No blog would be complete today without a post on the royal wedding, so in keeping with my attempts to ensure my little wordpress page is ‘with it’ in blogging terms, here we go.

I think it’s fair to say Britain is fairly pessimistic at times, so to see any royalist google search brimming with positive reports on all aspects of things Kate & Will, I was slightly surprised. The dress ticked all the boxes: established and modern designer, classic look, understated, elegant and suiting to her class. So did the ceremony; nobody tripped up during the 3 and a half minute walk down the aisle and the police ensured London stayed a safe place to be for all involved.

However, there is one detail the critics are missing out, and without trying to sound like the apparently solo critical blogger today and portraying myself as a man-hating, radical feminist, I think it’s fair to say the ceremony didn’t quite sit with the 21^st century expectations the world was expecting in this respect.

Okay, to be clear, I’m talking about two main points here, both of which annoyed me; not to the point that I felt a blog post ranting about them was justified, but joining the masses to talk about a dress when I know nothing about fashion (other than knowing Princess Beatrice’s ‘hat’ was god-awful), just wasn’t going to be a good idea. So here are the two offending items: 1) William didn’t wear a wedding ring. 2) The couple were presented as ‘man and wife’, rather than ‘husband and wife’. I know, two very small, insignificant details really, but for the first royal wedding of the 21^st century I expected something slightly more in line with feminist expectations.

The first of these was announced in the media a few months ago. Wearing a ring isn’t everyone’s style, admittedly, but it really does seem like an all or nothing situation; one of you wearing a ring just seems a little strange and matching bands is one of the only daily reminders of your wedding day in married (in usual circumstances, anyway. I suppose global media coverage littering the streets for months to come may suffice in this case).

Secondly, the man and wife thing. This does annoy me, but in general so I won’t restrict the blame purely on the royal newly weds. Women are not men’s wives, they are wives to their husbands, i.e. they both have the marital identity allowing them identities other than just the wife to a man who has no attachment to equality, rendering the woman to a sole fulfilment as basic servant.

Basically, if you’re new role models in a First world country with 2 billion people watching you, it’s probably not a bad idea to set an example.

Today may be the day that marks Lent as being over and allows self-inflicted bans on chocolate, caffeine and alcohol to be lifted for the sake of a religious festival everyone celebrates by taking photos of chickens and rabbits, but for me it has marked the start of a new banning season.

Good Friday was my birthday, and the long weekend meant a long weekend of celebrating, or in other words, not getting much work done. It is now one month and two days until my final essay deadline at university, and that’s the final one, there’s another essay and a dissertation due before that. Due to this, and the extended weekend of celebrations, I’m assigning a ban on going out until 25^th May.

For obvious reasons I’ll define going out: I may leave the house whenever necessary, but in these terms, going out means leaving the house to socialise in a venue which serves alcohol, with other people for any length of time. I may have added the ‘with other people’ part in a subconscious effort to still allow myself to drink alone if things get really desperate, but I don’t plan on letting that happen, not in public anyway.

So here goes; not quite forty days, but over a month for sure, these next few weeks will test my patience as well as the comfort of my office chair. If you’d like to be supportive of me, or are in a similar academic position yourself, do me a favour and don’t ask me to go to the pub. Then do me a second favour and ask me to go to the pub the second the clock strikes midnight on 25^th May. If I run we could catch last orders.

This week France has introduced a law banning women from wearing burqas, and as a result has seen people with a love of debating sit up straight across the world to make their opinion heard. The split of opinions has left people being branded racist, closed-minded and generally bad for society, yet those are the ones that are in favour of the ban, agreeing with France’s law makers.

I feel compelled to present this post as a news piece, but as the point of blogs do surround opinion, I’ll open myself up to the floodgates of criticism and present my side of the argument that France is wrong.

The law is supposedly an opportunity to include veil-wearing Muslims (a very small proportion of those who follow the religion) in everyday French civilisation, with fines imposed on those wearing burqas being able to be overridden with the attendance of lessons in French citizenship. Here’s where the problem lies: the idea of lessons in citizenship at all only succeed in telling French citizens their government wants them all to become the same; ‘this is how we live in France, this is what everyone should do and say in a uniform fashion’. What happened to the celebration of multiculturalism? Do we really want to walk down the street feeling everyone fits into the same cultural background and has the same story to tell?

The burqa is a problematic subject. Many women wear it for cultural beliefs and see it as part of their identity, which is what the law is attacking. On the other (and more difficult to approach) hand, some women only wear the veil as a result of male domination and therefore should have some government support in a global mission to avert marital pressures of husbandry control and regulation. But should this regulation be directed purely at wearing a burqa, or could the law have been tailored to override female oppression in more circumstances than one of clothing?

