Uni week 4: Guess who’s sick!

That’s right, it’s me. It’s another cold and the cough has returned. I wasn’t up to going in this morning; my anxiety was playing up as well. I really didn’t want to go to Lincoln for the day but I forced myself to get the bus to Grimsby and then get the train from there. It doubles my transport costs but I wouldn’t have managed the walk to Habrough station without an asthma attack or coughing fit. 

I made it through my morning workshop but gave in after dinner and got the train home. Luckily I didn’t have to go all the way to Grimsby and then get the bus back to Immingham; mum picked me up at Habrough after she’d done some shopping for me. When I got home I dosed myself up with cold and ‘flu medication and sat down to work on my poetry assignment. I wrote the poem at the weekend, typed it up a day late and then printed it off at the university library yesterday. I sat down and messed around with it and then wrote the 1000 word reflective piece that I have to do, or a bit of it anyway.

I think that’s a fairly decent amount of work to do, considering how icky I feel at the minute. But I’m a glutton for punishment so I made my changes to the computer files and wrote most of my reflective piece. I managed over 670 word before the caffeine in the pills kicked in and sent me giddy. I may or may not have written the words:

I can write pretentious crap for another 323 words or I can finish at this point.

I really do need to write 1000 words though, but I’m not very good at academic waffle. I’ve said everything I want to say, why do I need to pad it out for an arbitrary number of words?

I’ve written up my notes from the workshop this morning, with a bit of editing. Today we covered setting, the description of the story so that the plot doesn’t take place in a vacuum. I thought I’d share a small thing I wrote in that workshop. It doesn’t look like much to me, but I keep getting asked how I manage to be so creative in 15 minutes? It just happens, that’s the only answer I can give. I just sit and think for a few minutes and then something germinates; I might not manage to write poetry to order but short fiction is easy. I’ve edited a paragraph from this piece because it didn’t work and I went on too long.

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Waves

A false night fell over the park as storm clouds gathered. Josie pulled her coat more closely around her and rammed her hands in to her pockets as she waited for Mike to arrive. The wind picked up, blowing the branches above her violently, reminding her of the sea, waves crashing on the prom in an Easter storm. The grass bent as gusts pushed it one way then another. More waves.

Josie pulled her phone from her jeans’ pocket as the first drops fell into the pond, ripples spreading and merging with each other. The screen distorted as drips made their way through the leaf canopy above. Josie wiped them away. No message, and he was ten minutes late.

Josie fumed and shivered in the cold, pretending her sight was blurred by rain in her face. He wouldn’t come after all.

The rain stopped as abruptly as it had started, the wind dropping to nothing. Only a chill remained. Josie stepped out of the shelter of the horse chestnut, walking to the ponds edge. She’d give him another ten minutes.

Josie checked her phone. No new messages. She tapped the Facebook app; no notifications. Absorbed in her search for any communication from Mike she didn’t hear the footsteps on the concrete slabs, or the press of grass flattened by shoes that preceded them. She turned as a shadow passed, and smiled. He’d arrived! Hands reaching out to her, Mike leant in. Josie slipped as his hand touched her shoulder, pushing her slightly and inevitably off balance.

Josie fell in to the the pond, six inches deep and cement lined.

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In other news, the reason I was at the university library yesterday was because I had an appointment with Welfare to have my DSA’s needs assessment. I was only being assessed for my depression and my advisor/assessor helped me through it. She’s recommending a new laptop and accessories, several pieces of software, a printer/scanner and a recorder so I don’t have to use my tablet to record workshops and seminars. Exciting isn’t it? I need to find two hundred quid from somewhere to pay a contribution to the laptop is the recommendations are approved. I’m going to see Student Services after Reading Week/half-term; there’s a financial aid fund my advisor has told me about that she thinks should help me with the costs. The support is amazing, I wish I’d had so much the first time round. Maybe I’d have done a bit better than a third. That was over a dozen years ago now, and it’s time to look to the future. My goal is a decent MA and then possibly a PhD.

There will be a book review this weekend.

And now I’m going to bed because the pills are wearing off, I’m tired and my throat hurts.

Good night.