Saturday 31st May 2008 – 01:29
I’m sitting in a university halls room – one of good size at that – with large amounts of mess around me, including a half-eaten plate of Chinese-style ribs, the other half of which were very tasty indeed. Things stand out at me that are crying to be finished – my guitar amp is askew, not yet plugged back in and thus gasping for sustenance; my washing bin is full, screaming at me to empty it, please for the love of god and all that is holy empty it and wash that red t-shirt that’s been lurking at the bottom of it for weeks, not being washed simply because I can’t put it in with either the whites or the darks; plates and other crockery lie lifeless and dirty like some strange collection of soiled relics, yearning to once again shine and sparkle with the lustre they had before I came into possession of them; and various other objects and clothes and drawers and CDs and DVDs that have long since grown fed up of being left out in the open to collect dust.
And so opens this memo, this excerpt from the life of a 19 year-old male resident of England, student at the University of Sussex on the Philosophy and Film Studies joint honours degree, this chronicling of the rip-roaring life of the occupant of room 4 in house 44 of the Brighthelm residence on campus, nearing the end of his first year of university. And what a bloody good opening it is too.
I apologise in advance for the coarse language and crude themes that may or may not pop up during these memoirs, but I’m sure that whoever is reading this is mature enough to handle such things, and if not then shame on you/the people who gave this to you, as you/they should know better (please delete as appropriate). You already know quite a bit about me from the passages above, and you may have even gained an insight into my state of mind and sense of humour through an in-depth analysis of the page thus far, resulting in a greater sense of understanding and a more thorough connection with the writer. Well I would like to be the first to say well done and congratulations, and I hope that this experience brings us closer as author and reader. In fact, I would like to share with you, my faithful and endearing reader, an insight into one of my foremost thoughts at this exact moment.
I’ve always hated that pretentious crap.
There is nothing more infuriating than some scholar-type lecturing to you about how this writer was ‘striving to create a feeling of yearning through his use of the abstract noun’ or some other such bullshit. It probably never even crossed their minds that they, like me, are writing with the hope that a publisher will take them on board and they will become the next Dickens or King or other literary giant and end up making shed loads of cash to set them up for life (of course I know that the life of an author is very often not like this at all, but one can dream). But I suppose the way in which one gets accepted by a publisher is to create feelings of yearning through the use of abstract nouns and the like, and so here we seem to have a kind of circular argument, and one that I would not wish to discuss unless rusty screws were being driven beneath my fingernails until I let loose with counter-arguments and responses. How’s that for creating a response through the use of language?
So please, do not expect me to be writing in some sort of poetic, languishing fashion that would rival most female romance novelists (score one more for stereotyping – yeah!). I am writing as me, albeit a slightly more cynical and literary fashion that I would normally write or speak. I am liable, if not likely, to change how I write during the progress of these memos depending on my mood of the day and the time, and certain entries will probably be longer than others, as well as some being quite short, but I just want to let you, the reader, know where you stand before you get all uppity about the inconsistencies in writing style, because I care about you so, so much. Did you detect the sarcasm there? Again, well done, you studious fellow, you! Or fellowette. Wouldn’t want to be accused of sexism now, would we? No we wouldn’t.
Why have I chosen to finish this entry here? Is it because it leaves more of a dramatic cliff hanger, drawing and urging the reader to continue on to the next chapter? Is it because I am planning to create some sort of style whereby I end my entries suddenly and abruptly? Or is it because I wish to leave a mental image of me as a sarcastic, cynical writer in the mind of those who would peruse these pages? It is in fact none of these reasons. Look at the time at the top of the entry – I’m tired. Good night to you, faithful reader, and may you enjoy a deep and rewarding sleep whenever you next get to rest that weary head of yours and descend into the land of blurred and distorted reality we call R.E.M sleep. Anyway, I don’t have to try that hard to create that sarcastic mental image now, do I? 
