Revelations

I had a bit of a surprise today. I realized that The Shins' album, 'Oh, inverted world' actually has more than one track on it. And some of them are good! Check it out, kids!

This fits in rather nicely with my idea of the day¹, which is actually less of an idea and more of a question. Where do I fit in?

If you believe everything you read, there are two types of people at Oxford. There are people from extremely privileged backgrounds who aren't very bright, but got in because their daddy used to play silly buggers with the tutor². The other kind are the studious, hard working and extremely bright diamonds-in-the-rough, 'doesn't know how to use cutlery but you should see what he's got to say about T.S. Eliot' who studies by candle light wearing fingerless gloves and scrapes and saves to afford a can of baked beans a week. Actually, that's communists.

When one of the former gets rejected, nobody but Daddy cares. When one of the latter gets rejected, people get angry.

What about us? I went to a private school, which should put me firmly in the toff category. But wait - I had my fees paid by the government from 11 onwards because my dad was a full time student. And in school I outperformed a lot of girls paying full fees. So it's ok, guys, I'm back in the poor and deserving category.

But let's examine results. Because I'm such a charity case, I have to do better than all my other private school friends. This is frankly not happening. I'm working hard this year to pull up to a 2:1 not because I am driven by the plight of my situation, but because I am vain and my grandad will get angry if I don't get one. Maybe if I ask my parents to suddenly lose all their disposable income, my results will pick back up?

My point really is that I don't fit in anywhere in the above scenario. Most of my friends are the same. Partly I think it's disillusionment from coming up to a college with an excellent college spirit but very little in the way of facilities. Or maybe it's because this fictional Oxford just doesn't exist any more.

Either way, I've succeeded in confusing myself. And now it's time for dinner.

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1. Because the album is all about confusion and conflicting bittersweet emotions all wrapped up in the pain of reaching adulthood realizing you're meant to be somehow 'grown up'. At least, that's how I hear it.
2. "His father and I used to break wind for our college" - General Melchett, Blackadder goes forth.