An
average week in the life of Rebekah goes like this:
Monday
The
moment I crack open my eyes, I reach out and fumble for my pink mobile, which I
keep on the dresser beside me. If I’m really lucky, the glowing numbers on the
screen say 7.00 or 7.30, which means I can roll over and go back to sleep. If I’m
unlucky, the numbers glow 8.30 or 8.40—which means I might as well get up and
start the day.
My
first class of the morning is anthropology, and I’m almost always fifteen or
twenty minutes early. This is fine with me; I like to sit and read a bit before
class. Some weeks I read socialist propaganda, which I have to draw on more and
more as the semester wears on; sometimes I feel as if my anthropology classes are
a war of political agendas. Other weeks I read reports on the Bluestockings, or
skim over that week’s reading on Barcelona fertility clinics or illegitimate
children. At about five minutes to nine, my friend Katie appears, and we share
reports about our weekends, about the homework for this class, plans for the
afternoon.
At
promptly nine, the doors to the lecture hall open, and a flood of maths
students pile out. I press myself against the wall and wait until the coast is
clear. Once there are no more people inside, Katie and I tromp down to our
preferred seats, about five rows from the front. I like this row because I’m
close enough to hear the professor, but far enough back that I don’t break my
neck trying to read the powerpoints. I am also directly out of the line of
fire, which all students in their right minds try to avoid. Still, as the
semester draws to a close, I find I’m more comfortable shouting out answers—few
people actually raise their hands in this setting.
Anthropology
lately has been a summarization of Bolivian tin miners, but in the weeks before
we skipped around and talked about illegitimate children, egg donation, and feminism.
Before that we focused on African tribes and a terrible book that nobody
understood a word of. The overarching theme of the class is kinship, and
frequently we related kinship back to marriage, class, and the economy. The
economy is what starts our newest professor, Gordon Ramsay, on his socialistic
bends.
After
class is done, Katie and I pack up and have lunch together. Earlier in the
semester, when the weather was still warm, we sat outside on the benches. One
week we went to Starbucks; usually we just go to the Student Union and talk,
now that the weather has gotten colder. She asks me about my essays, which are
always on wild and rather inappropriate topics (I don’t know any more if I choose
them or if they choose me), and then I try and encourage her to talk about her archaeology
classes. Katie is studying at Queen’s for three years—that’s the plan, anyway—and
she wants to be an archaeologist. She’s hoping to work in Egypt one day. Since
this is the field I would want to work in were I not a writing nut, I never get
tired of listening to her talk about her class field trips to museums and field
sites. This Monday she started talking about the differences in accidental
mummies and purposeful mummies, and how the Egyptians, Peruvians, and Chinese
got the mummies they have.
After
lunch, I hang out under an arch in the Lanyon Building, waiting for Hannah. At
one we have our 18th Century Literature lecture in a classroom that
reminds us of something out of Dead Poet’s Society. When Hannah appears we
share details about the day. Sometimes Tuesday comes and talks to us, sharing
anecdotes about the Northern Irish life or her week or the assigned reading. At
one we climb up the stairs as the maths students are being let out, and sit
down three rows from the front. It’s more important to sit close to the
lecturers in this class as the microphone is rubbish, and often gives out.
Sometimes the lectures are good. Sometimes they are bad. By three, when we are
released, I feel like a soda pop bottle that’s been shaken; I’m about to
explode.
After
classes are over, the day can branch into different places. Hannah and I
usually stop at the Spar to buy groceries; sometimes we do our laundry. When
there is no laundry, we return to our rooms to muck about on the internet and
pretend to do homework. Dinner is usually an event, as all of the Northern
Irish students have returned from the weekend and are talkative and energetic.
TUESDAY
Tuesdays
are brilliant days because I get to sleep in. I wake up and read over my
Creative Writing homework one more time (it is the only class I regularly and
routinely do my homework and assigned reading for) and then head out to meet
Hannah at noon for lunch on Stranmilis Road. A Presbyterian church offers us a
free lunch, but it comes at a high cost: there is no room to sit, and once you
have eaten you are shuffled out of the way so others can eat. There is no place
for friendships or discussion. I eat my pitiful meal of half a sausage roll,
all that I am allotted, and sip at my tea, and in under half an hour we are
released back onto the Belfast streets.
Hannah
has a morning class, but at noon she is free. I have class at three, and I am
loath to walk back to Elms only to pack up and walk back at 2.30. In the first
weeks of the semester I wandered through every secondhand book shop on Botanic
Avenue, but now that the semester is nearing its end, and I had problems with
money and the bank, I tend to hole up in a corner in the library and write, or
read. At 2.30 I am sick to death of the library and walk over to my Creative
Writing class, where I am a half hour early. I take a seat on the stairs and
continue to read or write; sometimes I stare at the ceiling and the door and
think about home, about the future, about parallel universes.
