A new year, a new crisis

So Christmas has come and gone, the New Year beckons and with it comes a multiplicity of resolutions most of which, I wager, have been broken before they have even been made. Those of you who do fulfil your wishes and stay true to your resolutions I envy, and to some extent have a mild dislike for. Indeed at this moment in time when I am just beginning to get to grips with student life, a horrible thing has happened: I’ve turned 19, and have hit the much ignored phenomenon: the quarter-life crisis.

Hopefully none of you have found yourselves rolling around on the ground, crying profusely and gesticulating everywhere, lamenting the fact that you have done nothing with your life (not that I have…) but allow me to share a few depressing facts. At 19 Adele had released an album, called “19”, selling over 7 million records. Rafael Nadal had won two French Open titles at the age of 19. Christopher Paolini had written Eragon and seen it published, at the age of 19. The closest thing to having literature published in my name thus far has been evidence of my drunken text messaging appearing on my Facebook wall the day after a night out in Birmingham, much to the glee of many.

Now let me just point out the fact that my quarter-life crisis did not actually rear its head as soon as I hit 19 but I would argue that it came when I began my English Literature degree here at Warwick in October. As soon as the intoxicated haze of freshers’ week had cleared and the harsh reality of my need to actually work became apparent, I found myself establishing a few facts. First of all within a few seminars I had decided that everyone was more intelligent than me by a marathon distance and not only would I graduate with a third class degree, but I will end up with no job, a ton of debt and no reason to live. Whilst this hyperbole warranted a good slap and a shout of “man up”, I’d be a liar if I said that echoes of this mentality do not resonate with me to this day.

The dilemma that I, and perhaps many first year undergraduates, have faced is the fact that we are very much in a state of limbo at this moment in time. It is our first year and therefore does not count towards our final degree. That’s fair enough but what about extra-curricular activities? Looking through my university inbox and bag of leaflets I have found that I displayed interest in about 20 societies, became a member of 5 and only ever attended the events of 1. It’s only the first term, don’t panic I hear you say but one cannot ignore the fact that we have essentially completed a third of our first year and a ninth of our overall degree. There is now the chance that I will only be an active member of 1 society by the time I finish first year, what have I done with my time here (clue: Tuesdays at Smack)?