THE CITY THAT WEEPS

You said you'd take me to the city that never sleeps
So why do we find ourselves in this city that forever weeps

dreams of a dreary metropolis
built on the landscape of some plethoric necropolis

- - - - - 27th Nov. 2018

Having been promised a free trip to London in exchange for sweet talking some prospective Warwick students into applying for the English department, I figured I may as well put my experience (wooing tricking my tutors into giving me that sweet 2:1) to use and 'share my experience' (aka glamorise a department which is literally falling to pieces)

I had planned on napping before the 1 hour 40 minute train journey but the cleaners decided to come and literally TYRANNisE THE HOusE

I'm not even joking in my half sleep state I was awoken by the cacophonous clashes of plates being abused at the hands of these malevolent sprites of sanitisation (or so thats whom they claim to be) overlaid with highly inappropriate discussions of their sexual exploits at way too high a volume for anyones liking

and then it gets weirder

they burst into a hellfire of songs comprising a rendition of a classic yuletide carol in which the chorus is adapted to:

'JINGLE BELLS MY HOUSE SMELLS'

Now fully awoken not through the sound of this dystopian cacophony but the RACING FEAR FROM MY OWN FRIGHTENED HEARTBEAT unsure of what reality my being has slipped into I messaged the house group chat to ask wtf was going on and if anyone else could hear the maniacal singing/ screaming/ swearing; alas, no one else was in but they all said we should record them; i stood by the door v evasive v conspicuous gathering documental evidence, and drafted a message to the landlord v fiesty v sass telling him if the cleaners aren't gonna do their job properly/professionally we should just not have them at all pls & ty

eventually they left and we scanned the minefield that was the kitchen and almost slipped in my unicorn slippers (thank u nikita) bc they released their floodgates of liquid menace

Anyway, I made some beans on toast and equipped myself with my purple umbrella (from NYC) and it protected me from the coventry rainfall as it once did the 4am New York City as I awaited no other than Carly Rae to arrive

I hopped on the bus (ily national express) and within 9 minutes I had arrived at the railway station

I sat down in the waiting area within platform two ensuring i had a seat in view of the clock

The train arrived and on the journey after hesitantly scanning the aisles for the optimal place to sit and read I perched myself in the corner of a whole six-seat section which i henceforth claimed as my territory

During the almost two hour journey I passed the time by tweeting about the events surrounding the disruption of my nap and I read 'Exquisite Corpse' by Poppy Z Brite, a book written by a transman about gay necrophilic serial killer cannibals finding love

idk whether the nausea was from the motion sickness or the cannibals but somehow i really wasn't feeling the knock off gluten free oreos in my bag

Eventually I arrived in Euston and I really needed to pee but there was a 30p charge for the toilets and a) I'm a cheap hoe and b) I aint about to be contributing to capitalism's desire for gentrification from my scatological processes

so I did what i do best and went SUPPRESS and told my bladder to suck it up or stfu

also, outside the euston station toilets I saw the most heartbreaking scene of a man without a home, cradling his ashy brown dog in his arms and I could see the smile behind her closed eyehole lids and the love that kept them going

before I got to emotional or remorseful I left the station and felt an unexpected familiarity as I recalled being at this square many months ago, though the hellishly hot capital city sun had been replaced by a nightfall flood

So I armed myself with my purple umbrella, which, in the wind was quite a fight against the elements lol and google mapped my way to warwick's london base, located no where near the university campus just like how the university is located no where near warwick (in fact its not even in the same county)

I arrived literally just on time but in classic rafpunzel style I walked into the wrong place... twice... each time depleting my confidence so by the time i had arrived at the correct location i was an awkward anxious puddle of poodle

I said 'hello I'm here for the uni of warwick english open day' and after being directed to the free toilet (hA take THAT CAPITALISM) I was informed to go upstairs, in which a rainbow hair escort directed me into the conference room

I was directed to another lady who asked for my name; after struggling to find me on the list my seminar tutor saved me as he passed me a lil tag that had a blank space for my name and the words 'English student ambassador' below a pretty 'W' insignia

He introduced me to the others who I would be presenting with (one fourth year student and one masters alumni) as well as some of the staff who were present

After waiting way longer than it should have for me to find the courage to take the seat which seems to have been awaiting my arrival, I engaged in some spoken interactions with the alumni student next to me, culminating in 'I saw you talk at the postgraduate event the other week'

spoiler alert: wasn't her

Thankfully, she saved me from too much embarrassment by telling me people frequently comment on how she has a familiar face (aka pretty brunette theatre student face aka every white girl)

