Here we are, at last

The program has begun with a vengeance, for most, and a whimper for some. There’s a degree of chance in picking classes, choosing professors, and now that the chips have fallen some of us find ourselves buried in reading, while others are bewildered with what to do with all the time on their hands. The U.S. system requires more interaction for English students, more classroom time, so those of us coming from it and similar systems are doubly gratified by the amount of freedom we now have.

We have been divided for workshop, but endeavor to make up for this both by drinking together as often as possible and by holding a workshop of our own, neither of which am I involved in as much as I should be due to the amount of traveling I’ve been doing and have yet to do before I can truly settle down. The settling part has taken longer than any of us thought it would, and though we are all unpacked and know where to get our groceries from and how to get to the postgrad-only bar, we still generally feel the need to get wedged in. To move beyond resident to comfortable, to familiar, to at home and confident in our new environment. To being part of the landscape, one with the woodwork.

It’s strange to be surrounded by writers. Not people that “have a novel in them” or “might write something one day” or who “dabble a bit in poetry,” but people that struggle with the written word, read with an eye to craft, slip into the minds of invented people like slipping into their socks in the morning. And all of us are, seemingly, consumed with guilt over not writing more, reading more, experimenting more. No posers, but all workmen, with a shared technical language that I have so rarely heard, much less been able to use in company, before. There is a joy in being allowed to be frustrated because a narrative won’t get off the ground, an experiment refuses to coalesce, a novel has ground to a halt and you can’t figure out how to start it up again. And we’re able to talk about it, to work it out, over a drink or while sharing dinner and not have to translate every word.

"Over a drink" - that's a key part of it. I can't quite see this sort of atmosphere existing at a U.S. university. We're too competitive. Too image-conscious. Here there are pints and lots of hugging, and we do what we do in public or private and are proud of it. And quite often it's our professors that are doing the pouring.