In Transit: May 2011

18 May 2011

Various methods of procrastination during revision

As graduation encroaches, so does the end of my career as an undergraduate at the University of St Andrews. I've really come to love the things I study, but if it were up to me, I would just sit down with my tutors and have an intellectual discussion over a chardonnay rather than the draconian system of biannual examinations. Surely we should be marked on our chat, not just our ability to regurgitate information. Nevertheless, the university appears to still be giving us exams, which means long, torturous days of slogging through badly taken notes and prose that most definitely qualifies as turgid. Yes, we have entered the twilight zone of revision. To be fair, though, most of us spend a lot more time griping about revision than actually undertaking it, and when we finally actually sit down to do some work, 'something more interesting' always seems to come up. Wink, wink.

1. Looking up private islands for sale in the South Pacific. I've never been to the South Pacific, it rarely comes up in the news, and I never encountered it over the course of my studies (the region does not figure prominently in Russian history or Chinese foreign policy, unsurprisingly). My vague notions of the South Pacific are mostly derived from Conde Nast articles and childhood visits to Hawaii, so, within the confines of my head, it has remained a great unblemished paradise of sorts. And it turns out that properties for sale in Tonga, Vanuatu, Fiji et al go for prices that are far from exorbitant-you can buy half of a private island in Bora Bora for just over USD3 million. This seems like a bargain.

Looks decent

2. Excessive, borderline-psychological-disorder-style tidying. Five minutes into a journal article I usually have a mini-freakout over my room being 'filthy'. All surfaces are cleared, disinfected and reordered. All clothes are folded, hung up and stowed, with the laundry sorted into lights, darks and delicates. All stray papers are discarded or filed. All creases in the duvet are fastidiously smoothed; in extreme cases I usually end up changing the sheets and pillowcases even if they were just washed. This is a classic. Everyone knows that a student's bedroom is at its cleanest when an essay deadline or exam is looming.

My bleach usage skyrockets during exam time

3. Personal beautification. I think I've plucked my eyebrows about six times in the past seven days. They don't look all that different-I have a healthy fear of overplucking them-which means that really, I've just spent a lot of time cross-legged on the bathroom counter with my face smushed up against the mirror doing nothing. When I want something more time intensive, I plaster my skin with a clay masque, wait for it to dry, wash it off and moisturise. It takes about ten minutes for it to dry, and I have managed to convince myself that, for those ten minutes, I can't possibly revise. Logically, this is entirely untrue. If I'm really desperate, I clip my nails.

Seriously, don't overpluck

4. Naps. Never a huge fan of office chairs, I do most of my academic work sitting cross-legged on my bed with my back against the wall. Unfortunately, it is nearly effortless to tip over so that my head lands on the pillow, and we all know that from there it's a lost cause.

When I'm out, I'm out

5. Looking up how much it would cost to fly to [obscure faraway destination here]. It would cost 635 pounds to fly from London to Antananarivo (capital of Madagascar, for those too lazy to pull up Google maps) if one embarked on the 16th of March and returned on the 31st.

Central Antananarivo looks just gorgeousss

6. Trying on various formal dresses and high heels. You know, just to remind myself what they look like.

It turns out this dress and heels look exactly the same

7. Downloading most of VH1's Top 100 Dance Songs of the 90s. I am now the proud owner of hits such as Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) by C+C Music Factory, Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-a-Lot, Bad Touch by Bloodhound Gang, MMMBop by Hanson, and Precious by Depeche Mode. I don't like, have never liked, and probably never will like Depeche Mode, and chances are that I will never listen to the others after next Wednesday (last exam).

The 90s were totally rad!

8. Newfound enthusiasm for the gym. At least this one is healthy and constructive-it might provide an opportunity to listen to my new 90s dance hits, gives me the chance to interact with other human beings, pumps me full of endorphins and of course prevents me from becoming a fatass. Plus, if every visit entails cardio, core, stretching, AND sixty minutes in the shower/moisturising my legs/waiting for my hair to dry, one casual innocuous-sounding gym session can take up a good two and a half hours.

What would probably happen if exams went on indefinitely

9. Watching 'educational' documentaries on North Korea. The DPRK has come up in my current module on Chinese foreign policy, but, if I'm entirely honest, it's really not important enough to merit my watching multiple documentaries on the whackjobbery of Kim Jong-Il and his father. It's just so incredibly BIZARRE. How does someplace like that still exist?! Isn't it incredible that there's a whole North Korea that we, the wider world, know absolutely nothing about?!! The more documentaries I watch, the more it blows my mind. And, erm, educates me.

I'll definitely be mentioning this in my IR exam

10. Anything. Really. Along with pretty much every single person in St Andrews at the moment, I'm starting to wonder if I have severe ADD.

