Crow Bar or student of the university of openess meets University College London

“I need merely refer to the universe of prejudice, repression and omission that every successful education makes you accept, and makes you remain unaware of, tracing out the magic circle of powerless complacency in which the elite schools imprison their elect”
Bourdieu from “a lecture on the lecture” from
In other words essays towards a reflexive society

Its too good under my duvet, I'm full of the most luscoius haze of a full nights sleep. Insomnia has taught me that sleep is one of the most luxurious, intense wonderful pleasures of life. I slept well last night. Early morning sounds reverbarating around the light shaft reach me - sam, who lives upsairs, is a teenage male model and graffiti writer, sneezes with unbelievable gusto twice - he really puts his rage into it. The sound is kind of distorted, either form the acoustics or the passion and then i hear a really craggy sounding crow cawing - this is quite an unusual sound for W1.
Today is the day to get photo ID card and enroll at the UCL library. I have the paper work and I swing my way over there in the refreshingly cool air. The UCL campus on Gower street is a city unto itself and I have no clue, none at all where Andrew Huxley Building is. A student i approach says she doesn't know either but points me in the general direction. I'm getting my photo taken at 11.30 in the morning. I'm looking a little rough. The photo has a blue background . When the picture was taken I looked at the man standing above the camera and not at the camea itself, so In the photo my eyes are raised heaven wards like I'm praying.
I am now a card holder, I want to find the library, so I ask the nearest person and he begins to tell me to go straightturnleftturn right la la but then asks me "which library?" I don't know, "well what are you studying?"
"Ummmmm.... art" he tells me to go up stairs along corridors..... and I get the idea but not the specifics. UP some wooden stair cases, . I'm walking down a corridoor with long windows on one side, high ceilings and columns, a bit like a grand Tuscan villa, I imagine, not ever having been to a Tuscan Villa. This place is beautiful, I consider inviting friends to picnic in these corridoors to take in the style. Two security gairds tell me the library is straight down, straight down - it sounds like a song riff and I kind of sing it back to them as i turn. More wooden stair cases, past cabinets showing artefacts from anthropological and geological departments. Past a door with something serious society - private written on, a white haired man walks through the door and smiles at me.
I turn into the library, I slink past a man sitting by the entrance looking mean, he narrows his eyes at me. I fumble with my mobile phone. Moments later I have to backtrack and actually ask him, "how do I join this library, ermm?" I have to turn leftandgostraightdown, down a corridoor lined with wooden book shelves, all kind sof books and little wood paneled rooms with German, Portugese, spanish written on the doors, some serious studying is going on in those rooms. At the desk I show my dodgy papers and my shiny ID card, I fill in the form, I do it right. I remember the name of the department correctly and I spell honorary right because I checked-double checked it when I was filling in the form for the photo. To the question "do you have any disabilities that may meen you requore the help of a library assistant?" I tick yes and then I think Honorary research assiatants are never dslexic so I tick no and hand it back with both ticked. I'm not questioned about this anomally and I get my card back, it now has a bar code on the back. NOt sure how to find my way round the library I ask, if there is any informantion I can have and I'm shown a carousel of sheets explaining things I dindn't know I needed to know, I gather loads of the pieces of pale green, blue and pink paper which I never ever read.
There is an atrium near the admissions desk with a high round arched ceiling and a life size statue in marble of a man who looks like a woman, with a snake wraped round his leg, killing another man. And back in the book lined corridoor an A4 sheet with - "romances has moved" - written on it. I'm now officially allowed to be here, but I'm not sure how to walk, how to move, I even think I'm censoring my thoughts. walking into a library room with tables and students with heads bowed I feel like I'm looking at a picure I'm not part of this. I have the plastic card in my hand but many, many layers of the knowledge I need for belonging to this world are missing. I'm floating though as I semi-pretend that I'm part of this. maybe that's how all studnets are in their first weeks, performing what they think a student of a presiguious university does. Later perhaps the thrill of winding a path through multiple right and left turns fluently will kick in and I'll develop the right walk and thoughts for an honorary research assistnt.
If you want to be indocrinated into the body movements and ways of thinking of the university of openness go to http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo∞ the UO also uses, makes and is part of this library http://www.communitybooks.org/∞

DeathSex

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