No, I’m sorry, you’re wrong. I am not going to start this review with a cliché and say that if you haven’t seen BBC’s adaptation of Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel, Normal People, that you’ve been living under a rock.

On a serious note though, we are in a national lockdown and at this point, you really have no possible excuse for such tardiness to this iPlayer party.  

Oh, dear readers, how I wish my final ever university essay were an anthropological study on the reasons why millennial women everywhere are falling in love with Paul Mescal.  But it’s not.  So, I’m afraid this review is going to be short and sweet.  

A brief synopsis of the plot for those hermits of the hermitage: Marianne and Connell go to school together in Ireland. Marianne is not cool. Connell is. They fancy each other. A lot. 

The series follows their separate and intertwining lives from school, to university and beyond, comprised of twelves episodes which forensically expose the protagonists and their beautiful, yet deeply frustrating, love for one another.

I suppose the clue is in the name. Normal People is about normal people and how, really, the word “normal” is a meaningless, made-up idea.  The characters aren’t really “normal” at all. In fact, ‘intense’ is probably the first word I would use to describe the series, but perhaps that’s because I devoured it within two days. I would recommend stretching it out so as to savour the moment, but I just couldn’t help myself. 

You fall in love with the characters in a way that still allows you to be frustrated with them, cringing at the television, wishing Connell and Marianne would just tell each other how they feel.  Watching their relationship unfold, you feel both heartbroken yet oddly comforted. The viewer’s frustration becomes familiar, reflecting the same well-worn warmth that the protagonists share. 

Daisy Edgar-Jones (Marianne) is arguably the star of the show. At an astonishing 21 years old, her performance is moving and sensitive.  The show tackles extremely difficult topics within sex, mental health and, of course, loving and yearning to be loved.  Edgar-Jones’s development of Marianne reveals internal battles of self-worth, at points leaving you feeling utterly seen.  It is complex yet beautifully accessible. Having watched multiple interviews, I would venture to say that she’s also a really nice person. How annoying. 

Okay, okay. I suppose we should talk about Connell Waldron. 

Oh, how I wish I could be cool about this and say “Yeah, I guess he’s good looking. Not really my type though, you know?”  But I can’t.  I don’t know if it’s the chain, or the Adidas tracksuit, the crooked smile or the Irish accent. The man has got it all. 

I suppose the widespread fan reaction makes sense: the original One Direction fans have now reached their twenties.  They’ve attained some kind of maturity and independence; they are now the country’s doctors and nurses, lawyers and accountants; the obsessive thoughts of Harry Styles and those embarrassing tweets sent to Niall at the age of 13 all feel like a distant memory (just me?)

But then Paul Mescal’s jawline hit our screens. The reaction was inevitable. I confess, I only wish he were doing a national concert tour so that we could all buy overpriced tickets and merchandise with his face on it. 

Or perhaps we would be buying replicas of his silver chain. If you follow any Instagram account this week, make it @ConnellsChain.  It fills a gap in my newsfeed I didn’t know existed. 

Now, we are of course missing the point completely. Not only is Paul Mescal edible, he is also an incredibly talented actor. A personal favourite line was “I tink you’re very pretty by the way”.  It’s enough to make you apply for that Masters at Trinity College Dublin. Despite this being his first on-screen appearance, Mescal’s performance undoubtedly equalled that of Edgar-Jones. I wept through the scene in which he confronts his depression with a therapist. Though the acting is often very pared back and minimal, even within the quiet moments, you feel wholly absorbed within Connell’s contemplations. 

Now, I know everyone is very, very busy knitting, playing the flute and teaching themselves a fifth language. But I urge you to watch (or, like me, rewatch) this series and escape into a world with more physical contact than we could ever dream of. 

Dear St Andrews students and grads,

What a time to be alive. I’ve been asked to give some “alumni advice.” Oh dear.

I graduated from St Andrews coming up on 10 years ago, as the world was slowly creeping out of the Great Recession. I had been fortunate. The pound fell next to the dollar, and tuition, rent, drinks – the lot – got 25% more affordable for me. It was only when I graduated that I felt the sting of bleak job prospects and months of fruitless searching. They call it “the bubble” for a reason. It sheltered me.

