Game Over

I just finished my exams but unfortunately, and as I'm sure you can imagine, finishing A Levels for the second time is somewhat of an anticlimactic. The first time, you relax thinking there is nothing more that can be done - until the second time, when continuing the pattern of failing indefinitely becomes a friendlier and friendlier option.

So although I guess I have now officially left school, I also left school last summer and two summers before that when I finished my GCSEs and every time, it has seemed more about holding hands and swaying uncontrollably to Eternal Flame than anything remotely linked to education - ironic really. This time, while everyone else was wasting away on buckets of Tequila and jumping through hoops of fire in the Far East, I finished off my Portuguese paper and signed off my coursework to the Devil, in whose utterly incapable hands my fate now lies.

I was thinking back over my academic life until arriving here in Limbo and my track record isn't a terribly inspiring one. While I may have been a scholar at two out of three schools, I've never won an award; had innumerous detentions and still got a D in my Physics GCSE, then again Annabel Banks did copy my spellings... but we won't go into that.

I applied for a job today that involved giving my Myspace URL (which I haven't looked at for quite some time). There, I found in a post, the first and only piece of A Level Latin work I ever produced before dropping the subject, and it is by no means any more or less exaggerated than an exactly literal translation of Ovid's Amores 1.5. I thought I had done quite well, I simply thought I could help Ovid out a bit:

It was past the sun's time with the gods, but not yet night. Pieces of the twilight entered our room, shredded -in a way that woodland does- by the part-open shutters. But let me tell you that between these shreds are found hidden, shy girls bidding their modesty.

And here, Corinna enters; an unbelted tunic in place of a masking veil. Hair, tumbling, surrounding an exposed fair decolletage: the look of a courtesan or queen, desired en masse.

I tore at her tunic, pulling it effortlessly from her. I would lie, were I to tell she had not struggled, but an apathetic struggle as it was, suggested it bore little intent. No, Corinna was out to be sought. Sought and conquered: to be dominated. And so, Corinna was taken not by force, but by the force of her own will.

And there she stood, before me, as though unspoiled- perfection in her natural shape. Nowhere could I find cause for any complaint- so flawless a form. Shoulders, as sweet as the arms I touched, and breasts, with caresses I may well not have done them justice. So worthy of appraisal, I could simply not admire them too greatly. This is not to say that her stomach, side or thighs were not worthy of vast awe- for they too: youthful and fair in colour. But I relate too much in detail, and in prose I am inept to describe such faultlessness.

Overcome with emotion and longing, I snatched her away from herself, embracing her body close to mine.

I narrate the rest in mind, and leave to you, my untold memoir. For lists do no credits to such actions past. Besides, that we both rested together, should illustrate alone. I make it no secret in hoping for echo.

OK, so I am evidently not to be an academic. Perhaps I should have listened to George Skerett, put my books away and invested more time in finding myself a husband. Why oh why did I never pursue Home Economics? While I may be able to elaborate heavily on the ideas of lots of really old men, I can neither cook nor sew - nor walk in a straight line at the best of times. On the other hand, there's always next year. It's not Game Over just yet.

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Reading O Alquimista - Paulo Coelho
Listening to The Sarah McLachlan trance remixes