Aaron
is the first person to show up for Creative Writing besides me, and I try and
engage him in conversation until the others arrive. Aaron is like a wee Oscar Wilde;
his hair flows the same way, and he is a poet—or he could be, one day. I like
everyone in my Creative Writing class, from kind India, talkative and grown-up
Ann-Marie, German Aleks, who makes his own cigarettes, shy and sweet Rebecca, fiery
Georgia, and vivacious and amazingly talented Shannon.
When
everyone is assembled we file into the little box of a classroom and are held
at the mercy of Ciaran Carson for two hours, who sometimes thinks out loud, and
others makes an effort to drill lessons into our heads. I’m always sorry to go,
but Ciaran usually gives me a good idea of what to do after his class; there
are almost always poetry readings or book launches to attend when class gets
out. This week Aleks took initiative and invited us all out to the Parlour, and
so five of us went and discussed books and movies for two hours, which was
absolutely brilliant.
Tuesday
is also iCafe day, and at 7.30 Hannah and I meet Victoria, our American friend,
in the Treehouse before walking down to Crescent Church. iCafe is a constant in
my life; we have gone to every single once since arriving in Belfast. They were
the most helpful people we met the first week, and every week since then they
have done their best to make us smile, whilst teaching us lessons about Belfast
and God. This week they brought in Scottish dancers, and we all danced
together. Hannah and Victoria tried haggis afterwards. I stuck to sugar
cookies.
WEDNESDAY
On
Wednesday I have no classes, and I have nowhere to be. Some Wednesdays I go on
amazing adventures, to the Mountains of Mourne or City Centre or any number of
things. Others I stay in my room and work on papers and do homework. Hannah and
I usually watch a movie on our laptops, or Victoria invites us out to do
something.
THURSDAY
On
Thursday again I have no classes, but Hannah gets out of class at eleven, and I
always go and meet her in front of the McClay library. Usually we go inside and
read, or I run through the shelves searching for a tome on sensibility or
gothic literature or the Bluestockings. At noon we go to Fisherwick and have
the best lunch of the week, which is a sausage, an apple, a cup of tea, a cup
of water, a chocolate-caramel sweet, and, for Hannah, soup. Fisherwick is a
larger church than the one on Stranmilis, and Hannah and I can take our time.
Some weeks we sit with the British Rebekah; one week we sat with Tom, and
others we sit with an Australian boy. Several Americans also come and check up
on us. Lately they’ve been asking how our Thanksgiving went.
After
lunch I usually walk Hannah to class. Some weeks Victoria and I catch Hannah
when she gets out at three, and we walk to City Centre, but other weeks I stay
in my room and fiddle around on the internet and do homework and read. By
eight, the music has started upstairs. Party night has begun in Belfast. It
usually doesn’t stop until three.
FRIDAY
Friday
is probably the day I like most, which is absolutely ridiculous, because it is
the day where the most happens. Again I wake up and reach out for my pink phone
and then get up, but already I find an impediment to my daily routine: It is
cleaning day, and I have to skirt cleaning ladies as I try to use the single bathroom,
the single shower, and the kitchenette. After much debate with myself, I have
given up on Friday breakfasts, if only to spare the cleaning ladies, but I
still must fight for the shower and bathroom. Once I’m clean, I eat bread in my
room and wait until 10.30 to walk to class.
I
am again fifteen minutes early to Anthropology, and again sit in the stairwell
and listen to the other people in my class talk. Sometimes they talk about our
professors. Today they talked about my tutor, Bree, and how they do not like
her. From what I can gather as an anthropologist—for I am already trying to get
into the mindset of my class—the teaching methods of Irish and non-Irish tutors
differ dramatically, and because Bree teaches like an American (the reason I
like her), the Northern Irish students find her hard to work with.
Gordon
Ramsay pops around, early on Friday, and waits for the mad rush of students to
get out of class. Katie appears, and we talk about what’s been going on with us
this week. I remind her about movie night, and she nods. At eleven the doors
open and the class piles out. I say hello to one of the girls I know, Sophie,
who is in that class, and then Katie and I file inside and sit in our usual
seat. Gordon turns on blaring music—he is an ethnomusicologist, which means he
studies the anthropological origins, effects, and designs of music—and shouts, “Handouts,
get yer handouts!” in his ridiculous blend of English, American, and
Australian.
