sleepwalking on a tightrope

The past week has been: coffee with Jake, coffee with Nicole, plenty of thought-provoking talk about school, post-school, life and living resulting; a frantic romp through Alice and assorted criticism to cull quotations; a slow start on Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony which I have been quite dying to read for a while; the YTR marketing department winning the much-coveted Achievement in Marketing Award at the Theatre Management Association Awards on Thursday, which made me all glowy even though all I do is pop in once a week to do menial odd jobs; Cluedo party at April’s! where I was Miss Scarlet and got to wear a pretty red dress; planning and finally booking a short trip to Spain in June: so looking forward to Alicante, where the hotel has a swimming pool and the beach close by - it doesn’t take a great deal to make my day these days.

So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality - the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds - the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd-boy - and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all the other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard - while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.

It’s not much longer, now, till all this ends; people keep saying September is so far away, but it scares me how quickly nearly five months of this year have flown by and before we know it it’s going to be June and then half the year, half the year, will have gone - where? I don’t want to waste it, I don’t want to lose it, and be harshly jolted back to reality, like Alice, by someone brushing the falling leaves off my sleeping face - realising after all that Wonderland was a dream - but was it?

on comfort zones

Following a brief chat the other day about York’s recent drop in UK university rankings (we’re now 11th overall in the Good University Guide - traditionally we’ve always been within the top 10, though fortunately we’re still 6th in the English ranking), it occurred to me that, upon thinking about it, a disproportionate number of my fellow English grad students have expressed dissatisfaction with the uni in some respect or other at some point of time during my conversations with them. Most of said complaints arise because of the library - which I frankly never thought of as that bad - but quite a few other issues that have come up seem to stem from the fundamental fact that York is not wherever they did their undergrad… and people are slow to adjust to differences.

Taking for example something as simple as teaching - I think after all these years, I’ve been eminently adapted to York’s system of mostly independent reading and seminars being more about freestyle discussion than actual teaching sessions. So I was surprised, and somewhat at a loss for a witty rebuttal, when I spoke with coursemates who said the lack of proper teaching rankled and they came here not to learn from other students but from professors who are experts in their fields. It’s a fair enough point, but I always find myself bristling with impatience now when I’m stuck in a class where the prof talks a lot and I just work my right hand to the bone scribbling notes furiously; I never thought I’d say this ever, but I want to talk, I want to hear what the others have to say, I want a rapid-fire idea exchange, I’m not here to listen to a lecture - ! Yet it seems that that is precisely what other people are here for, and this is because their undergraduate unis were like that (I’ve found it especially prevalent among students from continental Europe). So how do we strike a middle ground to keep all students happy?

We’re strong in all areas; our research quality has been 5* forever and ever and our entry standards are high. The only category in which we’re noticeably lapsed from the rest of the top 10 in English is student satisfaction (3.77/5, the next lowest is 3.90 and most of them are above 4) - and what is student satisfaction? Such a nebulous concept… but there must be something we’re not getting right, since graduate students in other universities are quite happy to average scores of >4 for student satisfaction. Perhaps the problem really is with our facilities? But again, maybe it’s just about what you’re used to, what you aren’t; because I’ve been here for three years already I am more than happy to work with what our library has plus what journals we can get online (which, in all fairness, is a decently sized database - ATHENS gives you access to a lot of things). I don’t feel constricted by my 20 book borrowing limit or by the fact that students can take books out for entire durations of holidays regardless of requests for said books - but I’ve found that my coursemates are. And again… I don’t know that there really is that big of a problem with our library per se. One just has to realise that this is a whole different ballpark, get used to it, and roll with it, right? Or am I just being too smallminded because I’ve been playing in the same ballpark all this while…?