Today is officially, for us, the last day of seminars. It seems so final, like it prefigures the end of something. I went out last night with the creative writing people from both MA seminars and had a really good time. I sat between Carol and Shelley and across from Rachel, which made me feel quite lucky in placement. I really feel at home with this writing bunch, able to be me and able to identify with so many of the things they talk about. Half of me wishes I had taken more CW classes, particularly the Novella seminar from last term, taught by Philip Hensher, who sat opposite me at the restaurant and told stories about A.S. Byatt and about his own unorthodox teaching methods. I felt rather unnerved when Rachel insisted to Philip that I would have been great, and there I am thinking ‘I can’t believe he gets to read my writing in eleven days and I haven’t got a clue what I’m doing yet’.

Listening to Rachel talk about her decision to take a creative writing PhD and her aim to become a published novelist, I thought to myself how it would be to have the strength of conviction to state that as your goal, to aim for it full throttle. Last night, for a moment, I felt a tinge of that excitement. It may have been a dangerous evening in its lack of realism…

Back to reality and the pressure to write essays, which is growing with each new day. Narrative and Subjectivity is this afternoon, and then we’re done. No celebrations though; just back home to work, and the freedom to really get stuck into it.

There are a bunch of electricians scuttling around on the stones outside the window and in the hallway, obviously working on the apartment next door. They are driving me crazy with their scrunch, scrunch, rattle, tap, bang, drill, ‘Yeah. Yeah’.

I’ve just realised I had no breakfast.