Taking four whole psychology modules seemed like a good idea at the time, really it did. Only sometimes I get swept up in the whimsy of the little Siegmund Freud cartoons in my head and forget what a technical subject it can be. There are ANOVAs and t-tests and diagrams and EEG readings and fMRI scans of the brain and lobes and cortexes and sulcuses and gyruses that need labelling and colouring and dissecting and inspecting. And mein Gott, it’ll whittle you down like a hungry dwarf hamster does a piece of chocolate. (I know I shouldn’t be feeding Angstrom chocolate, I know. But I keep asking myself, if I were a dwarf hamster, what would I want?)

And then there’s literature. I love literature, and while I don’t want to sound like an over enthusiastic anglophile, I like most books, films and I even like good poetry. There is an enormous catharsis in being able to write about something somewhat subjective and having a point of view. There is just one thing I cannot reconcile myself with at this moment: James Joyce. For the sake of this class, I have ploughed through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and will one day, come hell or highwater, make myself read Ulysses.

And while I have managed to get through the first book and understand it better now than when I first began, I can’t seem to make myself like it for the simple reason that I am a shallow sod. Strangely enough, I am one of the few people in class to admit that I don’t like it which is slightly suspect because I’ve never met anyone who has actually sung his praises (although M told me she met one such anomaly today).

Yes, it’s a novel about development and yes he does a wonderful job of undercutting himself with a “series of deflations” but somehow this doesn’t seem sufficient to me to garner the accolade of “most brilliant writer of this era” or something to that effect.

I persisted that despite everything, it was a novel of failure.

“But doesn’t a man deserve that kind of recognition to write so spectacularly about failure and about the reality of life?” Dr T. asked.

I am ashamed to say that I feel like the answer is no. Maybe this makes me a philistine because I cannot tell good writing and craftsmanship from bad and everything I write is as pompous and self-important as I imagine Joyce’s writing to be but I still can’t appreciate it as much as other novels of development like The Razor’s Edge. I suppose not understanding the history of Ireland and not taking it all apart enough has something to do with it.

It’s not the nicest thing to be laughed at in class, but it teaches you something about the things that you believe in and not to get tangled up in arguments that you cannot fully explain as yet. As M reminded me, we are only human and can only see things from the perspective we were born with, something I tend to forget.

But there is some consolation in knowing that I have the time to learn.

Until today, I was worried that I had been in university for three years and still had nothing to show for it. It felt like I hadn’t learnt enough about how to write or how to analyse things and question institutions.

Well, this afternoon, I found that there was a subtle difference after all. We aren’t as naïve as we once were, and a little less ignorant, if only a little. Someone once told me that graduating didn’t feel like accomplishing anything at all. Rather it was just one step on a longer and neverending journey of learning. The secret is in taking it all in your stride.

One day, I hope I’ll know what it is to read Joyce and like it. It’ll come with time, effort and a lot of patience. Till then, I’ll be content with doodling little sketches of Oedipus Rex during lectures.

And kicking ass at Roller Coaster Tycoon III.