Notes from prisoner #579846 - detained in Edinburgh University Main Library

For the 8th day in a row, I'm in the university library. 2 hours in and I'm already bored out of my mind and keep checking facebook on a stupidly constant basis as if in the five minutes I left it, someone will have tagged me in a picture or written on my wall. Not that I really care, I'm just avoiding the mountain of work in front of me.

I feel like a prisoner in this 7 story building. Orange jumpsuits aside, I'm trapped in its four walls and rows upon rows of books and desks and students madly trying to finish their final essays. My computer is the only contact with the open, free world. I can see Arthur's Seat from where I'm sitting. About a dozen people up there today - I wish I were one of them.

The vacation is over - Alex and I had a wonderful time while he was here (blog post forthcoming...once I get around to it). For 10 glorious days I forgot about my 3 final essays, all worth 100% for each of my courses and my pass-or-fail graded dissertation proposal that lay ahead of me. I could just relax and breathe and enjoy life and play tourist for a bit. 10 days was far too short.

this is happy me

That was a week ago. And ever since I've been sitting here, steadily hammering through a 4000-word essay on usage-based phonology and lexical frequency; a 4000-word project on Yorkshire Dialect Literature; a 2500-word essay on language contact and structural convergence; and a 1500-word dissertation proposal on...well, my dissertation. Everything due on the 19th, 23rd, 27th and 30th, respectively. So far I've plowed through the first two 4000-word monstrosities (luckily I had finished one before Alex arrived), so timing-wise I'm doing okay. I guess I shouldn't complain too much - everyone else around me is in the same boat. And again, I did this to myself...

It's hard to believe that second semester is over and that I'm already 2/3 of the way through my MSc. I can't get over the fact that I am completely done with classes - for pretty much the rest of my life. And the fact that this is very much how my life is going to be for the next 4 months. Researching, reading, writing, repeat. I quite literally have nothing else to do. I sit in here for 8 hours a day, then go home, make dinner, sit on the couch and watch TV like a career-couch potato and go to bed. I hope this ends soon, because I'm going to get cabin fever if I don't get outside the 1-mile radius of going between home and this godforsaken building. Even my friends have all gone off on some sort of lovely Spring vacation - which I guess is fine for getting work done and not being distracted by constant invites. Even my roommates have left me! (Nicola's back today, thank god). Only person keeping me sane is my course-mate Jen, who had all the same classes as me the entire year so we can commiserate together.

However once I get out from under the immense pressure of these final deadlines, I'm quite looking forward to the freedom that summer will bring. Sure, I'll have my dissertation to do, but it won't quite be the 24-hr library lock-down I'm currently experiencing. My only responsibility will be the dissertation, and that's it. Which is odd, because I haven't spent a summer without a paying job since I was 14 (except 2008). I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with myself. I am looking forward to continuing all the things I love, leisure-wise - I signed up for classes at Dance Base, trying new aerobics classes at the gym AND I've even started aerial dance again! I just started last Wednesday out in Leith...it felt so good to touch silks and trapeze again and to be upside-down! I missed being upside-down. If I could I'd be upside-down all the time, except I heard once that some guy did a handstand for a 1/2 hour and died when he came down, so maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea.

maybe I should have joined the circus instead of an MSc program

Anyways, it's these small pleasures that get me out and about and get my mind off school that help keep my head from exploding. Plus I'll be volunteering at Sighthill until mid-June, so it'll be nice to parler un peu de français avec les enfants. And while I finished my transcription job last month, Dr. Wolters said there may be some transcription work to do within the department over the summer, so hopefully I'll be able to add to my ever declining bank funds.

And with Ma and Pa coming for a visit in just 3 weeks and BFF Margo coming in June, I have a lot to look forward to. I might even get a travel opportunity or two depending on how productive I am. I am dying to go back to Nancy for a couple days...

Okay, that's enough procrastinating for now...next blog will be up soon, promise! But for now, back to reading about Middle English lexical semantics...