The way the law is worded is presented as a direct threat against a particular culture. It is disrespectful to those who wish to wear burqas out of choice and does not take into consideration cultural beliefs. The fact that a burqa can be a large and dominating piece of clothing in comparison to a small piece of jewellery, displaying a cross or star of David, for example, does not go in its favour, and has connotations of larger cultural significance than items such as these which have caused previous debate surrounding culture and fashion which diminishes cultural attachments to items such as these.

Cultural female oppression is a huge global issue, and one France could be seen as leading the way in assisting with combating. Instead they have introduced a law emphasising the new obsession with identity, which obviously doesn’t go without its needs in a world which faces threats of terrorism and attacks on society, but has left France’s veil-wearing women left with a feeling of segregation and an attack on their culture. The Guardian reported the opinion of one woman who wears a burqa out of choice, stating that she clearly understood the need for identity and security, and would be happy and compliant in providing police with identification papers if asked to, which I believe to be the general consensus of most people with an understanding of modern society, so why go the further step to attack individual rights?

France’s law is going to result in a further segregation of women who experience any type of oppression, and lead the world further into a state of closing the door on society’s problems instead of opening them further to deal with issues in a proactive way. The law is a lazy way of combating an important issue and poses the risk of making the darker aspects of the burqa an even more inaccessible issue.

Today the BBC reported President Obama’s frustration at not being able to go for a walk. We all know politician’s personal lives are pretty much put on hold and their schedules being 24/7 when they reach the top of the ladder, but this asks the question, how much do we expect our leaders to give up?

Entering office unofficially means leaving your life as you know it at the door. In television documentaries the UK’s past Prime Ministers have been showed as having 24/7 schedules, with little personal time being left for family or socialising. David Cameron had barely stepped in the door of Number 10 when his wife gave birth to another baby. Besides the obvious antifeminist look this provides politician’s partners with of being the stay at home mum with little choice but to give up their own careers in favour of their husband’s, it adds to the reason for the growing campaigns to incorporate men into family life more.

Politicians not only have to be excellent leaders and decision-makers, they must also strive to be example-setters, and though the images the media presents us with are rarely anything but complimentary towards the rest of a politician’s family, it does leave me wondering how many fake smiles are amongst the ones put together for yet another community appearance and how many are actually ready to give it all up for just one normal day. Is the best example to provide one of all work, no play?

The Obama article mentioned above described how the socially-deprived president took an unscheduled walk to the Lincoln memorial and met members of the unsuspecting public. I’m enjoying picturing his security staff pleading with him not to do it before seeing nothing able to stop Obama run up the steps two at a time, with a beaming smile of White House freedom, however temporary it was before being escorted back home by a large group of bulletproof vest-wearing security guards.

Making a run for it?

It’s hard not to feel sorry for someone who says they don’t really like golf all that much, but playing a game means they are allowed outdoors for a while and so they do, and I understand how difficult arranging time off must be. With so much foreign correspondence to adhere to and so many time zones to consider while doing so, it puts the impossibility of a 9-5 into perspective, not to mention the workload that would never be fitted in.

To go back to the long-suffering families, is it just me who thinks it’s strange that it’s hard to think of a political couple who have gone through a marriage breakdown? Are the political wags of the world simply paid a ‘put up with it’ allowance and forced into a secret contract omitting them from the choice to divorce if things get too tough? I wouldn’t be surprised. So what sort of work/life balance should leaders really have?

On one hand, the UK has a slight advantage this year in that the Deputy PM has had a rather public role in his duties, making it appear more acceptable to fully take over for Dave to take his 28 days a year without being on call. On the other hand, it’s Nick Clegg and nobody trusts him to do anything anymore. Public opinion aside, Clegg’s raised profile as deputy has set an example for how involved his position should be in running the country. Why shouldn’t two people do the job on an everyday basis and allow one another time to breathe occasionally?

With Barack Obama stating that he misses things like squeezing fruit on a Saturday morning, and only being half way through his first term in the White House, I believe he may regret his decision to run for president at such a young age. Perhaps critics of his age during his election campaign weren’t always referring to his political experience, but to his ability to give up time with a young family and miss out on parent-teacher school nights.

