They Want Me

I don't know what I was expecting, but I didn't expect it to be quite as easy as that.

I walked in and filled out a form, and they wanted me.

That was the general idea, of course, to choose a course that I could just walk onto. I was expecting to have to fight a bit more than not at all, and I am as incredulous at my immediate acceptance as the general response towards me was. They wanted me. I'm in.

I don't really feel cheated. I was dreading having to go in there and sell myself. It's such a lie, it makes me feel so dirty. I'm good, and there is a wealth of points which are appropriately convincing. I'm brilliant on paper and better in person. I read interviewers and tell them I'm their living dream with only slight kinks to the truth, make them smile by staying a person at the same time. I've talked my way into some of the best academic institutions in the country.

I'm relieved I didn't have to go through this process. It's a betrayal of the people I'm talking to. I let them think I'm what I look like, and it won't last more than a handful of weeks before they realise that in actual fact I'm one of the most classic screw-up cases they'll ever meet. And I know this is who I really am throughout, and soon enough they know that I know. So how am I supposed to look them in eye.

If you ask me, do I think I can do this, my answer is no. No, don't be ridiculous. Nobody ever asks that. People seem to think that having done something is the same as having been able to do it. There's no way I survived A-levels the first time around, but I've got them sitting looking at me on paper.

If I can pretend. If I can bluff my way through. I have to be able to believe I can do this, even if I don't think that I can. A day at a time, an essay at a time. If I can push myself to do all these things before I work out that they're things I'm not able to do.

I have a timetable! With subjects on! Subjects that I never thought I'd get the chance to study. They're there, on my timetable. A timetable that is mine, and subjects that are mine. I am the luckiest, most fortunate person in the world, and there hasn't been a moment when I haven't appreciated that. I have done nothing to deserve yet another incredible oppurtunity, and like I've said, I have no idea if I'm going to be able to live up to it.

But people want me like they haven't seemed to in years. I remember finding that stifling and exhausting before, but right now I feel nothing but inspired. They wanted to fast-track me and give me extra subjects, and I find it somewhat amusing that Ox-Bridge was suggested to me before I'd even finished enrolling. It's either amusing or sickening. It's a small achievement to have resisted the prod to do more and aim high, but it's done. It's a big enough deal for me to be returning to education at all - there's nothing that says I should push myself to fill some imagined potential, and I have no reason to inflict additional pressure upon myself.

I don't know what I would have done if I'd been sent on my way, but I was expecting a few more questions than I got.

I'm a sixth-form student once more. For americans unfamiliar with our education system, that means I'm headed back to High School. I'd forgotten how young 16-year-olds look, and I don't remember having looked that young myself. Coleg Glan Hafren wants me, and that means more to me than maybe it should.