 

Here are my 50 rules for pain-free bus riding.

(1) There shall be no playing of music without headphones, no matter how banging you perceive your ‘tunes’ to be. The rest of us don’t want to hear how Taylor is Never-Ever-Ever getting back with her ex.

(2)If rule (1) is ignored, you must - on pain of vehicular lynching - refrain from singing along. If there’s one thing we want to hear less than Miss Swift’s repetition, it’s you warbling that same story.

(3) If we can hear the sound of your headphones over ours, your music is too loud.

(4) When somebody says: 

“Sorry, I kind of need to be doing some studying now.”

They most likely mean: 

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

(5) What should you do if you see somebody you know and have to think about whether you should sit next to them? Don’t sit next to them.

(6) On a crowded bus, putting your bag on the vacant seat beside you is acceptable but probably means you’re a bit of a tool.

(7) On a crowded bus, deliberately sitting on the aisle side is unacceptable and will probably net you a lot of angry stares.

(8) If your bus passes another, it’s vital you abstain from making any awkward eye-contact with riders of that other vehicle.

(9) Energy drinks are not and never will be acceptable for any journey.

(10) If you take the train to work, bus-takers will view you as having ‘made it’.

(11) If you’re wearing a school uniform, it’s probably best you don’t speak.

(12) If you have to run for the bus, unzip your jacket. You may look like an idiot but at least this way you’ll feel like superman.

(13) When waiting for your bus, don’t listen to music. Bus stops are oases of stupidity.

(14) If you decide to nip into Poundland while you wait, your bus will definitely come and you will definitely miss it.

(15) Your bus can come at any time apart from when your app says it will.

(16) Fast food can be only consumed at off-peak hours, on a less than half-full bus. Energy drinks, incidentally, still aren’t allowed.

(17) When that middle aged woman queue-jumps you as people start to board, let her pass. Odds are she isn’t in a very happy place and you’re probably winning overall.

(18) If the head of the gingerbread man you were eating falls into the hood of the man in front, don’t go after it.

(19) If you go up to the top floor of a double-decker and there’s only one other person up there, you must sit somewhere on the empty side.

(20) See that bus in the distance that might be yours? It isn’t.

(21) The bus will always leave twenty seconds before you arrive.

(22) Bus prices will always rise in correlation with the pricing of a Freddo.

(23) Answering an unexpected phone call is permissible; calling your buddy for a chat is not.

(24) If you leave rubbish on the seat - surprisingly - it won’t evaporate. Take it with you.

(25) Ringing the STOP bell more than twice will earn you instant damnation.

(26) If the vehicle doesn’t have WiFi it will be considered  Amish.

(27) If you’re wondering

“Did somebody see that?”

Somebody saw that.

(28) The Metro is a free paper, so there’s no excuse for reading mine over my shoulder.

(29) If you have to read the Sun on the bus, have the decency to flick past page three. Sophie, 23, from Manchester agrees.

(30) If Rule (29) is violated, don’t justify yourself by saying you were reading the articles or opinions.

(31) If you’re reading a large book, don’t keep checking if people can see you reading it - nobody cares about your intellectual prowess.

(32) Drawing a penis on a steamed window does not make you a street artist.

(33) Writing your name on a steamy window followed by ‘FTW’ does not make you a misunderstood poet.

(34) Revenue checkers are generally only a little more intrusive than that time the Dementors halted the Hogwarts express.

(35) If you utilise the word ‘like’ or ‘pure’ more than once every seven words, best you don’t speak either.

(36) If you’re sitting on your own, you have no reason for looking behind you and making the rest of us feel self-conscious.

(37) Ideally, don’t get yourself into the situation where you drop pieces of gingerbread into men’s hoods.

(38) If you forgot to bring entertainment for your journey, why not pass the time by winking at passersby? Fellow bus-dwellers are not allowed to be winked at, see rule (8)

(39) There are no comfortable places to put your feet, so save yourself some time and don’t bother searching.

(40) If you’re happy to belch in public, leave.

(41) If you’re happy to belch in public with a stranger sitting beside you, leave via the top-floor back window. On the dual carriageway. 

(42) It’s a bus journey, not a low-budget episode of Takeshi’s castle. Don’t try and get up on an S-bend.

(43) If rule (42) is violated, at least make sure your bag is double-strapped. You don’t want to dispatch someone because of your swinging storage.

(44) If both rules (42) and (43) are violated and someone gets a rucksack to the face, pretend you didn’t see it happening. They’ll likely be too embarrassed to say anything anyway.

