The Neck
The Neck is not a bin
The Neck, something to keep your head on, something to make you taller, something to make it so you can bend that little bit more, something to hang stuff on and most important of all, something to put food and drink down. Now there are many instances where things are used for something other than there primary purpose (or purposes (if its one of those 300 in 1 JML Mega Knifes)); the bin bag, used for waste and if you lose all your shoes, the bin bag offers a great cheap, but not very durable alternative. However, the bag can also be used as a means of suicide which is not good for anyone (excluding the person who wants to kill themselves)…obviously. So why is it that everyday, of every week for the last two years, my Neck has been used as a means of shoving the word ‘university’ down?
What annoys me even more is that I am not alone. Everyone is in the same boat, which is another problem of our education system. Everyone does the same exams, which are constructed so everyone has to right (yes I am aware that’s not ‘write’) the same thing in order to be the ‘best’. There is very little room for your own insight, abstract views or just saying ‘f**k it I want to write about how Jurassic Park is linked with the work of Coleridge in that ‘life will find a way.
One would presume that university is the place where you can do that sort of thing, my brother for instance, for his dissertation he intends to critique someone’s work using their own critique. But with 99.8% percent of people I speak to saying that I should go to university, surely that just homogenises the whole thing and I’d be back to where I was before I went?
As a result of all this homogenisation and almost propaganda like advertising of university, I am in a state of limbo. If I go to university, I don’t know if I am pleasing myself or everyone else and if I don’t go will I let people down? Also, I’ve been so focused on going to university (not out of choice) that I haven’t made any plans for me not going. So for the last week I’ve been trying to come up with ingenious business ideas, working out what jobs I can get and looking into just packing my bags and going somewhere where everyone is so poor that universities don’t exist. I hear Swaziland and Bolivia are nice this time of year. If I went to these poor places, maybe I’d get a kick up the arse, maybe I’d be able to kick them up the arse or maybe there would be no arse kicking at all.
Perhaps I should do a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) of university?
The strengths: new friends, an experience? independence, and at the end of it all a nice degree to wave at employees (the same degree to wave as everyone else?).
The weaknesses: Debt, Debt, Debt, at least 3 more years of education on top of the 13 I’ve already done, leaving current friends, independence and doing all that work for a piece of paper and the chance to wear a stupid hat at graduation.
The opportunities: Higher level of employability? Better chance of a higher income?
The threats: Dropping out, failing, doing it all but not enjoying and perhaps the worst of all doing it all and really enjoying it all but then end up in a job that I don’t want to do, forever trapped in a, satisfactory, sufficient and ‘suitable’ life.
Now for the conclusion of my SWOT analysis; all the strengths seem indefinite whereas the weaknesses seem like they are going to happen. The opportunities don’t seem to interest me and the threats scare me if anything. Without doubt, I feel that the experience weighs heavier than anything else, but what is the experience going to be like? Will it be like an extra strong cider drinking session in some horrible pub where everyone has three eyes and no gums; brilliant to start with but after 4 or 5 pints you start dancing with some inbred and start a fight a with the bouncer, losing your teeth, spending a night in hospital and then to add insult to injury, a hang over in the morning? Or will it be like going down the local Wetherspoons, good people, brilliant prices, half decent beer and no negativity at all.
The only conclusion I can some up with is that I don’t have a conclusion. I’ve been so blinded by the apparent ‘good’ stuff I have ignored the flip side. Two years of people using my Neck as a trashcan for their university posters, magazines and other marketing tools has put me in tunnel vision mode. The train I have been on has been going to university, but I have now looked out the window and am unsure of what I want. Are the other stations more plentiful or will they conjure up the same thing? All I can say at the moment is LEAVE MY NECK ALONE!