Timed essay time

I'm in a classroom somewhere in Halesowen. 8 philosophy students are attempting to answer the question "Can law be divorced from morality?" in 30 minutes. I've occupied the teacher's computer at the front of class in order to do work, only to realise that it's all back at the office. They're good kids for the most part. Once they tilt over that first summer and get into their second year, they lose momentum. Everything becomes a chore. The wide-eyed enthusiasm seems to shift to a doleful disinterest. Education becomes laborious for the best of them.

On reflection, my own uselessness comes to the fore in times like these. I realise what I haven't managed to get done (the Paris deposits, the marking, the handouts, that lesson plan for this afternoon, the recording of the new demo, the writing of the novel, the research into my MA dissertation and tidying the bathroom). Granddad went into hospital this week too. I was left on a limb. Mom and Dad hadn't told me- or rather I was told by text but it didn't get through- and so he's been in since Monday without my knowledge. I'm still protected, even at the age of 27. I was supposed to go over and record the demo, then Dad called to say that it might be tricky because of the whole Granddad thing, which was the first I'd heard of it. I'm not sure whether he'll be OK. He was found back home after wandering the streets in his pyjamas at some ungodly hour, frozen solid by the back gate of nextdoor's garden looking confused. The fall of a great man.

The students have about 20 mintues left. They should be trying to explain that, though conceptually different, it is hard to distance law from morality as there is always the presupposition of some intrinsic value (utility, goodness, welfare, liberty) that underpins the whole thing. They should be. What they're actually writing is beyond me. I love this module because I get to wax-excited about my favourite people (Zizek, Marx, Foucault, Badiou, Deleuze) but this time I'm getting paid for it, rather than just being told to be quiet because I'm ruining a perfectly good night at the pub. From what I can tell, the class is split; we have a hardened conservative or two, a few liberals (in the true Rawlsean/Lockean sense- not the Americanised political sense), one Marxist, one who is utterly apathetic (through despair rather than disinterest), a feminist and some moderate socialists. I normally end up pushing buttons as best as I can; just tossing out the odd "Mao wasn't that far wrong..." or "I don't see why we should necessarily avoid the use of violence".

Fifteen minutes. There was a maths exam in the hall today. I had to invigilate. Chaos had broken out earlier on because the head of maths had put all of the students in the wrong seats. I then had to try to take an attendance register of 400 incorrectly seated students dotted around the room. I then had to run around college trying to find treasury tags (you know those wee bits of string with a stick at the end that you use to bind hole-punched sheets together? That's what they're called! I never knew). During lunch I tried to read some more of a short Walter Benjamin book I've had on my desk for ages. I ended up being lured into a conversation about beef pie.

Ten to go. I pretty much realised a long time ago that I'm not suited to looking good either. I have that awful thing going on with my height where regular clothes look too big and tailored clothes make me look like someone has dressed up a cat. You know when small people wear clothes that fit them and they just look like some sort of perverse child? I've never found good shoes either. My feet are too big for my body (5' 7" and size 10 shoes...dunno what that is in American) and I had a hunch in my shoulders that it hurts to try and correct. Sitting normally really hurts. I was made for academia. No one genuinely smart and dashing can get a job in a university. You have to look like you've had no choice but to throw yourself into study. Kant was ugly. Wittgenstein looked like when children dress themselves for school. Even Nietzsche managed to hide his quite dashing looks with a walrus moustache.

Five minutes. The reason I mention it is because I've been thinking about my clothes, and without descending into "you can't polish a turd" territory, I've realised that there is little I can do to make myself appear smarter. My face doesn't suit good hair. My body doesn't suit good clothes. And I have a pot belly. None of this is fishing, nor is it whining in an emo-stylee. It's rather a chatter about my own self-understanding (which is what any good blog truly is...apart from a vague attempt at confession, which some people leap at. The Catholics had that right- we all need to unburden our soul, it's just that they had the guts to do it openly rather than locking it behind a flimsy set of pages that we hope people don't read- all the time praying that they do).

I remember I had a friend who wrote a diary for a year and let us read it when we were drunk. It was a diary of when the band I used to be in first formed so it was a wonderfully nostalgic trawl through people and places and events that we'd long forgotten. The only downer was that whenever I had to read out a passage it was always about his Dad dying. Not as funny as drunken tales of shite gigs.

Pens down.