I am supposed to be writing my application for the university Master of Studies course.
So far I have got as far as reading the lists of supporting documents. It is far too hard already.
Amongst a very lot of other things, I am supposed to come up with two professional referees. I have had thought very hard about my taxi-driving colleagues, but so far have been unable to come up with anybody who might know what a professional reference actually is, let alone write one. Indeed, my colleagues at work include at least two people who can’t accept long-distance jobs because they are not able to read signposts sufficiently well to find their way back.
This is all very amusing but in my opinion is a shocking indictment of their education, which happened at the local school here in Windermere, and is the very reason why Oliver has gone somewhere else. Also neither of the people in question are stupid, and one of them has such an encyclopaedic knowledge of his specialist interest, that even though it is very boring indeed, I am entirely in awe of his mental capacity.
The very first obstacle in my path is that I have no idea where I ought to place the apostrophe in the word Masters, when talking about a Masters Degree. Are we talking about one master with a degree, or a degree which is taken by lots of masters? When one says casually: I am studying for my Masters degree, should it be Master’s degree, or Masters’ degree?
These things matter, you know.
I wrote to my tutor and asked but so far she has ignored me. I suppose she is too busy to be concerned with such pedantic trivia.
I think it is unlikely that I need to concern myself with this little difficulty very much really, because the very person who is responsible for my application, and indeed who has kindly volunteered to write the only professional reference that I am able to muster, has pointed out that there are about ten applicants for every place. I do not think that Cambridge has a pressing need to be educating scruffy taxi drivers, and hence do not really rate my chances.
The reason for this reconsideration of my so far almost imperceptible academic career is that the other units available at Diploma Level, being the units which would then add up to points for a degree, are not really of any interest to me. They are weighted towards non-fiction, and although I am a prolific writer of non-fiction, being these very pages, it is not really where I would envisage my career progressing.
Actually I envisage my career progressing towards some new tyres for my taxi, and possibly nailing the missing trim back on the rear passenger door.
I am nothing if not ambitious.
I have been pondering this on and off all day, in between visiting my computer and sighing. Mostly I have followed that with a visit to Facebook or to the newspaper, both of which involve less mental effort than writing a thousand words of creative prose about an incident involving food.
I do not know why it is always food. I have just written two and a half thousand words for a competition on the same topic, and am most frustrated to realise that they cannot be re-used for the application. There is absolutely no possible way in which I could even begin to consider paring my already carving knife-sharp piece of dinner-related competition prose down to half its length, it would not make any sense at all. I am just going to have to write something else.
This is an unspeakable nuisance, especially as it has got to be done tomorrow. It should have been done today but I could not face it, and sloped off downstairs to make apple pies instead.
The apple pies were nice but I have not written about them.
I made a curry as well, and have not written about that either.
I am cross with myself.
Still, tomorrow is another day. I might just get up and feel inspired to write about puddings.
I hope so.