My seminar tutor returned to me and asked proffered an introduction to the head of department; after asking if we'd met I said 'of course' which I realised may have been received slightly sassier than intended as his response indicated. I admitted my 'knowing' constituted her being my lecturer

sem tutor: For R&V?
me: no modes. wait but also RomVic. Oh wait thats R&V I call it RomVic hahahahaha osdjsldkjg oh no rip

realising this convo had reached a cul-de-sac end he swiftly informed me he'd be going over to 'network' omg i hate that word

(in my defence for not realising what he said at first he has a strong case of G.A.V. [gay american voice] which I should be familiar with since I do dwell with a gay american who decided to GET WITH ONE OF MY FRIENDS ON MY BIRTHDAY but lets not go there pls its been three days idc)

After the departmental staff had all finished with their talks they asked the three of us to come up to the front to 'share our experience' and boy I did not realising what an anxiety fuelled journey I was signing up for

the closer I got to speaker (temporally) the shakier i got and I felt like a pile of paint sludge standing up at the front of the room, the dark eyes of my spectators illuminated by the bright white lights of the screen behind me

I was quite the deer in headlights and the audience was the vehicle about to run me over

Anxiety makes you conscious of strange things: for some reason I became hyper aware of where I was looking, who I was looking at, the ratio of weight distribution on each hip, whether it was noticeable that i was anxious about which hip I was resting most of my weight, if people were looking at me like wtf is that gender ambiguous shadow doing shifting their weight from side to side

but one advantage of my anxiety from being the centre of public focus is that I manage to channel it into comic comments

I started off pretty stoic and serious when discussing the interdisciplinary nature of the degree and going on a slight tangent about my love for post-colonialism and french literature before engaging in some witty comments with the others as I told the audience that whilst coventry might not be the prettiest city in the world, in fact it could quite possibly be the most stuck-in-the-60s mediocrity leamington (the royal spa town in warwickshire where all my friends live campus) is not worth the 7 mile commute every day (and also we have an ikea so yeah live in COV)

it wasn't that witty but i made people laugh a couple of times so yeah i didn't feel as bad as I could have

Subsequently, we were told to mingle and a girl v apologetically asked me for some advice and if I could look over her personal statement; after recommending a few grammatical and syntactical alterations and telling her the content was v good, I think I gave her the self confidence she needed to submit her UCAS application tomorrow. Bless her soul she was so tentative about asking for things but I gave her some advice for essay writing and A levels and she seemed so shocked that I was impressed with her personal statement and I was just like 'girl you gotta believe in urself !!' cliche but the kind of love we all need to hear (and also it feels good to say it unironically)

She asked whether the students at warwick are like stuck up royalties and I confessed yeah but you'll find your people eventually like I found mine (I recommended taking cross-school modules and going for the cheaper accommodation bc thats where they'll be found)

eventually she thanked me and left and I was v alone again

This v cute careers lady came and said well done to me for my speech and told me I seemed v genuine and thats what people want and like and I was so blessed she said that because I told her I thought I was just so anxious I didn't know what I was saying but I guess with these psycho/neurological disorders comes a realness thats rare to find

My seminar tutor spotted me alone and called me over to where he was mingling with the head of dept. and a couple of other staff and I was so like !!!!! bc I can barely have a conversation with people normally let alone people I admire/ are in a position of power however in a place where these hierarchies are temporarily suspended/ outside a classroom or email context and it was a little awkward because I didn't know what to say until the head of department came and I thanked her for the powerpoint (and we started talking about hedgehogs and ALSO SHE MENTIONED ABOUT HOW SHES A GAY AND IT MADE ME SO HAPPY TO REALISE THERES AN LGBT FEMALE IN A POSITION OF POWER at an institution as oppressively male-centric as warwick)

but she was v kind and told me I could come to her office and she'd help me catch up on notes bc I have a clash bless her

Also, I asked her if she knew my fav seminar tutor from bath spa bc they're both romanticists and she said she does know her and I was just like aksnlasfl gj fed i love her i miss her i am convinced she is alyssa edwards in disguise sHE IS THE WOMAN WHO MADE ME FLAL IN LOVE WITH ROMANTICISM FSFKSD"fl
but of course I kept most of this internalised
I felt strangely comfortable with her compared to my seminar tutor because although I love them both, I've listened to many of her lecture recordings and will never forget the time she said that she thinks BoJack Horseman is a v handsome horse and that perhaps she should have just kept that to herself (he is beautiful tbf)

Eventually I said my goodbyes, bought some miso soup from itsu and caught the train home and reached the final chapter of exquisite corpse and I can honestly say its the most compelling get repelling book I have ever read in my life

I walked home from the trainstation and vowed never to open the covers of that wretchedly hooking book ever again

at least until my seminar tomorrow... in 7 and a half hours... I should probably sleep
---------------------------------------------

Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.

- TS Eliot, The Wasteland