Mistress of Arts

In the rather inevitable way of it, Miss Marshall joined the ranks of graduate students who wake one day to find that endless procrastination has led them into a desperate situation. One of her key informants, a celebrated short story writer whose debut collection had garnered both high literary praise and a deal for a novel, disappeared entirely from the world literary scene--a fact which was revealed only gradually, as Miss Marshall searched for him in increasingly obscure and intrusive ways. By the time she had searched through international registries, been rebuffed by the privacy policies of Médecins Sans Frontières, and decoded the stony silence of his publishers enough to work out that this key informant was, in fact, bunking with Rushdie, never again to be heard from, the thesis was all but due. In addition, she had two other interviews--one warm and delightful, the other brilliant and slightly gitty--which lay on the page like mullets, begging with pleading, turgid eyes to be united in a stylistically insightful way, or at least hoping that their contents would be somehow alluded to in the final chapter.

Miss Marshall is able to glumly report that it was the work of a mere few weeks to whip the thesis into a shape that she hoped would be largely presentable. By charming the bindery and forking out wodges of cash she managed to get the thing stuck together, and in a scene reminiscent of the later of the Bourne thrillers she battled usurious parking buildings, deadly Albert Park steps, ill-informed information volunteers, flocks of first-years, warrens of corridors, yellow stickers, and self-important departmental secretaries to get the beast submitted, and, it may be pointed out, she also got back for work at 5.30.

There were certain somewhat unexpected repercussions that faced Miss Marshall in the ensuing days. The feeble post-delivery contractions of a latent work ethic left her occasionally twitchy when she considered the newly unnecessary urge to check for typos, and her devoted clients were inclined to redouble their efforts to find out what she planned to do with herself when she grew up, but all in all Miss Marshall enjoyed her life of comparative leisure. She began reading a fantasy novel of prodigious length--a sort of hippopotamus-sized tome combining the sidetracking prowess of Herman Melville, the footnote fetish of Oliver Sacks and the creative spelling of Bacon of Bisley--which, combined with the discovery of a rather good hazelnut soy hot chocolate at a coffeehouse near the studio, promised to keep her occupied for a good while. At this pleasant, yet uncertain, point, we draw a veil, a dissolve, an ellipsis, a pause to consider the practicalities of what appears on the surface to be a frankly luxurious life...

Most good things come to an end

Eventually, Miss Marshall had procrastinated for so long that it seemed like it would be fun to go ahead and do her master's anyway. This did not happen instantly, of course, because there were Bills to Pay and Situations at Work that prevented her from getting a move on, but eventually she bit the bullet and enrolled at the university, and not the cheap and cheerful one so beloved of her youth, mind, but the flash one in the big city. This was a good thing. She got to take the intercity bus to the big city once a fortnight to meet with her supervisor, and sometimes they drank green tea; she also found a number of places that did good eggs benedict, one of which was not forty steps from her supervisor's office. She could walk into the big bookshop and buy books, and also have a not bad vegetable stack with salad at the cafe inside; she could sit in Starbucks with her iBook fending off attention from weedy Mac and weedy PC users alike, and use the grossly overpriced wireless network to check her emails; she could nip into the classy shopping district across the bridge and nose around there, which was fun, though expensive.

Naturally, every second Saturday afternoon, she had to buckle down and write her thesis; this was not too much of a problem, though it did tend to cut into alternate Saturday afternoons...

All in all, Miss Marshall enjoyed this kind of living, though it did mean that she was somewhat broke, and relatively often she would dream of returning to a life of lunch orders, jumbo nappies, and group hugs. At the time of press, Miss Marshall has managed to restrain herself.

Miss Marshall procrastinates

It's just one of those things about her. She means well, but when push comes to shove she would prefer to go elsewhere. She is, however, an expert procrastinator. Consequently, after leaving academia for a life of playdough, PECS cards and group mihi, she began to think about things she would like to do. She continued to teach at the university, thus both delaying and funding the inevitable, and increasing by the way of contrast her affection for her day job. She also took up Pilates. This was a good thing, because it got her to do a push-up once in a while, and she quite enjoyed it. It also gave her something to do with the long hours between three and bedtime (six in all, or thirty per working week, only one of which, however, was spent doing Pilates, of course).

She enjoyed this so much that when her instructor asked her to consider training to teach, she jumped at the chance. It was the work of a moment to fork over her life savings (this had, after all, been a biannual ritual for the past four years, on account of the BA[Hons] [first class]) and head on over to Sydney. Twice, in fact. One thing led to another, and before long she was teaching Pilates part-time and pouring Ensure into mickey buttons, tickling children with feathers, and playing group xylophone the rest of the time.

In this way, she was able to procrastinate almost 24/7, which was nice. If all else failed, she still had her embryonic MA proposal to put off working on. Life was jolly nearly perfect. We shall continue at a later date.

First things first

Why is Miss Marshall grumpy?

This is a key question, and to answer it Miss Marshall must turn to her recent history. After a somewhat unorthodox secondary education, Miss Marshall enrolled at a local university, where she studied English and Screen & Media Studies. This she greatly enjoyed. She was under no illusions as to her prospects, and fully understood that this was not a vocational training course, but she decided to worry about that later. Consequently, when three years of study had been completed, Miss Marshall had no hesitation in embarking on a fourth.

From here on things went downhill. Miss Marshall supported herself during that fourth year by working as a caregiver. This was a good thing--it provided Miss Marshall with access to dementia, industrial linen, and the odd piece of illicit toast--but it didn't exactly pay the bills. By the end of the year Miss Marshall had a BA (Hons) and very little else.

So Miss Marshall put her plans for a fifth year of university on hold and took a job as a teacher aide. This was a good thing. She no longer had to start work at seven in the morning--instead she swanned in from nine to three. People called her Miss Marshall. She got a name badge. There was a lady who came into the office once in a while and sold tubs of red liquorice, Miss Marshall's favourite kind.

This is how it was until the end of that year. We'll talk about the rest another time.

Let's get going...

Well, here it is. This is Miss Marshall's blog. Miss Marshall never thought she would have a blog of her own. This is OK.