Here's my little secret

Oh, Scar. You really thought you were going to get away with it.

Not really guys, I didn't kill any lions. I promise.

So you know all those posts I have complaining about university and how stressful a time I found my undergrad? Disregard everything: I'm doing an MA!

I received my acceptance letter this morning in the post and boy oh boy, I was so excited. I really, really, REALLY want to do it. I had my application looked at twice by the helpful careers department at my university and was so completely stoked when the adviser told me my application was ready.

I've wanted to apply since November. While I was in Connecticut, I attended a couple of MA Social Work classes and found them incredibly interesting. So interesting in fact, that I even took notes. My one complaint from those classes was that nobody was discussing a book - and in that fatal moment, my desire to study a master's in literature was born.

And all the cons of studying melted away.


They came back to me pretty quickly when I returned to London and started hanging out with my uni buddies who are currently doing postgraduate degrees. Even the friends still finishing their undergraduate degrees reminded me of the near unbearable stress that higher education puts you through. But even as I watched them tearing out their hair trying to make deadlines, I couldn't help think to myself "...I miss this".

Just look at them!

I think it's the stress I miss. I mean, obviously stress isn't great but this type of stress has its pay-offs. Finishing a novel that insults both my gender and my race in time to listen to an old white man give a lecture on how it was an innovative piece of literature certainly gave me the fuel I needed to write an essay ripping it all to shreds on time to submit it. I could go on and on about the pros of studying but I suspect that will come in abundance when I've actually started my course, so I'll leave it here for now.

I think the people who knew me best knew that this was going to happen. When I told my friends and family I was applying for a master's degree, a lot of them were like "oh yes of course you are". My girlfriend had actually bought me adorable sticky notes waaay before I even knew I was going to apply.

I guess that's a lesson in when other people know you better than you know yourself.

I'll be doing a pathway in Literature of the Caribbean and its Diasporas. Goodbye, pale male stale discourse!