Hey! Dressing up as a clown and learning to juggle seems like a constructive use of my time

Good luck, fellow St Andreans. The exams do end eventually.

Where I am

I'm actually so cutting edge that I moved from San Francisco to Oakland, which I'm told is super current; however, on general principle I refrain from making "I heard X is the new Y" statements because it became really uncool after Maureen Dowd did it. I eat a lot of organic produce, complain when the weather drops below 60F, do finance stuff during the day, and have three acupuncturists stored in my contacts who I know judge me for my fondness of early evening cocktails and whisky. Though I don't work in tech, I know a cornucopia of people who do.

Where I was

For four years, home for yours truly was a tiny and immensely picturesque seaside town in Fife, Scotland that goes by the name of St Andrews (also known as the Bubble, St Andys, the 'drews, the Drewzilles, etc). Most people know St Andrews for one of two things, so I get a lot of the following: OMG did you apply because of Prince William? and Heyyy, ever played any golf?

(The answer to both is no. William graduated long before I was here and really, honestly and truly had no influence whatsoever on my choice of universities. And this may be the ancestral home of golf, but I've never picked up a golf club in my life. I have nothing against the sport, it just doesn't get my adrenaline going the same way that plunging down a mountain on a pair of skis or piloting a two-tonne horse over a jump does.)

The town has three main streets, creatively named North, Market and South, and as such, any point in St Andrews can be reached after walking for twenty minutes. There is one Tesco, one Starbucks, one Romanian lady selling the Big Issue and an astronomical charity shops-to-people ratio. By the end of one's degree the place starts to feel distinctly claustrophobic (hence the nickname of the Bubble), especially considering that it is utterly impossible to venture out of the house without running into one or twelve people you know. Sometimes that's great; other times, you just wish you could pick up a pint of milk without having to change out of your comfortable but admittedly foul-looking jumper.

The skeletons of a castle and what would have been Europe's largest cathedral outside of Chartres call St Andrews home as well, though if the Reformation hadn't happened, they would still be intact. Our little town actually has a long a bloody history; look it up on Wikipedia.

Owing to its northerly situation, winter sees lashings of snow, ice, sleet, hail and wind that penetrate even the thickest of gloves and jackets, and it gets dark at three in the afternoon to boot. On the other hand, it's light for twenty hours a day in the summer and St Andrews looks positively gorgeous when the grass is green and the sea and sky are blue. If only it happened more often.

To summarise: it will always have a special place in my heart, and I do miss it, but not in a a wrenching, sobbing-into-my-pillow way. Just in what I suppose is a 'normal' missing way.

My digs immediately post-degree were located in the delightful and now riot-free Clapham, which, for those only familiar with Harrods and Trafalgar Square, is south of the river. The area is a mix (a heady mix?) of out-'n-proud gay men, Caribbean families and 'young professionals' like me who are figuring out what to do with their Hunter wellies and Fair Isle knits now that they live in an urban environment. And lots of Australians with a penchant for talking fifty decibels above everyone else.

Along with central tube connections on the ever-packed Northern line, Clapham's amenities include a great massive nucleus of a Sainsburys, a high street full of bars and restaurants, the green expanse of the Common and one really shitty nightclub called Infernos.

Where I'm from

It all began in 1989 just north of San Francisco, California in a place called Marin County (hop across the Golden Gate Bridge and there you are). Blessed with an embarrassment of riches in the looks department and a climate somewhere close to perfect, Marin was my day-to-day world before I moved to the frigid wind-blasted shores of eastern Scotland.

Back in the 60s and 70s there was a lot of protesting the war, hanging out in hot tubs, wearing homemade hemp clothes and having mystic crystal revelations with the help of psychedelics. Although it's still quite laid-back in comparison to pretty much anywhere outside the tropics, my mom tells me that it's gotten a lot more uptight in the past decade or so, largely thanks to an inundation of wealthy Generation X-ers.

As such Marin now has a reputation that's a weird hybrid of self-indulged, free-spirited, filthy rich, tree-hugging, Botoxed, vegetarian-friendly... After not having lived there for a few years, I'm starting to be able to look at it more objectively, and good God is it a strange place.

But oh, how fantastic-Marin sits on some of the world's most heart-stoppingly gorgeous beaches in addition to residing just a hop, skip and a jump away from the rather fabulous skiing and alpine lakes of the Sierra Nevadas and the world-class wines of the Napa Valley. And of course San Francisco, home of more eccentrics than you can shake a stick at, outstanding East Asian and Mexican food, and the US's oldest ballet company, is just across the Golden Gate. I may be slightly impartial, but I have yet to meet anyone who dislikes the place.