After
class on Friday, I dash off to my tutorial in House 13. Bad luck, I always say
to myself cheerfully as I push open the pink door. There is usually a line up
in front of our class; the room is, more often than not, locked. Bree runs to
get the key, and then we file into the cold classroom. Tucked into the right
corner is a bunch of what might be stage props, or ethnomusicology instruments.
Bree smiles at us and gets us started on our presentations.
Most
weeks presentations are two students standing in front of the class and reading
off of a sheet or two of paper. Everything is handwritten; these are not formal
essays. They are instead the line by line interpretations of the article we
read for homework, cut off without a conclusion, and left without original
thought. Bree struggles to make the presenters conclude their presentations and
put in their personal opinions, and so when my turn comes to bat, I decide to
show my classmates how Americans do presentations.
Last
week I gave my presentation on a Barcelona clinic that specialises in egg
donations. Our article talked about twenty-five women donating eggs, and why
they were doing it. My job was to both analyze, project, and put in my own opinions
about egg donations. So when the day came, I put up a powerpoint, colourful and
vivid, and without the use of notes, started off by talking about Queen’s
University Belfast, which has just lately announced it has found a way to
negate male infertility. From that starting point, I elaborated on the article,
and then moved into ethical boundaries. Egg donation is actually illegal in
many European countries, whilst sperm donation is legal. Is this because sperm
donations is easier, bringing to mind images of men alone in a room with a cup
and a magazine, while egg donation involves anesthetics and minor surgery, or
is this a question of ethics?
As
per always, whenever I get an explosive, embarrassing, taboo subject, I took
things too far, and ended up polling my entire flat, asking if they would
consider donating their eggs. In the end, only one person said that they would
consider donating their eggs. What was the reason? I asked my class. First,
there was possession—they’re MY eggs, you can’t have them—but the second was
religion.
This,
of course, got us onto a discussion of orthodox Judaism compared to Catholicism
and In Vitro Fertilisation, but I consider this a job well done. Bree was ecstatic,
and the Northern Irish students rather unimpressed. We finished the class up,
as we always do, relating everything back to the States, which, while great for
me, probably annoys everyone else to distraction.
At
1.05, I am late to my next class, and run down the street to House 2. House 2
is not my final destination, however; I spend three minutes winding around a
maze until I come out at the end at the Seamus Heany Centre. Luckily for me,
everyone else, including our tutor, has class before this, and so I am usually
just on time or about a hair late. Originally, our tutor for 18th
Century Literature was a Dutch girl named Rebecka, who I associated with Regina
George, but now we have a British boy with nice eyes called Joe Lines, who
basically lets us do whatever the heck we want. His voice never gets very loud,
and he never judges us the way Rebecka did. This is both nice and boring, and
now we all sit and stare at him when he says things. This is partially because
A) Nobody knows what he wants from us, and B) I spend too much time enjoying
his accent to really bother to listen to him. Half of the class has started
playing truant, and so I have taken over as his right-hand woman; Richard (AKA
Catboy) is his right-hand man. I make sure everyone stays on track, and Richard
answers when the rest of us look as if we would rather be anywhere in the world
but there. Catboy is basically invaluable to the class. I don’t know if our
tutorial would survive without him.
At
2.05 we are released back into the world. I am full of a pervading sense of
peace. All is right with the world. I have survived another week in a Northern
Irish university, and I am well pleased with how I am doing. I walk back to
Elms, grab a snack, and sometimes go into the kitchen to see Chelsea and
Hannah. Then it is homework until dinner at six; at 7.30, we go to the
Treehouse and we have movie night with some of the most amazing people you will
ever meet: Jennifer, Rebekah, and Sophie. We watch a movie, share snacks, and
then talk until late. When I go to sleep, I am usually happier than I have been
all week—not to say that I am unhappy during the week, but that I am almost
angelically peaceful.
SATURDAY
What?
Wait. No. You canNOT be serious. How much homework do I have left? But how much
homework have I done already? None of it? Are you kidding me? Aggh!
On
the days that homework does not prevail and take over my soul, I go on day
trips to Zoos, to Dublin, to City Centre…but always homework. Because
apparently I was on the internet all week instead of doing something
productive.
Where
is everyone?
Oh.
Right. They’re at home.
Where
the heck is the couch? It’s been missing since Thurs—ohh…
SUNDAY
Mass
is at 10.30 sharp. Hannah and I are usually there twenty to thirty minutes
early. I sit and pray, and then try and pay attention to the priests, who are
dry as dust. After mass, I have the happiness of knowing we are going to Saint
George’s Market with Victoria.
And
then, of course, more homework—or, if I’m lucky, a movie night.
