But surely part of the fun of a reading list is finding the damn books?

Tonight I am going to see N and I have that feeling of excitement you get in your stomach the day before you go on holiday, when you’re really excited and you can’t sleep and all that. And it’s only been three days, so I am officially a bit of a silly. But it will be an end to feeling so miserable and not sleeping, so yeah, call me silly, but I’ll be the happiest I’ve been in a while.

Yesterday I went to the LSE library and was a bit baffled by the buckets in the entrance. Is there a leak? Have people been vomiting through stress? Very odd. I was trying to start on my reading list for SOAS but I seem to have hit a major obstacle. Last year, I seem to remember LSE making this big hoo-ha about the fact that alumni get life time access to the library, and ooooh, isn’t that so special. At the time, I thought I would never set foot in the place again, especially after last years “unforgettable” experience. But what with the reading list needing starting, I thought I would use this library “privilege”, seeing as it’s too awkward to use the SOAS library until I’m actually enrolled. I worked out the classmarks and went to the library after work, where I astonishingly managed to find the first three books I was looking for. “Aha,” I thought (or something similar and less cheesy), “this’ll do, I’ll read these and then in September everyone will think I’m super clever.”

So I took the books to the check out desk, and they told me to use the self service machines. “Can’t you just do it?” I asked, seeing as there was no queue and I don’t ever remember my library pin. “I’d like to get the date stamped in the books because I always lose the receipt and I don’t want to return them late.” I tried what I thought was a winning smile, but was told to piss off and get my pin and use the machine. So I did just that. Except the books said “error, take to check out desk” or something, so I went back to the desk.

“Hi,” I tried again. “These books aren’t working. I tried to use the machine. It doesn’t work.”

“Hmm,” the man said, looking at the books. “Ah yes, they have the old bar code, which is why they don’t work in the machine. Looks like no one has taken them out for years!”

I handed over my library card, bored and weirded out by the whole stupid shebang. The man picked up my card and squinted at it. “You can’t take these books out,” he told me, without a shred of sympathy in his voice. “You’re alumni and these books have yellow stickers, and alumni can’t take out books with coloured stickers because it means they’re recommended texts or course texts, and not for you.”

“But all the books have coloured stickers!” I argued.

“No,” the man said. “Some have white stickers. You can have them.”

“But no one else wants these books, they’ve not been borrowed for years and years! You just said that!” I tried.

“I’m afraid you can’t borrow these books. You will have to find a book with a white sticker. Next please.”

Fighting my baser instinct to strop off and maybe slam a door, I went to find any other books on the reading list. What I discovered about the white label books is that they’re generally rubbish or very random or in Macedonian. In the end I managed to take out one book, and it’s not even about China, it’s about Taiwan. I wanted to read about McDonalds in Beijing. I wanted to read about feminism in 1980s China. Instead I am reading about some woman who followed her overbearing husband on an anthropology trip and now wants to whinge about it. It’s ridiculous. I paid my tuition fees for three years (that’s a lie, I was exempt for one year, but the fees got paid by the LEA and whatnot) and I’m allowed THESE books? There’s people at LSE who’ve only been there one year, less even, and they can fucking bathe in the books if they like. Plus I spent so much money in the Plaza Café on tea and cups of soup, so that surely that entitles me to, perhaps, touch a fucking relevant book? No? Or not have to shield my eyes when I pass the Course Collection in case I sully the books with my gaze of non-academia. Anyway, I started reading the book on the way home and now I am terrified that I am not clever enough to do this masters. If I had any mental capacity, I might be able to stop and think about it, but at the moment the most challenging thing I do is the mini-quiz on the BBC website.

Anyway, I have other things to think about, such as fake tanning and being sarcastic and wondering why on earth I have such a predilection for destructive friendships and if all else fails, I guess I could get a move on with looking for a job.