My module starts next week. I have a pile of the right books, I’ve signed up for tutorials, browsed the course website, put TMA dates in my calendar, and set up a desk. I have a laptop and supplies - pens and paper, highlighters and sticky notes. I’m reading the Forums and forming early views - not on the course content, that’s for a moment down the road - at this stage it's mainly people watching. And it's fascinating... (but those are stories for another day...).
Yet, despite this preparation, and despite having read most of the aforementioned books, I woke up today knowing I was decidedly not ready. Unsettled. Something was missing. It came to me - I did not have the right coffee cup. I needed a cup that was going to be my dedicated studying cup. It needed to be grown up. It needed to say ‘literary.’ It needed to be something that would inspire brilliant, deep thoughts and generate eloquently written paragraphs - something authentic and assertive, but something giving off a soft-edges-whimsical vibe. Something to counter the side of me that is far too straight talking, and far too quick to yell at my kids, and far too willing to just give the blunt answer because it is more efficient that way. I needed a coffee mug that could trick me into being peacefully powerful, that would allow me to caffeinate my way to a gracious greatness. It also needed to be a cup that was exclusively mine - that none of these teenage boys would dare to touch. It would have to be floral.
A little bit obsessed with the idea that a cup was the only possible path to academic success, and a little bit high on the idea of justifying a brief retail therapy moment, I found myself in Home Goods within minutes, and am now breathing a sigh of relief that my mission was successful. My $4.99 cup features petals and buds, pastels and little twigs. It will be my ‘reading lovely literature’ cup. True to any Home Goods visit, it's actually impossible to leave with only one item. Today's bonus purchase is for TMA writing. It is for reading hard to understand articles. It is for early mornings and re-drafting essays, and the moments when I suspect there is not a single original idea in my head. It is my survival mug.
Welcome to our new life of studying, Little Cups. I will be holding you solely responsible for every grade that comes our way. Buckle up. It's game time.