A decade and one global pandemic on, you don’t have the luxury of that bubble. I can’t know how that feels. But I can relate to being trapped back at my parent’s house, desperate for what’s next, uncertain in the face of the future, ambitious with nowhere to go.

That’s all a bit of a bummer. I wouldn’t be American if I didn’t transition to a bit of “it gets better” advice with an undercurrent of High School Musical (“we’re all in this – together!”).

I spent my St Andrews days doing more theatre than all my friends who went to university for theatre combined. I was studying Sustainable Development but spent most of my time drinking Pimms in various gardens and memorizing Shakespeare. At university I started dabbling in poetry, hosting Inklight’s slam, penning Victorian erotica in iambic pentameter to amuse myself. I would get a serious job later, I was confident.

I would never have suspected, at the time, that this dallying about would be the part of university that gave me a career. After graduation I tried to be practical. I started working in fundraising for charities, but found myself frustrated by my workplaces, perpetually at the mercy of personalities and funding trends. After being laid off a few times and a particularly bleak 6-month stretch of job hunting and unemployment, I started writing poems for strangers on the street. I never stopped.

Poetry, the most unlikely of professions, has become my career in the intervening 6 years. My second book, my first with a major publisher, is coming out next month – The Poetry of Strangers, 30 June 2020, available for pre-order now [end of mandatory shameless plug!]. People commission me to write poems for occasions and organize avant garde poetry projects and teach spoken word and, prior to COVID-19 at least, to write poems on a typewriter for attendees at everything from weddings to underground speakeasies. 

The world, I discovered, was not so blandly practical as I’d feared. The whimsy I’d struggled with all through university as unmarketable turned out to be exactly what people wanted. 

More than anything for me, St Andrews was a sandbox. A place to find out what I would do when left to my own devices. The answer, apparently, was mostly theatre and country walks. 

When I asked a friend at university about his experience studying abroad in the US, he winced. “It was an academic sweatshop,” he said. He was supposed to stay a year and came back after a semester. He designed fonts in his spare time. The idea of not having that creative time shuddered him.

It wasn’t the practical career-y stuff I did at St Andrews that ever amounted to anything. It was the avenues I explored when I wasn’t working toward my degree, my flights of fancy that the university created a space for. My experience at St Andrews was far from perfect. I did more vomiting and crying in the rain than I’d now consider expedient. But I also sort of figured out what made me tick, not by doing homework, but by doing everything else.

To be clear, my position is: do your homework, too.

Now, as we head into an uncertain future, I’m not as anxious as I thought I would be. I’ve learned a lot since I graduated. Ten years from now, the world will look very different, and we will look very different. I suppose my advice is this: trust your passions. We cannot know what will be needed in the times ahead. There is a terror in this, but also a freedom. In the absence of a right path, we can – we must – forge our own ways.

Don’t forget this is a playground. Don’t forget we learn through play.

Yours,

Brian Sonia-Wallace

Photograph taken by Verity Katherine.

At graduation, while some people were going off to internships, grad schemes, jobs, masters, and more – some were already working! – I had nothing. Yet, I had to have an answer to the big question, “What are you doing after graduation?”. Until this moment, I’d always had a plan. 

I’d tried preparing for this moment during the year, but every time I looked at a job application, my heart would start pounding and my throat would feel so dry that I had to go party for a week or two to feel better. 

While some people were preparing for interviews or applying for masters during their final year, I was living in the present and making the most of my St Andrews experience. 

I immersed myself in my committees (Fine Food and Dining, Literary Society, StAnza Poetry Festival, and more) traveled around on couches, and went out every night of the week with all my international, intellectual, and interesting friends! I went for nights out in Dundee, wrote for student papers, and dyed my hair blue. I dumpster dived, organized dinner parties, and hosted the pub quiz at Drouthy Neebors. I felt so connected to my St Andrews community; I finally belonged somewhere. 

Suddenly, it was graduation: the gowns, the champagne, the congratulations. When asked, I said I was going to be an au pair in Spain, but the truth was I had no clue and felt hollow every time I said it. Then everyone left, and my entire life lay before me. 