It’s a tough call to take when countries clearly benefit from having leaders deeply involved in aspects of the legislation they set. The younger they are, the more likely they are to have families still in education, for example, and being directly involved in an aspect of society will help to understand the governing of it, but an older leader may feel less family pressure to take time off. It all ties in with the 21^st century argument of whether couples should have careers or children first. Both work for different people, it’s impossible to favour one or the other.

Perhaps Obama has the right mix of a team with an older Vice President. I’m sure his campaign rivals will use his claims to want more freedom against him in the coming campaign years. It’s going to be interesting to see how much he incorporates Joe Biden into a response to this. Is he as social media savvy though, I wonder?

So Friday arrived and marked the sad end of my week. It hasn’t felt quite as ‘final’ as I imagined, probably because I still have 18,000 words to write in essays and a dissertation. But still, I now officially have finished my education; no more lectures, no more after-lecture lunches, zilch. Just pure study from now until the end of May.

As for kick starting the final day of the week, there’s not much that can give you a wake up call better than an ice-cold shower. What I thought was starting off as the worst possible morning began with discovering the electricity had gone off and therefore no heat was going through the house’s water. I’d been doing a bit of note-making in the morning and had left getting a shower semi-last minute. Realising I had roughly an hour before I had to be at uni I jumped in the car with my towel and hairdryer to head to my parents house on the other side of the city and promptly hit the worst traffic I’ve seen midday for a long time.

A bit of panic and a decision to turn around and face the cold shower at home later and I was left with a reminder of my blonde roots: I may have been brave enough to wash my hair without warm water, but it was now soaking wet and my hairdryer wouldn’t work. I had 30 minutes until I had to set off. It was lucky today turned out to be a pretty hot day and I spent the last few minutes at home in the garden frantically urging the sun to do it’s thing a bit quicker and dry my hair au naturale. It wasn’t completely dry by the time I got to uni but I think I just about got away with it. By this, I mean nobody mentioned it to me, but that could just be a judgement not to on their part.

The final day of lectures couldn’t really have finished in a better way, though. First off was my favourite lecture of the term (it competes well as favourite module of the course too, but there’s been so many good ones it only makes the top three, being Power, Politics and Gender in the Americas, Poverty and Gender, and this one, Environment, Culture and Society. Damn, there’s the TV Narrative one too, let’s just say there weren’t many bad modules).

You know a good start to a lecture begins when the lecturer brings homemade flapjack for the class, reminding me of my first impression of this lecturer; I truly believe she competes with Superwoman. In her own words she described how one morning before our lecture she somehow re-read the seminar text, listened to a discussion on a related topic on Radio4, drew pictures with her young child and had breakfast. All at once. In addition to this she juggles lecturing us lot and makes handmade jewellery as a hobby. Anyone who says women can’t multitask; give up your argument now.

But on with Friday. I knew today’s lectures were going to be fantastic last night when I heard that a lecturer I had last year for my TV Narrative module (who also inspired me to do the dissertation I’m doing) was returning to the university to give a guest lecture. The lecture may not have been for any of the modules I’m taking, but that didn’t stop me attending. I managed to hunt him down for a chat before the lecture too, giving me chance to fill him in on my dissertation choice. There aren’t that many people who will enthuse with me in person over the topic, so it was definitely refreshing to get a new perspective on it, especially from someone who’s written a book on the topic.

The lecture ended with an open discussion on the works of Joss Whedon, reminding me of the upside to finishing university and having more time to invest in some catching up time with TV shows I’ve wanted to see for some time. As all lectures and grand finales should end, though, we were bid farewell with the best advice I’ve heard from a film lecturer: “Enjoy Easter, and don’t watch Twilight!”

Well Thursday was just about as fun as prison. By that I mean that I spent most of it confined within the same four walls. For my last seminar on Environmental Culture we’ve been assigned a reading to finish off the core textbook. There were 170 pages left. Needless to say, it took a while.

I knew this and cleverly gave myself an extra head start by getting stuck in on Wednesday night. It got to about 1am when I remembered I was at work this morning and was going to get a maximum of five hours sleep (but for the last time! Well, the last time for this reason, at least).

Luckily work had been fairly quiet and allowed me to leave an hour early to get back to combating the longest short textbook ever written. (The Logic of Environmentalism: Anthropology, Ecology and Postcoloniality by Vassos Argyrou if you’re interested) Read it and you’ll know exactly what I mean regarding the contradicting length.

Unfortunately for you, the reader, Thursday was probably a safe bet to label ‘dullest day of the week’. Considering this, I’m thinking it shouldn’t be lasting as long as it is (typing this at 1.30am on Friday after having been up since sunrise), but perhaps the clue to the dullness is in the time spent at this desk. I’m thinking I may celebrate the end of my degree with a desk-smashing ritual, feel free to join in spirit. Next, the big F.