(45) Feel free to take the stairs two at a time, although if you trip, people laugh.

(46) There is no noise more irritating than an empty plastic bottle rolling up and down a moving bus.

(47) If you don’t have enough change for the bus, just smokescreen the amount of money you’re putting in by making sure there’s a lot of coppers going down the chute.

(48) The highest honour is reserved for those who pay their fare with a jar of pennies.

(49) If the bus suddenly breaks down, no amount of collective sighing will get that engine running again.

(50) Remember everyone else has a name too and you’ll be fine.

Now, if you'll excuse me I have some Bioshock that needs played.

If you want to console yourself in my absence with this, this or even this, the hidden hit counter goes up and I smile.

My Misadventures as a Reluctant Clubber

Wherein the unstoppably awkward force meeds the unnecessarily loud establishment: The highlight reel of my night clubbing

Disclaimer: in the following I intend to poke fun at both an actual club and people who - for once - aren’t myself.  I’ve taken the liberty of replacing friend’s names with Charles Dickens’ beloved characters to spare their feelings. Hope you understand.

I am, to understate, dramatically antisocial. My idea of a ‘good time’ usually involves watching old reruns of Scrubs while dual-wielding cups of tea. As a rule, the best reason I’ve found for leaving the house is to embark on a quick quest for Doritos.

Maybe if I’m feeling dangerous some salsa as well.

Despite this, I somehow found myself queueing with six or seven friends outside a well-known Glasgow club one saturday night; trapped at the front of the line, unable to make any kind of a  getaway. 

Here are the highlights of my night on the town.

I stood at the front of the queue, nervously thumbing my glasses back to the top of my face, then turned to my buddy Barnaby Rudge and grinned awkwardly. Barnaby, unfortunately, was already preoccupied.

“Oh-man-look-there”, he muttered, unconsciously toying with the cuffs of his shirt and staring at a nearby group of women whose smiles were rigidly screaming I’ll die before I admit I am cold.

I thumbed my glasses again, left him to his mental debauchery. After a few seconds we were led out the line and to the doorway of the club, preparing to offer our IDs to a bouncer large enough to use one of our arms as a Q-tip. More than that, he looked like he’d take a fair amount of pleasure in removing the limb of a fellow human being: his eyebrows caterpillared like angry stitches across his face just below a huge bowling-ball slab of a forehead, his mouth puckered as if he was being drip-fed a lemon. The raging giant was dressed in all black - probably, I assumed, so he could attend my funeral (“I didn’t mean to swat him to death with his driver’s license, honest!”) without too much effort.

I watched John Jasper, my friend in front, approach this Moby Dick of bouncers. He grunted, surveyed Jasper’s passport, then, seemingly satisfied, began to paw down his victim’s frame for any concealed weaponry.

Endowed with kitten-like rage, Jasper couldn’t help but let an awkward giggle escape when his inner seem was patted down for a switchblade or two. Misinterpreting the laugh, Moby Dick leapt up and Jasper found himself face-to-shoulderblade with the Hulk’s bigger brother.

“Sorry, is something funny?” Moby growled, intimating that he very much hoped there was. My bold friend squeaked the opposite, however, and was after a few seconds of terrifying eye contact, permitted to pass through intact. 

At my turn, I thought it best not to ask Moby to pull my finger. 

A whale of a time

Eventually, all of our group entered the jaws of the club. Unscathed and reunited, we descended down some dark dark stairs, along some dark dark halls, past a dark dark cloakroom. After letting a marker-pen-wielding employee stamp the backs of our hands - or, in my confused case, a palm - we found ourselves in the fabled ‘Dance Floor’: a place seemingly designed to maximise impracticality. Just filled enough that it could be navigated, but not without some apologetic shoves; the music was too loud to talk, too quiet to sit silent. The constant pulse of the bass made me think of a monolithic heart beating a few inches under our feet. 

Dignity recovered, Jasper let out a grin pointed to an empty corner saved for us, and I was suddenly sitting under a poster-sized image (on reflection, probably a poster) of a thoroughly topless blonde. I was unreservedly uncomfortable. Scrooge asked what I wanted to drink, and I thought it best not to enquire if breakfast tea was a viable option.

For the next hour after this, I did my best to look as though I was enjoying myself. I was clearly failing.

“C’mon!” Scrooge accosted me. “Get up and dance! Have some fun! Aren’t Christians always saying they can have fun too?”

