A fire should do the trick.
Today is a day of odd feelings. Well, to be honest, not all of today was like that, but still a conflict that has been within me for ages is now ready to be finished. Closed off.
Today I received my certificate. Yes, a simple piece of paper which says I have officially finished my degree (the paper even says that happened months ago but the slack creatures in their admin have just finalised crap). Some would say that's a good thing. Certainly friends of mine who have received their degree have spoken of pride, happiness and great joy and satisfaction at having possession of such an object. My feelings are not along the same lines.
For several months now I have been wanting to burn my certificate when it arrived in the mail. I wanted to burn it even as I was finishing the degree. It is a single piece of paper which tells me that I have lost far too much to get it, that I destroyed too many friendships that will never recover, too much of my health, sanity and far too much of myself. There were days while I did that degree that I felt ending it made far too much sense, and I don't mean quiting the degree. That was never an option. I look upon that piece of paper which has caused me to loose jobs and any chance of employment. It has slashed my chances of ever being employed. I gained friends during that period and then lost them equally quickly, good friends, good people who I never speak to, haven't been able to speak to in months. Now they've all moved away, or are too busy chasing their own little pieces of paper, jobs or children to speak to me. A sad event indeed.
I lost my home because of this degree. It gave me one, ever so briefly to take it away just as fast. To have a taste of freedom to loose it is the hardest scar to bear. The degree took all my savings, ate them up, meaning some weeks while I was there, earning that piece of paper I could not eat more than one meal every day. Sometimes less.
It took my health, making me ill so much through stress and the overdose of sick people around me. Every illness known to man was in those lecture halls. I spent the entire degree with a cold and at least 2 flu's a year. Constant headaches, insomnia and yet a lack of being able to get up in the morning ruined my health. No friends, complete isolation and endless late nights doing homework while trying to speak to people on the internet, the only social contact outside uni or my family I could have, ruined my well being within myself. The constant failings no matter how hard I tried ruined what was left of my self esteem and during those dark nights I slowly became insane. I became what I had to to survive those days. If the course, which was full of girls, became bitchy (a daily occurrence) I had to become bitchy to survive. I lost a lot of my morality to that degree, a lot of the things I said I wouldn't do or say were obliterated in the grim harsh reality of the dark university. I soon lost myself.
With the coming of this certificate, I don't feel any smarter. I don't feel as though I have accomplished anything at all. If anything, I feel a keen sense of anger any time I am reminded that I own it. When the question was "Did I want to attend the ceremony to receive it, or get it in the post" like it was junk mail, the answer was simple, post. I did not want pictures of myself with it, and it in all likelihood that will not occur, no matter the pleading from family. However, the one thing the family has said which comes through clear as day is that I am not allowed to burn it. To them, that piece of meaningful shit is worth something. So it rules out the burning of the actual document.
I like the thought of burning however, as fire has always held meaning to me. It has a cleansing power beyond everything else. No matter how diseased your crops are, if they are consumed in fire the disease will be removed. Yes, it is deadly, a dangerous element which cannot be trusted. It causes pain just as easily as joy, but then, so many things in life do. It has the power to hypnotise and enthrall, it causes death and birth (some plants need fire to produce seeds) and most of all it ruins and creates.
So how shall I get my burning without pissing everyone off? An effigy will have to suffice I suppose. But even in effigy there will be a releasing of demons and I shall be able to truly forget the evil of that degree. And with that burning, I can finally move forward.
Today I received my certificate. Yes, a simple piece of paper which says I have officially finished my degree (the paper even says that happened months ago but the slack creatures in their admin have just finalised crap). Some would say that's a good thing. Certainly friends of mine who have received their degree have spoken of pride, happiness and great joy and satisfaction at having possession of such an object. My feelings are not along the same lines.
For several months now I have been wanting to burn my certificate when it arrived in the mail. I wanted to burn it even as I was finishing the degree. It is a single piece of paper which tells me that I have lost far too much to get it, that I destroyed too many friendships that will never recover, too much of my health, sanity and far too much of myself. There were days while I did that degree that I felt ending it made far too much sense, and I don't mean quiting the degree. That was never an option. I look upon that piece of paper which has caused me to loose jobs and any chance of employment. It has slashed my chances of ever being employed. I gained friends during that period and then lost them equally quickly, good friends, good people who I never speak to, haven't been able to speak to in months. Now they've all moved away, or are too busy chasing their own little pieces of paper, jobs or children to speak to me. A sad event indeed.
I lost my home because of this degree. It gave me one, ever so briefly to take it away just as fast. To have a taste of freedom to loose it is the hardest scar to bear. The degree took all my savings, ate them up, meaning some weeks while I was there, earning that piece of paper I could not eat more than one meal every day. Sometimes less.
It took my health, making me ill so much through stress and the overdose of sick people around me. Every illness known to man was in those lecture halls. I spent the entire degree with a cold and at least 2 flu's a year. Constant headaches, insomnia and yet a lack of being able to get up in the morning ruined my health. No friends, complete isolation and endless late nights doing homework while trying to speak to people on the internet, the only social contact outside uni or my family I could have, ruined my well being within myself. The constant failings no matter how hard I tried ruined what was left of my self esteem and during those dark nights I slowly became insane. I became what I had to to survive those days. If the course, which was full of girls, became bitchy (a daily occurrence) I had to become bitchy to survive. I lost a lot of my morality to that degree, a lot of the things I said I wouldn't do or say were obliterated in the grim harsh reality of the dark university. I soon lost myself.
With the coming of this certificate, I don't feel any smarter. I don't feel as though I have accomplished anything at all. If anything, I feel a keen sense of anger any time I am reminded that I own it. When the question was "Did I want to attend the ceremony to receive it, or get it in the post" like it was junk mail, the answer was simple, post. I did not want pictures of myself with it, and it in all likelihood that will not occur, no matter the pleading from family. However, the one thing the family has said which comes through clear as day is that I am not allowed to burn it. To them, that piece of meaningful shit is worth something. So it rules out the burning of the actual document.
I like the thought of burning however, as fire has always held meaning to me. It has a cleansing power beyond everything else. No matter how diseased your crops are, if they are consumed in fire the disease will be removed. Yes, it is deadly, a dangerous element which cannot be trusted. It causes pain just as easily as joy, but then, so many things in life do. It has the power to hypnotise and enthrall, it causes death and birth (some plants need fire to produce seeds) and most of all it ruins and creates.
So how shall I get my burning without pissing everyone off? An effigy will have to suffice I suppose. But even in effigy there will be a releasing of demons and I shall be able to truly forget the evil of that degree. And with that burning, I can finally move forward.
Labels: crap degree, fire, stupid uni
posted by blue_kat_88 at 3:59 pm
1 Comments:
Take a Colour photocopy and burn that instead. I agree that you need some ceremony, some cleansing event, but don't go burning yourself! :-)
There is still time to find the parts of you that you feel you have lost forever. Dig deep, they are still there. :-)
I'm proud of you
Lyndal
xxx
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