Ah Wednesday. It sits right in the middle of the week not quite knowing whether it’s at the beginning or the end. It’s never good. I’m not at work or have any lectures so what should in theory be a free day to work on the dissertation always turns out to have something crop up at an annoying middle point of the afternoon, rendering a deep dive into the fourth floor of the library’s silent study floor less meaningful.

Today’s mishap event was the Hullfire photo shoot. This time last year the same thing took place to show the students of Hull the stunning team that had been selected to run the university’s newspaper. It took about four hours, 200 photos and we ended up using the worst of the lot. It’s safe to say nobody was expecting this to be a quick job. It wasn’t, but in fairness it was a LOT quicker than last year. We used only one location, changed position less times than you could count on your hands and were done and tormenting the new ‘us’ half an hour later.

There was the classic Hullfire attempt to be subtly arty by positioning the new editors in the same positions and stances as the old ones for their shoot, the only difference being the look of awkwardness of a team of people who have yet to get to know each other by passing around proofreading deadlines at 3am via Facebook chat. Then something really strange happened: we didn’t go to the pub.

I think the fear has really set in now just how close end of year deadlines are and how most of us still have in excess of 20,000 words to write. With this in mind, and despite a bit of wavering we eventually all wandered off to do some proactive procrastination. I did mine by writing an article on travelling Austin instead of an essay, but it could have been a worse use of time, I should normally have been in the union’s beer garden. On to Thursday.

Day two of my last ‘normal’ week of university started off better than expected. The last time I went out on a Monday night I paid for it during my Tuesday AM lecture, but this time the sensible side of my alter ego had kicked in and told me to switch to water for the latter part of the evening. It made dancing a little more uncomfortable than usual, but it meant I got my seminar reading done at least (note to employers who may be reading this: see, I really am a sensible student!).

Despite having done the reading, this didn’t propel me with the confidence to lead a discussion on it with nowhere to hide in a lecture of five students. Yes, five. What is it about the last week of term that students pay roughly £90 in tuition fees for that makes them want to skip it? It’s the last EVER week for goodness sakes. Almost pain-free lecture over with however and I got to one of the parts of the week I’m going to miss the most: Tuesday Hullfire lunch.

The last few weeks have accidentally turned into an unofficial lunch date each Tuesday with various members of the Hullfire crew and this week’s was done nicely with an extra nostalgic taste of rubber cheese from the union. Ah student food, who’d have thought this is where my blog was going to go?

To get past this redundant point however, came one of my other favourite things about university: guest lectures. They’re badly advertised so when you hear of someone like a best-selling author making an appearance for the English department it’s not a bad thing. The Philosophy department had Luce Irigaray attend from Paris earlier in the semester, it seems the humanities admin team can do some things right after all.

The guest tonight was Kate Mosse, author of Labyrinth, a book I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know what was about until now. I’m still not convinced it’s my type of thing, but then again I haven’t given it that much of a chance yet, but if there’s one thing authors do well (other than write books) it’s giving that inspirational speech of finding your perfect writing place. Kate Mosse’s happened to be in a small medieval French village her husband impulsively bought a house in while she was at home, pregnant 21 years ago. Mine it seems, for now is a wobbly desk from Argos in the spare room with numerous textbooks piled around me. Still, aspirations huh?

In a moment of self-reflection I considered keeping a diary of this week’s events (my last week of being an attending student, ever) and quickly remembered that diaries are now open to share online, and are more commonly called blogs. Whereas the 20^th century teenage girl’s diary may have been top secret and padlocked with one of those little mass-produced locks which all have the same key, rendering them pointless, a blog is openly non-secret, yet has still taken over the concept of tracking our lives through words. This, combined with the theme of this blog being ‘the life of a final year student’, it felt appropriate to track my last week online. Here’s Monday:

As far as Monday morning’s go, mine aren’t that much different from any other worker’s: I get up at a painfully early time, desperately try to remain awake and go to work. I suppose it’s good practice for the rest of my life really. However, as my status is that of ‘student’, I do bask in the importance of finishing at lunch time and being home to spend the afternoon as I wish.

This is where my ‘diary’ falls down catastrophically: I’ve realised it isn’t interesting. My afternoon consisted of having lunch, tidying the house and reading the Easter edition of the ASDA magazine before moving onto some coursework in my make-shift study. See? Not interesting. The evening is slightly more life-reflective though so I’ll continue.