I began explaining that while Christians could enjoy a dance or two and certainly could be fun loving, it was, mercifully in my case, no mandate; that I danced like an Albatross on LSD and that I was too busy enjoying my second vodka and coke - which was a blustering lie, it was my third coke and coke - to even consider moving.

Evidently, Scrooge couldn’t hear me. I was yanked to my feet, thrust into the crowd and forced to spend some time flicking between waiting for the earth to swallow me up and moving with what I hoped was the beat of the floor-heart. 

It was here I spied  companions Oliver Twist and Mr. Bumble confidently arm-pump their way towards another group of women, who, in turn, arm pumped away. Before they were swept up in the crowd, I saw my gallant friends artfully ignore the hint and continue their mission.

After a stretch of standing/minimalist dancing, I shoved my way back to the corner. Under the legs of our new poster-friend I saw the friends who were still sitting down laughing and pointing back to the floor. I wheeled, and was greeted with the reality of Barnaby and some girl locked at the jaw, seemingly doing their darndest to swap faces. I turned back to the corner, sat down. 

Expecting to be met with a shouted quip or two, I saw one of my buddies looking pale, then paler, then about the same shade as Marley’s ghost. After a few concerned ‘you alright, man?’ queries, this particular friend’s evening’s alcohol consumption was spewed all over the table.

Shortly after we were very nicely asked by a bouncer to get the *insert expletive here* out and so we emerged into the slightly smoggy air of the early morning looking for a taxi. No transport was immediately available, and we decided to huddle in a nearby KFC and joke about the evening’s escapades. 

Meanwhile, Barnaby sat reminiscing about one specific incident.

“She was perfect, man!” he cried, plucking an empty bargain bucket from a nearby table and sticking it on his head. “Oh!” His eyes sparking up, “I never got her number! We need to go back! I think she was the one, man...”

The evening then ended as it had begun - with my deciding to choose my battles wisely. It was, I thought, not the best idea to debate the nature of love with a man who was currently demanding people call him the Colonel. 

The taxi arrived, we were driven home.

Needless to say, I was back to the tea and sitcoms the following night. And every night to eternity, until hot beverages are served along with the Budweisers.

When I'm not a raging party-goer, this is how I study.

I've always been awkward. Here's me lacking self-awareness as a plucky primary school child.

I also review video games so people won't spot my inner wild child. Here's an example.

Confessions of an Overworked Gunslinger - Some Personal Study Coping Methods

It's Plath-tastic!

And suddenly we’re back at that time of year - much like waking up an hour before your alarm is set to scream itself into existence, we’re all beginning to see that next set of exams loom up in the distance.

Depending on your place of study and procrastination prowess, you may have already started studying, or else are set begin, about to slip into that red haze of past papers and lecture notes and criticism and pain that builds and builds until the alarms are telling us it’s Day of Reckoning O’Clock.

(Side theory - invigilators are actually monsters that literally feed on the fear of students; exams are essentially their gathering energy for hibernating through the lazy summer ahead. Go on, prove me wrong.)

In light of the exam stress, I think it’s time we were honest about the coping methods we use to keep our sanity levels in check - those little splices of mayhem we put into our day that allow to catch a few seconds of breath in between, or even during, study.

So here are mine.

Coping Mechanism A - Becoming founding father of the ‘Study Outfit’

First of all, you have to understand I’ve never aspired to fashion greatness. For me, clothes are successful if they don’t draw any attention to themselves. In fact, I count it as a victory if I look as good as a rejected George model.

When I’ve got to embark on several hours of intellectual purgatory though, I find it helps if I’m wearing something either admirable or else patently ridiculous. I’m kept motivated by the fact that even if literary theory is sometimes a bit banal, it’s made more amusing in light of the farce I’m sporting. 

Many of my ‘Study Outfits’ are inspired from other places - some examples:

The Gunslinger

Inspired by Stephen King Dark Tower fame, this one starts off relatively simple - T-shirt, jeans with a dressing gown thrown on over. What makes this ensemble more Deschain than Dent, however, is the inclusion of myriad toy guns (in my case, obtained in a toyshop fire sale) fitted into the loops of the gown. 

Ideal for those arduous evening sessions, The Gunslinger will make you feel cool, comfortable and, most importantly, able to shoot your way through several hours of work in a single sitting.

Just don’t look into any mirrors. 

The Bond

Feeling exhausted after a long day’s work? As appealing as a horse in a coughing fit? 

If you're at the end of your wits but not the end of your work, why not spend the rest of your evening suited up? In as long as it takes to clip on that fake bow-tie, you’ll stop scaring the living daylights out of everyone who knocks on your door, and instead feel as important as if you were aiding her majesty’s secret service itself. 