I began to apply for jobs. I applied for 10 jobs in writing because that was my new dream. Nothing. I began to regret all those nights I spent having fun instead of applying for jobs. I applied for 30 more jobs in writing and also publishing because that was my dream in high school. Nothing. Eventually, I didn’t care. I’d apply anywhere for anything. I was stuck in a dark spiral and the only way out was a job. I began to hate everyone! All jobs could suck it. I kept looking up one way tickets to India. That would be fun. I applied and applied and applied. 

Three months later, CLICK! I was offered a PR and Marketing Internship at Red Hen Press, the oldest independent poetry publisher in Los Angeles. Yes, it was unpaid. But at least it was the perfect experience for my poetry-writer-publishing dream! And, thankfully, my family lived in LA so free rent. I worked really hard, got two part-time jobs, and eventually was offered a paid role as the PR and Marketing Assistant and was eventually promoted to Social Media Manager. Woop!  

It’s now 2020. I’ve been living in the ‘real world’ as long as I was studying at St Andrews. I’ve been unemployed two more times since then and currently work as a support professional for people with developmental disabilities (an essential service so currently employed!), which I never predicted. Every time I was unemployed, it felt like the end of the world, that I would never rejoin society, and that I was a total embarrassment. Yet, every time I have emerged stronger and more confident. Every time I had to let go of the plan, of what I thought I knew and wanted, of what others expected, and get what I needed. Yes, I am referencing The Rolling Stones. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is my unemployment comfort song. 

Oh and I do not regret my choice to live in the present and make the most of my time at St Andrews, not one bit. The stories, the memories, and the community I made in St Andrews have supported me through the ups and downs. The community of St Andrews lives on. It is not confined to a place, but carried within each of us. 

As I walked into “Fat Sams” in Dundee my eyes darted from left to right. New bouncers! New DJs! New Drinks! The ‘Escape the Bubble’ night in support of Childreach International was off to a great start. I couldn’t wait to see what (and who) was beyond the Bubble. However, as the night progressed, I soon realized I might as well have been back at the Union, as the dance floor filled with St Andrews’ students all looking for that escape. 

After Graduation I fully believed I’d be able to ‘escape’ whenever I wanted, seeing people from St Andrews as and when I chose and going about other aspects of life independently. On entering my first GDL lecture the next fall, and seeing a variety of familiar St Andrews’ faces, I quickly realized the distinction would not be so clear cut. I wasn’t always going to get to choose when I saw my former university peers, even though we were no longer restricted to three main streets.  

While further delving into London life, St Andrews continued to play a significant role in my post-graduate existence. I began meeting fellow alumni at dinners, networking events, and through new friends. Our common experience gave us an instant connection and in time close friendships developed. The more time elapsed, the more I came to appreciate these connections. I decided to embrace the links to the Bubble rather than trying to escape it anymore. 

I recently moved back to my hometown of San Francisco and felt sure that now, by virtue of the distance, I would be far removed from the St Andrews’ community. As I roamed the city streets, I knew I was very unlikely to run into someone at the grocery store, on public transport, or in bars – something I had grown used to happening in London, however unexpected. There are certainly fewer alum around San Francisco, but having reconnected with St Andrews’ friends in the area, I soon met other alumni through them. In retrospect, I am not surprised there is a strong contingent in California and I’ve come to the conclusion that wherever I go in the world, I’m very likely to meet other St Andrews’ alumni. Given the international nature of the university and how it attracts adventurous people who are constantly travelling and relocating, I’ve come to realize that it’s unlikely that any of us will ever truly ‘escape’ the Bubble unless we are actively trying to do so. While St Andrews certainly felt small as a student, I have come to realize how large and widespread the community is. 

Upon graduating I would recommend leaning into this network. While running into certain classmates on the tube may remind you of unfortunate run-ins that were all too common on Market Street, you may just meet your next travel companion, business partner, or best friend. St Andrews is a very special place and I have loved meeting so many new people who also chose to spend four cold years in the windiest, smallest and most charming of Scottish towns.  

