Crikey, so many weeks I have passed without a drop. Although time has been consumed, on walks and buses, at work and at the gallery, it has not been well spent. Filled up with things to be done rather than time to do things I have read little and thought less. Yes that sentence does sound a little poncy, but facing a year of hard academic graft after a summer of relatively little serious research or thought I am scared!
Its not that I'm not interested anymore its just I feel caught up in something real rather than a complex entanglement of thoughts which will not work themselves out in my head for at least another 4 years.
Its worrying me because I have always been preoccupied with working things out. When my French teacher said write a story en francais in year 8 I muddled by narrative with complex past participles and infinitives- there was a sentence I needed to write. Well similarly my attempts to grapple with 20th century philosophy and psychology during my undergrad were often bolstered by my tutor's 'You're only an undergrad, this is difficult stuff'. I am NO LONGER an undergraduate. I am surely in a little trouble mais non?
So from learning to live with the reality of everyday in Blackpool and rediscovering the magic of its heritage to returning to that nook in my head. That web of questions, thoughts, images and sentences. This is not a sad farewell, this Summer has given me time-out, time to grow-up. (What you don't learn at uni you learn in the months directly after.) In fact it is not a farewell at all, leaving Blackpool this time does not feel like an escape. Just another chapter will begin.
(I don't think I'll see anyone else smiling in the Courtauld Institute Library either!)