For maximal effect, flick that browser over to youtube and work to your favourite Bond soundtrack. 

What are you waiting for? Boost that self-esteem and start being the spy who loved me. 

The Night’s Watch (aka The Crow)

We all know winter is coming. 

Why not prepare for it with this all-black attire based on that series of books/episodes you know and love?

Ideal for those bleak frosty nights of semester one, this cosy set of clothing will let you slay those essay questions like your pen is valyrian steel.

Cloak recommended, direwolf optional.

Coping Mechanism B: Descending into Rampant Materialism

This is Leonard. 

Are you still there?

Leonard is a cuddly toy version of those hilarious sentry turrets from the superb Portal series, and is but a single example of my shameful inability to stop buying purposeless things during exam time. Walking to the university library, desperate for procrastination, I succumb to almost anything mildly well-advertised like a moth to a consumerist flame. 

Mercifully for my wallet, ninety-nine percent of these occasions I spend a minute looking and then resume my travels to the place where laughter goes to die. 

But then there’s that other percent...

It would be sightly okay if I were buying things that had some semblance of usefulness, but it almost never is. It’s more often an amusing mug than a textbook, more often DVDs than socks. By the time exams are over, my wallet is as thin as my tolerance, and I have to spend the next few months building the pennies back up (knowing exactly where I'll be likely funnelling those same coins a few months further down the line).

So, if you see me in town eyeing that remote-controlled helicopter, drag me at turret-point back to the library, please. 

Coping Mechanism C: When I Procrastinate, I Procrastinate Properly

It’s not just my hard-won cash I senselessly waste, either. When I study I’m generally able to sit down and plough through several hours of work undistracted. This usually entails, however, that when I fall off the study-wagon, I fall hard and bounce off a rock or two besides. I don’t just spend a few minutes scrolling aimlessly down the twitter feed - I let several hours slide as I’m driven to find out exactly what Astronauts do when they're not up in space. 

More recently I was inexplicably gripped to discover, in detail, the history of the Haiku. After an hour of researching Basho - one of my favourite names ever, by the way - I was inspired to write some Haiku of my own. At this idea, the procrastination sea-slug whispered into my ear: “You know, to write the Haiku you need to get in touch with nature. You can't just sit at a desk, you need to be by rivers and trees and leaves...” 

"You're right!" I cried, enthused, and soon I found myself in a forest, watching the sun setting and trying to fumble my inner zen into a few horrifically-placed syllables.

And with that, the day reserved for studiousness was gone. 

It would have been a day well, if oddly, spent had I the free time to spend. A fortnight before the invigilators were set to feed on my fear, not so much. 

Exploring Haiku/Apparently stuff like this/Doesn't really count

Mechanism D: Becoming Possessed by the Ghosts of Exams Past

This one is less of a coping Mechanism and more of an inevitability, really.

When not hiking through some backwater forest aspiring to be the reincarnation of a long-gone japanese poet, I study English literature, and have done to varying extents for some years now. Indeed, this set of exams marks my seventh time being forced to argue why a certain text means something that the author probably never even realised was an option. 

I love my course. I love reading the text, thinking through the text, reading other’s thoughts on the text. I love spending more time on an author’s works than they probably did themselves.

What I don’t like so much, if you'll excuse the particularly bad pun, is sitting and memorising thousands of Wordsworth of quotes. 

A large part of studying a book is learning the book, and so often my ‘studying’ counts as trying to lodge another sentence that might possibly be needed (but probably won't be) into my head. 

The weird part is a lot of the quotations I’ve learned don't fade away. As I embark on the same study/study-more/more-study/study-like-the-wind process each semester, I find that the most vivid quotes from authors I’ve previously been examined on come roaring back as if these new sentences  are just riding the crest of an older wave.

I’ve found myself walking through the streets of Glasgow murmuring Plath’s best hits (“If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!”) to passers by. Macbeth’s more violent speeches come to mind while whittling through the cupboard for those stray digestives. Eddie is still pining awkwardly over his niece; Browning is still pasting his disturbed speakers along the walls of my head.

What I’ve learned to do, though, is accept the authors in my head; try to let them mingle and say their lines. I know a few weeks later they'll sink back into the subconscious for another season. Worst case scenario, I become a little unhinged in the meantime, but, hey, that’s how the best study outfits are born.


Click here to see my thoughts on Assassin's Creed II,
Or else go here to see where my education began,
Or if you just want Plath to stop looking at you this'll do.