Niall’s virtual diary archives – Saturday 31st May 2008

Saturday 31st May 2008: 2.37am. Nuttily enough, I finished exams five days ago now - not that it quite seems that way despite that quite a lot has happened since then - and well, now there is definitely & absolutely no doubt that I'm done! It's been an interesting month - little bits done here & there, even was in the Student's Association last night for the last night of term which was lacklustre - a lot of people just seemed to not be there probably having already gone home.

As it's the 1st of June tomorrow (today now really), a LOT of people's contracts are up and so many students are spending this weekend cleaning, scrubbing and packing. Megan's house kicks out on Monday so she'll be moving in with me and Johanna for the summer and of course halls of residence closed today. This year due to how the weekdays have fallen there has been much less time than usual between end of exams and contracts running out - many people have spoken of feeling very rushed this year. Many others have spoken of their disappointment with how St. Andrews wound down.

I must echo those sentiments too. I had had high hopes only one month ago that people would put aside their bullshit and petty grudges and would just relax these last few weeks, enjoying the company of the people they have spent four long years with before the inevitable moving on. This is what happened end of Hull - we spent two lovely weeks basking in sunshine with our wider friend group - indeed, the Lawns didn't even kick us out of halls for was it three or four days after we were supposed to leave. We spent it relaxing, chatting, throwing frisbee, going for long walks and smoking a lot of weed. It was absolutely wonderful.

St. Andrews too has had the gorgeous weather these last two weeks. But I certainly wouldn't say most have been relishing one another's time together as water was put under the bridge and hatchets buried. No, if anything, people have been far more ugly & petty than I have ever seen them - it's like now they don't have to worry about repercussions, so they can be truly horrible to people. Rather than give up their grudges, they have given up on holding them back out of politeness' sake - I even had I- snarling spitefully at me a few days ago as she spat out about how little I must obviously know and understand her. She really is utterly miserable.

S- is somewhat better of late. She has a much improved attitude - less bombast, much more humble. She's much more pleasant to be around though terribly lonely as she has pretty much alienated everyone who knows her during the past two years. Both of the two of them have come off very badly from the events of precisely one year ago - the only participant who definitely has benefited is Megan. I probably have benefited too - it's been a solitary year for me, I have barely seen anyone outside the very immediate circle, but I have never felt lonely and I feel pretty happy with life.

The other thing I have noticed is that people seem really glad to be leaving here - their displays of loss & grief are far more out of fear of what is to come than any anticipation of missing people here. Is it just a delayed reaction perhaps out of denial or perhaps because no one bothers with particularly deep emotional connections here? Perhaps it's a mix. But I still get a sense that most here don't really have any deep connections with anyone else at all. Megan's lot have it good in this respect at least - they have suffered greatly together, and it has forged deep emotional connections despite themselves. Most of those in my class or friends of friends just don't seem to be too bothered really - they make a good show, but it's obviously surface deep. Just like most of St. Andrews - it's all about how it looks, not what it is.

It's all very silly really. I often laugh at it. However, my book (of which I have already written about 15,000 words) will be quite serious about the matter indeed because human beings shouldn't treat one another so. And the university will be most upset with what I say, most upset with me indeed. At least they'll come off better than Trinity College Dublin - I'll need to be careful there lest I get sued

Anyway, I'm tired so I'm going to go to bed. Oh HAPPY BIRTHDAY to this virtual diary which is now ten whole years old - yes, me and Kathryn broke up just over ten years ago now. That's some thought isn't it - I started this virtual diary back before the term 'blog' had been invented and here I am still at it - and reading my entries of May 1998 I am struck simultaneously by both how identical and how utterly improved & different I am today. The odd thing is that I am a more refined form of a more extreme version of my 1998 self - which is just plain weird, but I think fairly accurate. Despite that I was just banging on in this entry about precisely the same topics of this month ten years ago, I may occasionally even still have something interesting to say if not particularly fresh nor original! Ha! Anyway, good night everyone, and be happy!