Coming 'Round the Bend

This has to be brief as I’m off for a study session for exam #2.

So I sat my first Oxford exam today. I experienced the pomp and circumstance of going to the exam schools in your sub fusc (Black pants/skirt, white button down shirt, and academic gown), cramming into the reception hall with the hundreds of other nervous students, and sitting in the hallway nursing my scotch before my exam.

Yea, you heard me right. I walked into my exam a little tipsy.

Now, its not because I am an alcoholic or I wanted to be a bad ass and brag how I aced my Oxford exams drunk, no its for a much more neurotic reason—I am a terrible test taker and was crying the night before and have a habit of blanking out when I am put under pressure. A little nip (maybe a shot and half of whisky this morning, if that much), calmed my nerves and allowed me to remember all that I did.

So the result? Well, the questions I answered while under the influence, I think I did ok on those two. The one where I sobered up because it was so hot in the room I almost passed out from my waking hangover, let’s say I didn’t do too well on that exam—especially with the room spinning and I blanking on the topic because of my severely low blood sugar, and rambling about marriage delays and how my generation is really selfish.

We’ll see how I do, or else I may be an Oxford ’08 graduate.

You know it wouldn’t be the failing part that would get me, it would be returning to this fucking hell hole having to do this shit all over again.

But I showed them today: my sub fusc was a pair of sweatpants and my worn loafers that look like slippers—take that aristocratic British system from this angry American. Oh yea, and we won the war too.

I WANT MY MOMMY

I should be studying right now as I sit my first exam, since I was 20, on Monday morning at 9:30am. But a caffeine, taurine, and nicotine induced headache has kept me from doing little else than scarf down chocolate and copy my notes onto notecards. Oh yea, and chain smoking Marlboro lights.

My pound a day weight loss may be coming to an end very shortly.

Well, unless I become recommitted to the neurosis cause again.

My sleep schedule is incredibly fucked up. If it isn’t the massive amounts of legal stimulants that I am pumping into my body IV-drip consistency, then it must be the panic attacks that wake me in the middle of the night, only to leave my worn body and mind in that frustratingly blurry place where sleep and coherency lay.

After a rough day of pleasure denial, fasting, and pouring over my notes in an effort to distill them into succinct two sentence synopsis of the arguments, my brain gave out. It was 11pm, and for the first time since my trip back home to NYC last week I was tired at a reasonable hour. With my computer sitting on top of my nightstand, I watch some pirated copies of Family Guy and proceed to fall asleep to Stewie’s overt homosexuality.

Now, I wish I could say that for the first time I arrived back here that my dedication to my body’s well-being won out and that it was a good decision for me to go to sleep at a reasonable hour, but come on, it’s finals week.

When I woke up, I had to pee really badly. I look over at my clock and saw that it was 1am—which meant that I got a whopping two hours of sleep. I tried to hold it in and fall back asleep, but when I felt the pain in my bladder, I knew I had to get up from my bed and go to the bathroom. I was so tired I was tempted to crawl out of bed and go to the bathroom in my underwear, but I live next door to a conservative Christian. I don’t think he could ever get over seeing me in my skivvies prancing to the bathroom at 1am.

I come back to my room, crawl back into bed and try to fall asleep.

And I can’t.

I try masturbating, and then try to fall back asleep.

But it doesn’t help.

And then my mind starts to wonder. I don’t know if any of you ever had the experience where you don’t realize what you were dreaming until you are awake for a few mins. Laying there, in my bed, I realized that my dream was really fucked up and spooky—I dreamt that I overslept my exam and then failed.

Now, when your mind starts to wonder, and it is the middle of the night and the only thing to keep you company is the dark of a Saturday night spent home, it only serves to exacerbate a person’s neurosis. Which it did to mine.

So I sat in my bed, until 7! am, trying to fall asleep to Dave Chappelle, and nursing a panic attack that held my mind hostage so I could get no other studying done.

Which brings us here.

So, long time readers, you all know that after several tries, a freak-out, and weird periods, I have finally found a birth control pill that works for me! However, it’s also the one that has been liked to STROKES in the UK—and during finals time I become a heavy (about a pack a day) smoker.

I think we all can see where this is going.

Tonight’s neurosis has been trying to figure out if my headache is from too much Red Bull and drinking a two liter bottle of Diet Coke today or, if it is a symptom of my impending brain aneurism. And no I can’t take a xanax because there is no way I could do work while I’m on it.

