It could not be more me, I've been told, to get here, with its old turrets and old boys and new money, and hate it. Oh dear, what a shame, I've only gone and got exactly what I wanted.
To the American tourist on King's parade, it is all very charming. The gowns, the college pride, the porters hats. Cambridge does not charm me. It leaves me with a sour fucking taste in my mouth. It is smacks of smugness, and frankly I feel quite disenchanted by it all. What a tragic disappointment, to walk through fairytale architecture in what was supposed to be some fucking Narnia of knowledge, and still feel unfulfilled. And this is the best it gets. If you take the Sunday Times' University Guide's word for it.
There is a new pidgin language that obviously must derive from aristocratic laziness - no one can be arsed to say full words properly. I walk out through Plodge to go to Mainsburys, wear my stash, scowl at townies and tourists on the way. I know the Mathmos, the Englings, the Bio-Natscis, the Chem-Natscis, the Neo-Natscis. I feel true self-disgust when I use the terms aloud. Even worse, I began to think in them too.
Where I come from, I am frequently told that I talk posh. I know I am incredibly privileged and thoroughly middle class, with my foreign holidays and recent extension. How bizarre is it then, that even that is not enough here? What a broken set of scales. "Where did you go to school?". Don't think you'll know it mate. Little comprehensive number, yeah. Oh really, that sounds nice. I'll google your tuition fees when I get back to my room and feel inadequate in my bathroom, probably. Well nice seeing you.
I am pretty much the only person (I think?) on a floor of 15 to not have paid for my primary and secondary education. Do they know they've been swindled? Should we call Watchdog or Which? Because I'm here too at a great discount. Except I don't know whose son's brother's rockstar's dentist that they know. I don't have old boarding school friends at Kings or Caius or Clare or St. Cunt's. I only have myself in a very foreign country, that is somehow my home country - surprisingly, there is no border control at the North/South divide.
It is difficult to keep the facade up for the people back home. My being here is Big News, I am a pioneer charting the way for my family name. So many people wanted and worked hard for this, I wanted and worked hard for this. I do not want them to think I am ungrateful, to worry about me, so I am putting on a brave face for the moment. Why did I not go to ManMet and choose to be happy?
Academically, the workload is challenging, but I signed up for that willingly, so that I cannot complain about. Without jinxing it hopefully, this is where things are going the best for me. My first essay was well-received, my supervisions insightful and lectures incredibly interesting. Just a shame that the trade off is living in upside fucking down land and having no friends.
Maybe I am in the way of myself in making friends. The promise was that uni would be the place where I would 'find my people'. I wanted so much for that to be true. I recently auditioned for a Footlights show for which I got in, due to my obvious light-hearted humour, and for not taking myself too seriously. So far though, it has been a bit like hitting a wall in terms of finding the same language. The institution is a bit of a legacy one, frankly, than any living interesting thing, and too busy congratulating itself for Mitchell and Webb to get back to work and try to be funny. Or maybe I'm not funny. I think my humour is so specific to mine and my twin sister's internal world that I can't let anyone else in. I wish she was here. I wish we were conjoined and I was some sort of second parasitic head that could just watch her life and provide commentary. I can't relate to these people, because I'm so used to not needing to, I always had a built-in-friend.
My sister, to my extreme delight, is thriving in what she is doing, socially and in her degree. Nothing makes me prouder, and it is a great comfort that she is doing what she loves everyday. This all would be worse if I knew she was miserable too. She came to visit on Sunday, I worry she was expecting to meet more friends or someone a bit more well-adjusted. To my own disappointment and maybe hers, the other side of the train station ticket barrier was the same girl who is slightly socially inept, and so guarded sceptical of others she cannot entertain any friendship that isn't biological. Deary me, we'll have to fix that at some point.
What can you take away from this? That I am a lucky, lucky girl, in a place I dreamed of being, who is both disappointed in her surroundings and disgusted at her own ungratefulness. But when I dreamed of being here, it was a different girl who walked around, did the work, the shows, made the friends - I'm still under the same bell jar, under the so-called cambridge bubble. How much of my problems are internal or external? I don't know, but despite my perfect circumstances, I have to soldier on.
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