I read Funeral Blues again this morning. I don’t feel blue, and I haven’t been to a funeral recently. When I was 14 my English teacher used Auden’s poem as a method of tackling GCSEs. Four neat quatrains, perfect rhyming couplets. Full rhymes. Short. With a nice clip from Four Weddings and a Funeral to fill some of the lesson and keep a class of poetry-bemused teenagers on side. Thoughts of that being six years again begin to feel really quite intrusive, and for a while, I let myself sink into the morbid fear that having entered my twenties holds over me. I should get over it soon. The prognosis really isn’t that bad.

I turn back to my dissertation. Muriel Spark. Narrative control and apocalyptic endings. Ruins. Footnotes. 8 more days. Stop all the clocks, I think, and I laugh to myself. Must sort out next year’s accommodation. Must remember to get a prescription refill. Absolutely must clear out my inbox.

"I let myself sink into the morbid fear that having entered my twenties holds over me. I should get over it soon"

I colour code my to-do list, think about whether I’ve drunk enough water today, and feel slightly upset about Sainsbury’s raspberries not tasting very fresh. My brain offers me a wonderfully romanticised tangent daydreaming about the fruit farm I worked on as a teenager, picking raspberries for 5 hours a day and popping my head between the vines to check I wasn’t being watched before I ate half my day’s work. I almost resist. 

Deciding that the pending Easter term calls for me to sit down and have a proper think about how to improve my productivity, I open my calendar. I have an hour and a half free on Wednesday. ‘Think about productivity’, I write. 15:00 Wednesday 24 April. Would I like my phone to send me a reminder 10 minutes before this event? Probably. For now, I close some of my tabs, and open up twelve more. I find the English faculty’s referencing guide, and tell myself that if I write the references for the articles on all tabs I have open, I’ll get myself a Pret.

"‘Think about productivity’, I write. 15:00 Wednesday 24 April. Would I like my phone to send me a reminder 10 minutes before this event? Probably"

I close the tab where I’ve been reading Funeral Blues. God forbid that I, an English student, read anything from a physical book when the option to sizzle my brain in blue light is on offer. A brief depression descends like a brick thrown from the fifth floor as I think about having to get a full time job next year, as I catch a glimpse of the AI generated analysis of the poem. I pull myself together, and start referencing. Efficient, I tell myself, and I spin around on my desk chair trying to remember what day of the week it is. Sunday, so I decide to go to Pret before it closes. ‘Deadline: met’, I think, and I smile to myself. A barista makes my day by complimenting my summer dress. I walk back home in the crazing wind.

I sit and think about whether my dissertation will ever come to any good. I schedule my working week. If I wake up at 7am every day, I can get ready before Pret even opens, I think. I laugh to myself. I write ‘get coffee’ on my to do list, and I tick it off, as I notice that my to do list is actually called ‘Tuesday to do list’. I think about whether I have time for a Sunday rest this week, and I decide not - especially if I’d like to hand my dissertation in.

"I spent a very short moment wishing I did psychology A-Level so I could know if my passive prison obsession says something about my psyche"

Notion comes to rescue me from general academic-related panic, and I flick through the folder when I’ve been making my revision notes. Solace is found as I remind myself that I actually am not falling behind again. Everything will work out, I think. It’ll just be fine. I begin to think about the long 18th century, and I wonder why we call it that, when actually the paper spans nearly 200 years. Maybe no one has ever thought to change it. I think about Moll Flanders, and I wonder why so many of my essays have been about prisons. I spent a very short moment wishing I did psychology A-Level so I could know if my passive prison obsession says something about my psyche.

Boots call me, and I wish I could cut off the telephone. They say I’m overdue for an eye test. I tell them I go to Specsavers now. The man on the phone says they’ll miss me, and I think what a funny thing that is to say. Must book an optician’s appointment; must book a haircut; must book a dentist’s appointment. All three go from head to to-do list in seconds, and I think about how they’ll probably cost me over £100 combined. Enough.

I add full stops to the end of all my footnotes, I sip my latte, and I think how happy I am to have a Pret subscription. I start to delete emails en masse, and I send one off about my accommodation. Sorted. I pick the good bits out of a packet of trail mix, and I go back to my dissertation. 8 more days. Then Easter. Everything will work out.