Misogyny Rules!

In light of the closure of UniLad, here's an article I wrote for the esteemed people at Exposed Magazine about how to treat the fairer sex...

Read More

Channel Hopping

So, I wrote a piece about my different emotional responses to the prospect of moving abroad for a year, and the lovely people over at Opinion Panel have published it in their community blogging section.
As plenty of time has now passed I've also included said article here, so, enjoy!

Now don’t get me wrong, I was fully aware when I signed up for this French degree that I was going to be spending a year abroad in France, with people who speak it all the time, think in it, dream in it, and have done since it was their first word, but now it’s a matter of months away it’s all sort of hitting me. Right in the face. Like a giant baguette. The prospect of travelling to a foreign country is filled with promise and excitement, but the concept of actually moving there, on my own, for an entire year, is tainted brown with more than a little terror.
I’ve studied French for more years than I actually care to remember, and there is now an entire French section on my bookshelves, filled with everything from Madame Bovary, to L’Histoire de France Pour Les Nuls, but that alone is just not going to cut it. It’s possible to read about and study something to within an inch of its entire concept, but in reality the leap from page to practice is a giant one.

Tell anyone you study a language at any level, and they will immediately regale you with a (mercifully) potted history of their entire experience of any language ever, and then expect you to know the answer to any and every obscure conjugation question they’ve ever pretended to care about. And that’s before producing some member of their family who just so happens to be visiting from France/Germany/Spain/Lithuania (delete as appropriate) and would simply love to converse with you at such a level of fluency, and such a frequency of words, that only a particularly adept foreign dog could respond with any level of coherence or sense. Simply put; I’ve been researching the characteristics of selective mutism, just in case. I’m of course aware that thousands of University students go abroad every single year, and more importantly come back alive, but it hasn’t stopped me wincing at the merest whiff of garlic, and having pre-emptive flashbacks at the briefest sight of stripy-chested men on bicycles with strings of onion round their necks. (More common in South-Westerly England than you might think).

As inevitable as the tides, I will go, I will survive, maybe even excel, and then I will return, with a wealth of self-discovery and personal growth under my belt, and an acquired taste for escargots. In spite of the fact I made it this far without a snail joke, (remarkable, I know) you may have noticed that I’m still trying not to take the inevitable too seriously, in the vain hope that I can laugh my way across the channel in as smooth, and calm a motion as possible, to avoid spending the next year sat in a corner rocking back and forth muttering the Marseillaise in order to try and fit in.

I’ll be fine; I know. It’s going to be an incredible year of discovery and fulfilment, just with the subtitles switched off, and the capacity for living cranked all the way up to 11. Oh, and if I do in fact fall flat on my visage, it is only a matter of 12 months, 52 weeks, or even 365 days, and when it’s all over I can come crawling back to this fair isle; tail between my legs and yesterday’s frog legs still between my teeth.

Read More

Paddon Award Entry

This is my entry to the Paddon Award, in association with the University of Exeter, under the brief "Your Exeter, Your University."
Edit: I wasn't shortlisted, but I'm still proud of the piece, and still feel very strongly about the brief, and Exeter itself, so please keep reading it.

My Exeter, My University, My Home

“Oh Exeter, is wonderful.”

At first it seems strange that what was introduced to me as a fiercely proud football chant should so acutely and accurately sum up my feelings towards this outstanding institution, especially as an avid avoider of almost all things sporting, but then it occurs to me how much my eyes, mind and heart have been opened to so many new experiences in my time here, and it almost seems fitting.

On an entirely superficial level the sheer, breath-taking beauty of both campus and the surrounding city inspire me on an almost daily basis, but the true impact of such accessible splendour runs far deeper. The seamless, constant harmony of pastures new, and old stomping grounds; the constant revolution of new souls, new prospects, and entire futures, with the University a hub of innovation and creativity that stands proudly above the skyline; a beacon of past, present and future in perfect equilibrium. Even on the greyest of Devon days this most extraordinary of places shimmers with possibility, and the constant hum of innovation and progression can always be heard, if you just take the time to stop and listen.

The notion of taking an institution to your heart, of feeling like you belong, seems at best a superficial one, but I can honestly say that Exeter and its essence of strength now pulse through my veins. As the Exe ebbs and flows, so university life meanders through highs, lows and extremes of existence, but the constant comfort of inevitable tidal regularity and stability, like that of the pillar of strength and celebrated creativity that is this institution, even in the darkest of times shines the light of guidance and reassurance in to all corners of life, perhaps most notably as a string of lights in the shape of a Christmas tree atop the physics building during the festive season.