As any good (or bad) student will know, Monday night is student night. This means cheap drinks, awful music and getting confused about how close the weekend is far too early in the week for a working person to consider going out. A couple of drinks with some friends, I don’t mind. But this Monday turned out the same as many others, meaning the early-in-the-night-and-home-for-a-sensible-time drinks were postponed until later on due to sheer student laziness and just as I’d given up on the thought of going out and going to bed instead I promptly get dragged out of my pyjamas (via text message) and down to the nearest student bar instead.

It was only last Saturday night when I fell asleep at 10pm how I thought to myself that it was funny what difference a few years make. At eighteen I could have been getting into bed at that time when an impulsive text message from a friend would see me ready to hit the town quicker than Superman puts his cape on in a phone box. This week I was fast asleep and looking forward to a full 8 hour’s kip. It’s strange how that end-of-an-era feeling can prompt you to do things you don’t normally do, then. By the time I went to bed I’d been up 21 hours and was feeling guilty about the abandoned seminar reading lying on the desk from a few hours before. And that was Monday.

Using the logic that I’m the one writing this blog, and not the target audience, I think it’s healthy to occasionally allow readers to suggest topics they’d like to see covered. This is one of those posts, and today’s topic is on ebooks. Thanks to Twitter user, @Groovydaz39 for the suggestion.

A couple of weeks ago I was sat in my Friday afternoon lecture on cultural aspects of the environment when my lecturer asked who had completed the reading for that week. I had both necessary textbooks checked out of the library and sat in front of me at the time, being the desperately-wanting-a-First student that I am. A couple of other students claimed they were unable to read all the material due to it already being checked out. I slowly covered the books with my notes and avoided the evil glares being shot into the back of my head.

Besides the frustrating politics of lecture readings however, the incident raised an interesting issue. While some students had simply claimed the textbooks had been unavailable, another claimed to have been unable to complete it due to the texts not being present in an online format. To me, trying to find the books online hadn’t crossed my mind. They were listed as in the library, sat ready and waiting for my eager hands to snatch them before anyone else, on a physical shelf, in print. Why should I look for them elsewhere, or in another format?

What I find interesting here is why I only considered looking for paper versions, and why another student looked exclusively online for the same readings. Here are some pros and cons for both sides:

Paper books, the pros:

Once it’s printed, it’s printed. Copyright issues are already established and bound, and the book will always appear in full form, from the first page to the last.

They’re better to read: this isn’t opinion, but fact. Apparently human eyes have to work harder to recognise printed words, and this makes retaining and recalling information easier as our brains have spent longer understanding what we’re processing.

Paper is pretty: it’s a long-standing dream of mine to have my own library; a room with floor to ceiling bookshelves, complete with sliding ladders, a fireplace and comfy armchair, oh yes, and ahem, books. Showing off your complete collection of classical authors by switching on your PC just doesn’t have the same effect.

They’re transportable, and don’t become unreadable once your Kindle has used its battery life.

And the cons:

Sharing is difficult. I’ll accept this much. I’ve been on the other end of the luck spectrum when only a limited number of copies of a lecture’s readings are available in the library and someone beats you to the last copy.

They get worn: old battered copies of some books may seem to add to the charm when they were published in the 1800s and have been passed through many hands since, but a recently published copy of Stephen Fry’s autobiography with several rabbit teeth marks in just doesn’t give off the same quality.

Ebooks, the pros:

Okay, the obvious: storage. If you’re not big on bookcases taking over your house then they have an obvious advantage here, not to mention the problem of carrying numerous books with you on long journeys. One device to fit them all does sit well with commuters and travellers, so long as you’re able to charge said device.

Duplicate copies. As mentioned above, this combats the problem students have of scrambling over the last print version on the shelf. It also combats the problem of late fines at the library.

They save paper and ink. Fantastic if you’re keen on the green. But then plugging in an additional electronic device doesn’t exactly combat the environmental aspect.

And the cons:

Some could say ebooks are making reading less accessible, especially when it comes to children. Parents aren’t going to shed out over £100 for a reader for every child in the country on top of the cost of the individual book too, and a rapid move into electronic reading could cut interest in literature amongst young people.

They’re expensive. As mentioned above, you still have to pay for the books after you’ve forked out for the Kindle, reader, or whatever you choose to read your books on. Unless you’re going to get a LOT of use out it, I can’t justify the outright cost.

Technology doesn’t always work, and when it does work, the batteries run out. Not great if you’re in the park, on the beach, on a plane, etc with nowhere to plug them in.

And finally: they’re just not books, are they?