daily collumn

Hi

I have decided that since my writing skills are sorely lacking and I can't seem to do any work for more than five minutes at the time before I get distracted I shall make the effort and write something every morning. Obviously the more I write the easier it will become and therefore I will be able to hand in some half decent work (even though this will be coming too late as most coursework I've got is due in this month).

Yep, you might have guessed it, I am a student. I'm studying Linguistics at Bangor University which is a place I grew to like over the past three and a half years and hence I stayed on to do a Masters degree in said discipline; a decision I am not sure I would take again as I might have become somewhat bored of the general academic process and the writing of assignments. Nevertheless I am doing this Masters degree and I'm not willing to concede failure because I know that I am not. I am quite an intelligent person, even saying so myself, but this year has been less than fortunate to me.

It all started out when I moved into this gorgeous house in early summer 2006. I was absolutely in love with it and didn't have a problem with the fact that I didn't know most of the people I moved in with; something you can get over very quickly in one night's drinking and general merriment. Unfortunately most of the housemates (some had moved out and some had moved in) turned out not to be students anymore by the time I started my MA so that the house started getting noisy every time I though I could do some work. the fact that most of the inside walls of said house were paper thin didn't help the matter.

There were good times as well though. I'm still friends with all of them and I wouldn't want to miss them for the world. Also, through some fortunate twist one of my (now ex-) house mate's mate came to stay for a week before she found a place to stay of her own as she just started an MA too. Needless to say that I wouldn't be mentioning this if it weren't for the fact that we started dating in October of the same year and are still going out, I'm as happy as Larry with her the same goes for her. Playing Sardines also comes to mind in connection wit that last house I lived in. Oh the fun you can have during a power cut!

Since then I have moved into a new place where I inhabit the attic room. The house is an equally gorgeous find with as awesome a view as you could ever wish to have it; especially from my double-window. Again I didn't know an of the housemates at the time I moved in but we get on very well, a fact that is underlined with the frequent partying gong on in our house.

With regards to work however the situation's bad. As my first deadlines fell in line with me moving house and all that I was able to get extensions, which I have kept, if only just, but unfortunately this also meant that I was working on assignments by the time the next semester had started. By this time I had decided that I would not put up with doing two things (i.e. pieces of coursework) at once as I was already finding it increasingly difficult to juggle life in a language I speak very competently but which isn't my mother tongue. Now, after another semester of academic struggle I am faced with deadlines again. Four of them to be precise and some would quite rightly say, "Well you'd better get a move on then!" which is precisely where my problem lies. I can't. I'm feeling incapable of doing any serious amount of work even though the assignment I'm working on at the moment covers a topic that is of personal interest to me and that I wish to pursue in the future.

Why then can I not work? Well, some would probably put it down to laziness as indeed the right out abandonment of work in favour of some cheap, quickly gratifying entertainment seems to be. However, I think it is not laziness that's making me unable to work but that a sequence of factors are all affecting the situation.

1. I am an activist. Something I have learned over the past few years is the fact that I learn things better and quicker than anyone IF - i find a useful application of the subject matter or if I can discuss the subject matter with someone else. That way my ideas are perpetuated and I will end up knowing stuff through collecting knowledge and making the right conclusions. If I don't get any interaction with the subject matter, other than what I read, this does not happen, or only very slowly. Therefore information my brain will store is information that is agitated and used. If it's not used it's not worth knowing. Which unfortunately at the moment means that I know almost nothing about Discourse Analysis, Bilingualism and Semantics and Pragmatics. And my Welsh language learning, which I do as part of my course is deteriorating as well since I don't really get to practice (on my own) and I don't really see how it's going to be assessed anyway with no exams or anything.
2. My work environment has to be right. I am still suffering from a bad start since my work environment at the other house was shite. Although I now have a work environment that would be favourable for me, being behind with work meant that I neglected doing much work since my last assignments because I was constantly aware of being behind. Vicious circle. And I am still annoyed about the fact that I had such a bad start in the first place, because I did have high hopes for this Masters degree.
3. I have, it has to be said, an addictive personality. As far as physical drugs are concerned I am only into alcohol and there I know my measure. I like my ale, I like enjoying a good pint and I don't do spirits very often. Getting drunk is not something i willingly set out to do for I am of the opinion that the aftermath is simply not worth going through. I don't smoke and I don't do neither hard nor other soft drugs. However, I do like my computer games, which is unfortunate because faced with deadlines I really can't afford to waste time playing the damn things. But this is the thing about computer games; they're instantly gratifying, in that they are simple to learn play and play well and they most invariably have a collecting factor to them. Where items can be collected, hoarded or sold off for lots of (in-game) profit, I'm there. But it doesn't even have to be MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game - basically World of Warcraft, EveOnline, etc.) even little applications such as Spider Solitaire or the Einstein Puzzle will be enough incentive for me to abandon work because they are simply more gratifying that writing down sentences I cannot form in my head in the first place.

So there you have it. Sucks even more because I am aware of all this but don't know what to do about it. And as far as humans go, it doesn't matter how many friends you've got, you're still on your own when it comes to things like this.

But I want to finish on a happier note than this, so here goes. My girlfriend will probably read this, but I don't mind.

I have not known love like this before I met her.