Petites pensées

whenincambridge:

is such a gorgeous track, I can’t believe its taken me so long to stumble across it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=trzo1LSsEPE#!

a fitting end to a truly lovely day (with not too much work to boot)

In a university where people appear to be averaging 12 hours of revision a day and are spending £70 on printing their notes (I shit you not), its easy to feel inferior. Particularly when you are doing an arts subject and are being actively encouraged by eminent professors to  “make maps in the mind”, and “keep reading widely” which in normal English can be roughly translated as “Keep pissing around in libraries”.  

Now I like reading, I really do. The problem is that I have the attention span of a well-meaning- yet –mildly- hyperactive- 9 -year -old, with the result that after an hour spent trying to understand statistics about Caribbean diaspora, I get bored and somehow find myself on ASOS lolling at the catwalk videos of models having to wear those really unfortunate animal face swimsuits where the eyes are directly positioned over their nipples, which I don’t think will ever stop being funny. Either that or I get a little bit too involved thinking about the manifestations of a Fanonian self-image complex on the second generation of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, and the ways in which pigmentocracy really does play a tangible role in collective psychology and everyday behaviour. Like that time EJ and Julien got into a fight in French because EJ said Julien was a “an ape trying to become a bounty” and Julien got baaaare vexed and started lobbing copies of the Équipe: Level 4 GCSE textbook at Ej’s head, and Mr El Gomeri  was kind of  powerless to stop the barrage of books flying across his classroom due to his impractically tight Dior leather trousers. In the end he had to awkwardly walkie talkie Ms Pozemski to come and take Julien to referral. Eventually EJ actually got excluded ‘cause by the time Ms P rocked up he was waving an afro comb around telling Julien he knew to get shook ‘cause he was going to get SHANKED after school, and his “Congolese monkey friends” didn’t know how to fight back. And I still find it so fascinating and troubling that the roots of so much black on black violence can be so clearly traced back to the hierarchical structures of power used by white colonizers and slave plantation owners, where pigmentation was the basis for an entire closed-off class system. Then when a lot of Jamaicans and Trinidadians came across to Britain in the 60s, they had to make the transition from social structures based on subtle layering of internalized racism  to one founded entirely on a  reductive black/white dichotomy that was rigidly and systematically enforced in both Britain and America. And we wonder why a racial complex still exists today? 

At this point I tend to remember that Im not doing a sociology degree and unless I can like all my pontifications “with flair” to “engaged and pertinent examples from primary literature” then I am unlikely to surpass a desmond. Bloody brilliant.

So, with my revision notes on Caribbean diaspora consisting of a few dates and the words “pigmentrocracy, power structures, Fanon and self image” proudly highlighted (and underlined. Twice) I move onto ‘revising’ for French texts and cultures. The only problem is that ever since Christophe Gagne told me through somewhat gritted teeth that for the second time in my University Career I have a legitimate excuse to write about French rap, my “revision” inevitably leads me back to the Kerry James youtube channel, or to the twitter feed for  Skyrock fm . So what my French essay might be lacking in historical context it will certainly make up for in Sarko slamming and possible plagiarizing of my Year Abroad project. If that’s not a recipe for success, I don’t know what is.

But whilst my focus might wander, and my addiction to watching Un diner Presque parfait on M6 replay  still lures me back from the library before 10 every night,  Im consoling myself with the fact that at least I am still feeling relatively mentally sound. And I haven’t racked up a £70 printing bill. No tripos exams are worth that much effort, right?

Una mia amica ha scritto queste parole sul suo conte facebook. Le ho messe qui in primo luogo perché oggi, il 12 maggio, e’ il giorno in cui festeggiamo la festa della Mamma in Italia ed in Francia. In secondo luogo perché queste parole esprimono tutto ciò che sento io, e le trovo bellissime e toccante. Grazie, Ale, ti penso et ti voglio bene <3

A te che sei lassù …voglio dirti che non passa un giorno …senza sentire la tua mancanza…e la voglia di essere ancora per una volta..abbracciata dal tuo calore che solo le mamme come te danno….auguri mamma….♥ ♥ ♥