weeks lecture notes. Some notes, originally taken in relation to an essay topic, but taken so late at night they may be more relevant to zebra husbandry than jurisprudence, appear to have become stuck to an erstwhile pizza box
in a manner which suggests I should be studying adhesives technology.

Also I share my space with a calendar which glares down on me with what I imagine to be growing reproach. It
know I am writing this instead of researching the nature of agreement in contract law, and all I can do, is to turn
it’s grinning face to the wall and hope it goes to sleep for a month or so. The best thing about calendars is that
they remind you of what’s coming up. Ironically that may be the last thing you want them to do. This one seems
to be saying that everything is approaching, fast, and that when it hits it will be like a tsunami. This assignment is
due, that assignment has snuck off and hidden behind the bookcase and won’t come out. That assignment is still
in more pieces than an IKEA entertainment unit and the Allen key is still on the boat from Sweden. I may need to
get a dog. Do they sell them with a pre-programmed desire to eat homework?

I have had some, but not much contact with other off-campus students, and I am hoping that next time I speak to
someone that they feel as panicked and snowed-under as I do. I’m not sure whether to file that feeling under
‘shadenfreude’ or ‘inevitable’. Or perhaps just hopeful. Hopeful that other people out there are feeling the
burden I am. (I am also concerned that this may be the only ‘filing’ I do this week!)

I know that things will get easier as I get the feel for this study thing, it is so foreign to me at present that I might
as well be studying on Mars. I am also facing the prospect that more will be expected of me as I get further into
the subject. For now I think I just need to ride the panic and use the energy, although my greatest fear is being
discovered asleep at my desk again, a trail of drool, oozing, as if a snail has slithered into my mouth while I slept.
The family don’t need to see me like that.

Finally a post on DSO raised the tension to 11 out of 10. The marks and comments would be
released….”throughout the day”. Through out the day for Christ sake!! Why don’t you just dangle me from a
fraying rope over a pit of man-eating tigers, Poe style?

More posts on DSO. Students unable to find their marks. Students unable to stand the tension. Students just,
basically, freaking out. A sort of electro-panic, or cyber-panic maybe, seemed to grip the off-campus audience.
We were all connected by the same fraying rope. All eyed speculatively by the same tigers. I’ve not yet felt so
close to other off-campus students, and yet because, for me, this was make or break, I was sure I was slipping
slowly tiger ward!

Release. The waiting over. The file opened. The result viewed. The relief palpable. I did well. In fact I was very
happy with how I went. I can continue. I am up to it! I do belong in this company!! Nothing can stop me now!!!

Except for my OTHER assignment. Just submitted, it swims in the same cyberspace which swallowed the origi-
nal work. When is this one due back? I’m not sure. How did I think I did? I can’t tell. Am I likely to sink into the
same deep well of introspection that had me back on the couch rubbing shoulders with bad American sit-coms
at one bad result? It’s sadly likely.

And then there’s the exams! Oh, God the exams!!!

Wish me well. Not for the study. Hopefully results will just be a function of my abilities. Wish me well for the
hopeless human failings that, I think, most of us suffer from. And now, let’s all just sit on the floor, hold hands
and wait for our next essay assignments to be returned. Maybe, one day I will learn to handle the wait like a
grown-up!
Tony Whittman
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