Back to Cardiff means one thing for me: back to revision. It's a hideous reality I'm finding quite hard to come to terms with... forced day and night to plow through my laborious notes on subjects I really couldn't give two shits about. I can literally feel joy for life seeping out of me, whilst the overwhelming want for vodka grows day by day, hour by hour.
And the worst part? Having to pretty much move into the Library... Walking into that intimidating, prison like building is like walking through the fucking wardrobe to Narnia. It's just the most peculiar place where hatred and self loathing is palpable in the air. I made my first trip to ASS (Arts and social sciences for you non-cardiff pplzzz) today of 2012. Firstly, there's an actual guard to the library. Granted, he may be an old withering guy, but still. He sits at his little desk, making sure NO ONE goes through those barriers without their student card. I let in my friend with me today who'd forgotten hers and I was just waiting for an armed group of assassins to come charging in and wrestle us to the ground. But alas, no wrestling.
It then takes a good amount of time to find a spare place to sit, because the library is THE place to be of course. We found ourselves a nice little table opposite a cutie with the most pathetically small laptop i'd ever seen. Sorted, sit down, books out, revision on. But then, the power of the library takes over you. It suddenly makes you the biggest fucking loser ever. The SECOND anyone makes any noise, you and everyone around you spins around and glares at them... no words said... just glares. It's automatic. And also so fucking goony. But I know I for one can't help it. I actually once "told" on a friend in a library because they were making to much noise... seriously, what even is that? I just turn into some sort of nerdy, lacking in social skills berk when I'm stuck within all those hundreds of books. Everyone gets so nasty in the library as well. If I look up from my work for a second, I can guarantee you there will be someone staring at me, with a look of contempt in their eyes. And they don't even look away when I catch them at it, they just keep on staring, daring me to make a noise.
And lets not forget the delicious odour the library provides. I don't know whether due to me not speaking or really listening to anything my sense of smell increases, but I swear there is just always a lone fart roaming the room. It moistens the air, whofting by when you least expect it. Is it a human fart? Who knows... perhaps it is just the natural pong of that hell hole.
The tension in there... fuck me the tension is something else. You're almost thrown into a competition of who can work the hardest for the longest. I'm always scared to stand up and leave unless someone judges me. And forget leaving if the people who were already there when you arrived haven't already left... No way, you need to stay until they've gone, lest they ridicule you for your failure at life. If the stress of revision isn't enough, boom you've got judgement on your plate as well.
So once the mind numbing, sweat inducing revision has officially turned your brain into mush... in comes the spell of schizophrenia. It may just be me... and likely it is... but give it a couple of hours of revision in that place and I literally start to go mental. I find everything around me fucking hilarious. Random bursts of hysteria are a norm. Face goes bright red. Have the sudden urge to do ridiculous things. Just general retardness. And that's the time you know you need to leave. But, note, don't make a noise during the packing away of your precious things, or the tutting will be deafening. Silence. At. All. Times.