Having gone to bed at 7am I set the alarm for 11:30am. A bit of a later start than I would have liked, but during finals, I need at least 4 hours of sleep to be productive. Part of my ritual during finals is that since I am rubbish in the morning, I use that time to head out to the grocery store, stock up on provisions for the day’s task (Red Bull, Diet Coke, and Marks and Spencer’s prepared meals) and use that time to engage my lungs in a way that doesn’t involve poisoning them.

This morning I walk down Cornmarket street, one of the main thoroughfares of Oxford where street performs are just as common as the homeless men (where are the homeless women, btw?) selling the Big Issue. Keep in mind that I am freaking out from my dream the night before/that morning, and as I am walking down Cornmarket, I see a stand handing out pamphlets for Jesus. Ok, this isn’t that big of a deal, it’s pretty common for the die hard Jesus lovers to evangelize on a Saturday morning to the tourists. However, this morning, it seemed every religious group was out. Literally every ten feet there was another group proselytizing, including the Muslims—which I thought were like Jews, you had to seek them out yourself. Of course, neurotic, sleep deprived, food deprived, love and hug deprived Shannon starts to freak the fuck out, and think that God is sending her a message telling her that she is going to fail—the dreams were prophetic.

Which brings me back to my uber productive day.

Why wasn’t I smart and stock up on ADD meds BEFORE I left for the states? Red Bull is doing a poor job of cutting it.

Anyway, I’m going to bring my computer back to my desk. Pop open another can of Red Bull (#3 for the day), ignore the temporary pain that it causes me in my kidneys, and start memorizing arguments and outlining exam questions.

Seriously, I really want a fucking hug right now. And sex. Like seriously, whenever I’m stressed there is nothing I want more than to boink someone.

'Tis the season

What was that Smashing Pumpkins song title again? “The End is the Beginning is the End”? When it first came out I used to dance around my room, in the ‘slutty’ clothes that only a 15 yr old could own (glitter mini-skirts, sequined tops that barely contained my already ample bosom, lotsa black make-up, etc.), and pretend I was in Billy Corgan’s music video.

Oh how times don’t change ten years later.

I’m doing the same thing instead my shirt is Moschino, I’m wearing Judith Lieber shoes, and am dancing to Maneater by Nelly Furtado thinking of all the boys hearts I could be out breaking if I wasn’t in this intellectual prison called my room—but at least I have my down comforter, unlike Paris. Procrastination couldn’t be more fun, especially since I sit and stare at my newly visible cheekbones—thank you redbull and Marlboro lights fast.

It’s finals time at Oxford and I forgot just how much being a student really sucks. Oh sure the lure of making your own schedule and discussing “intellectual” ideas for seven months is supposed to make it all worth it, but here I am, at the tail end of my time here and I have to say: I miss the fucking working world. The “fun” I’ve had for the past few months isn’t making up for the hell that I am currently experiencing—the anxiety brought about my excessive use of legal stimulants, the fears of failure, and of course the rampant insomnia that has completely thrown off my sleep schedule.The stress that I am going through right now trying to memorize dates and authors and who argued what and who counter-argued the other does not make up for the endless drunken nights, the sleeping until noon and all the “benefits” that being a student is supposed to grant you.

Without easy access to prescription amphetamines like back in the good ‘ol USA, I am stuck sucking down two red bulls every 12 hours, smoking a pack a day, and thinking that my best just isn’t going to be good enough. Like religious Jews who repent for their sins on Yom Kippur, not bathing and fasting in atonement for their sins, I have adopted the same idea. No showers and no real food until my last exam next Wed. Granted there is no real reason other than I would rather spend the time studying, so showers during this time become optional—I’m already on day three and I have to admit, I like the odor that I’m emitting.

But there is something about this time of year that brings all of us who are going through it closer, with the late night cigarette breaks, the finally honest chats about how we are really feeling—nobody has energy to put on the front that has characterized so many of my relationships here.

So, I’m going to finish my two liter bottle of Diet Coke, crack open the books, and pray that my penance of no sleep, not showering, subsisting on the chemicals of taurine, nicotine, and caffeine will be enough of an offer to the exam Gods.

And yes I know this isn’t brilliant writing, but at least I’ve started back up again. And its finals time, have a fucking heart.