Woke up at 9am. Left the house at 10:15am. Walk into the train station and the station master was in the process of moving a bookshelf into the station waiting room. Stood Awkwardly, hovering as I waited and tried not to get in the way. Station master began to chat to me explaining the whole bookshelf thing and I must surely have won an award for the most unenthusiastic “oh. wow.” ever. Awkward one sided conversation was awkward. Arrived in Liverpool at 12:10pm. Trudged to University. Barely any free spaces in lecture hall, ended up sitting next to the four people I would have really liked not to. Stared at floor, out the window, took my time taking my books out my bag, wishing they wouldn’t notice me. They noticed me. Had awkward non-conversation with them. Wished the floor would swallow me whole. Lecture start. Stared at the front of the room with all the appearance of listening intently to my lecturer, letting all the information wash over me. Let it hit me that I’m back, this is it. Everything is just the same. Had 10 minute break after an hour of listening to lecturer attempting to motivate us to work hard- “Think of the future! Think of your great paycheck when you eventually become an engineer! There is a lack of engineers, you know! THINK OF THE FUTURE!” (I don’t think he was succeeding). Stood up, realised I had no one to talk to or anywhere to go. Pulled out phone and pretended to be texting. Break over. Counted down the hours, the minutes. Lecture over. Walked to shop in a quest for chocolate. Walked back to uni. Lecture two. New lecturer who has a really thick accent and has a weird teaching technique- one of those teachers who believe everyone should participate and screw different learning styles. New lecturer who doesn’t ask you to be quiet or pay attention just says “Hello” a lot then repeats it until we shut up “Hello, Hello, HELLO“. It reminded me of this weird thing my old head master used to do in the end of term assemblies: he’d raise his hand, expecting everyone to raise their hand and shut up in the process. It was ineffective, more amusing than something that would gain respect and silence, as is the hello guy’s way of getting us to shut up. Stared at front and put my “I’m listening intently not falling asleep with my eyes open” face on again as lecturer launched into a lecture without any introduction to what we are learning. Felt like I was attempting to learn advanced french when I didn’t even know the basics. Counted down the hours, then minutes. Lecture over. Raced to train station. Sank into my seat on the train and stared out the window, feeling tired and vaguely depressed. Went to bed too late after hours of fucking around doing nothing. Woke up after getting two or 3 hours sleep. Dark, cold, the incessant ringing of my alarm too loud in the silence. Rushed around trying to get ready, practically ran to the station. Train. Then university. Labs. Found myself working with someone I actually liked, for once. Labs are something I always dread but today they were OK. We finished early. Sat around discussing work with two people in my class for a bit until tutorial. Tutorial over and then on the Train, again. Stared enviously at guy across the aisle’s lunch; burger king, or perhaps McDonald’s. Looked down miserably at my own measly cheese sandwich, slightly stale, and three biscuits. Guy from my class came on train, we met eyes and I looked away, buried my face into my magazine and hoped he didn’t see me. Eventually, home.
Two days pass in the blink of an eye. Every day is just the same.
I’m tired, and I’m bored.
University has been OK though. After all that end of holidays panic, you end up slipping back into the routine pretty easily…