The life-blood of regeneration undulates throughout this city, but it never seeks to wash away those people and things that it has already encountered. I know that I will always feel welcome here, as those who have already moved on do, and that in the inevitable story of my life, the chapter marked Exeter will be a full and vibrant one. That said, should the opportunity to plant roots here present itself, I shall be the first with wellies on, pitchfork in one hand, needle and thread in the other, ready to weave my story in to the tapestry of Exeter life.

Within this, the most communal and supportive of settings, I have been able to spread my proverbial wings, find my feet, and fulfil an entire plethora of clichés, all associated with starting the next stage of life after flying the nest. Clichés would not become clichéd if they weren’t true, in the same way that the intense passion and fondness for the University displayed by Exeter students and its alumni can of course be found within the pages of a prospectus, but also eavesdropped from a passing candid conversation, or gleaned from the proud declaration of the institution’s title across a myriad of colourfully-hooded chests.

Exeter has become a home to me, and while in the business of spouting the occasional cliché, I refuse to reduce everything that this university and this city means to me to a flippant, recycled utterance, or even so much as try. My connections to this place and its people are intensely personal, despite their resonance with the experiences of so many others, and it is this plurality of experience that makes it all the more special. To some, Exeter may simply be a point on a map, or just a choice of university, but for me, this is my Exeter, my university, and now my home.

Read More

Words!

So it's been far too long since I wrote anything on here, even if I have been writing in other places. (Promise!)

Here's something I re-discovered today, and subsequently re-wrote which no longer has a specific home to go to, so I thought I would set it free to let it graze upon the pastures of your minds.

Fresh-Faced

As clichéd as it may be; we were all young once. Your first year at University can be a massive learning curve, and for me, the new influx of freshers just reminds me of how lucky I am to not be one anymore! Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adored being a fresher, and all the challenges, new friends, and questionably legal mixtures of alcohol it threw at me, but having been at a university for that much longer you naturally become more comfortable in your surroundings, and can concentrate on other things besides staking your claim and asserting your independence.

Think back to your first year at University (assuming you’re not currently in it) and think of all the incredible, but also incredibly ridiculous things you encountered. (Maybe keep that thing to yourself)Who am I to try and deny these shiny, new undergraduates all these incredible experiences? It stands to reason that almost all of us, at one point in our university lives, have been that one person in a group of friends who has slightly overestimated the amount of alcohol our perhaps questionably nourished, and sleep-deprived bodies can handle, and subsequently behaved in a manner not entirely in-keeping with the standards to which we hold ourselves in our day-to-day lives: it happens. If it had never happened to me, there would be significantly fewer embarrassing memories for me to suppress, and my closest friends would be unable to relish in reciting the story of my drunken offer of First Aid to a poor, unsuspecting boy, just minding his own business sat on the pavement. (Don’t ask) It is this exploration of limits, and extremes of behaviour that ultimately help shape the person you become for not only the rest of your time at university, but also the person you will someday be out in the big, bad real world.

Finding friends who I know will be there for me at my most sober, and most “wobbly”, has in itself, also brought me the very same people who will support me through both those extremes emotionally, and has helped me find people who will undoubtedly be part of my life for the rest of my days, even if not necessarily physically.

For me, personally, as I’ve aged through university (I would use the word mature, but the two are most definitely mutually exclusive) and I think for others too, priorities have changed. I’ve never been a massive fan of going out to clubs, although it invariably has its place, but as someone nearing the end of their degree it has become more socially acceptable to stay in, drink wine, play board games, drink gin, and find that 4am is the perfect time to end a pseudo-philosophical discussion about music with the unanswerable cry of “Yeah, well, your mum likes Wagner.” (The dead, German one)

So, fellow non-first years; we should not pine, or judge, but instead continue to make our own fun and leave freshers to their own discoveries with perhaps the odd steadying hand should you encounter any particularly intoxicated ones. Someone said to me recently that as an older student I cut a Yoda-like figure in amongst the haze of ’11 leavers’ hoodies, and that’s the kind of distinguished, refined notion I think we should all strive to adhere to.

So until the next time, which I promise will be as soon as I've got my 8,000 word deadline out of the way, I bid you adieu. :)

Read More