As a recent graduate from the University of St Andrews I have been struggling to navigate the uncharted waters of life beyond the bubble for almost a year now. I have experienced feelings of intense grief for the loss of my little town and the life that I had established there. I catch myself smiling sometimes as snippets of memories flicker across my otherwise jumbled mind. I reminisce the carefree spontaneity of sunset pier jumps, unplanned outings to the union and night-time chocolate runs to Sainsbury. Oh to return to those sweet sweet days! Every now and again I thumb through the old events planners I kept religiously since first year: Monday 8pm life drawing, Tuesday 6:30pm reeling practice, Friday 12pm lunchtime music concert and Saturday 2-4pm Catwalk rehearsal. Looking back now, I feel so unbelievably fortunate to have had such a vast array of opportunities right on my doorstep.

Whilst I admit to wearing slightly rose-tinted spectacles, I do not pretend to have forgotten the stress of endless deadlines and looming exams.  As somebody who has made it to the other side, it would be easy for me to preach the importance of balancing work-life with home-life, of seeing the wood for the trees. I will however stifle the urge to be that elderly person giving unhelpful advice on appreciating one’s fleeting youth.

Instead, I will share one small bead of wisdom that I have gleaned from my time at university. Many students with myself included, feel an incessant pressure to make university ‘the best time of your life’ whilst also striving to attain academic success. I have learnt the hard way that this is an overwhelming and insurmountable goal which only provokes an even greater sense of anxiety. I have come to realise that it is only through temporarily casting aside such pressures that you are truly able to be present in a particular moment and to simply enjoy it for what it is. I seldom think back to that one event I ‘missed out’ on, nor do I choose to linger on the blind panic I experienced as I groped around for a post-graduation plan. Rather, I remember most distinctly those small moments laughing with flatmates, discovering that perfect secondary reading source and bumping yet again into a friend on Market Street; the moments that weren’t planned but simply occurred.

Taking some time out after my studies has enabled me to pause and reflect. Like the course of an undulating river, I have been sculpted and guided by my experiences at university and the people I have met. And, (bear with this metaphor) just as its water flows quickly and incessantly toward the river mouth, my time at St Andrews has slipped away and I have reluctantly merged with the vast and terrifying sea. Finishing university is both a daunting and exciting prospect for all fourth-year students. While a degree of anxiety is of course inevitable, I urge you to remind yourself that you are leaving university having grown into a stronger and more resilient individual. You are ready to face the outside world!  

Lastly, I wish to reassure you that I am no longer floundering around aimlessly and I am grateful for the relief provided by what has been but a brief hiatus. With a graduate job organised for September, I now feel armed with a sense of acceptance and readiness to move onto a new and hopefully equally rewarding stage in my life. 

–

Quarantine makes me think back to the bubble,

To raucous nights out with no shortage of trouble,

Most folk try the Vic or main bar to have fun,

But the best place in town is good old 601.

Both bop on a Friday and sinners midweek,

Our dear 601 is always trés chic,

Though often compared to a school disco hall,

Without it we would have no clubs at all.

–

Tinchy Stryder, Cascada and S Club 3, 

It has hosted many a celebrity,

They perform in St A to a chorus of cheers,

Despite having not been relevant for years.

The Freshers events – now they are iconic,

Especially after a few gins with tonic,

Though consistently lit, there can be the odd mare,

For every hot dub time machine there’s a clan warfare.

–

The tunes never fail to enthral and excite,

Cheesy throwbacks blasting out through the night,

From Cher, to Madonna, to Kylie, to Whitney,

Beyoncé, Shakira, a sprinkling of Britney! 

Nothing beats cutting mad shapes on the floor,

Boogieing, shimmying, slut drops galore,

When you’re feeling the vibes you just have to absorb it,

Looks like my wig has just gone into orbit!

–

Regardless if you have a deadline that’s due,

It is hard to resist a Pablo or two,

They taste just like juice and are highly effective,

At helping fulfil your desired objective.

When paid with contactless it really is funny,

How much you can drink without spending money,

Sometimes it backfires and people will stare,

But honey, don’t worry, we have all been there!

–

Living your truth and hanging with your pals,

The best way to boost collective morales,

There honestly is nothing I can condemn,

Except the fact it concludes at 2AM.

–

Post-601, it is time to get food,

A wee doner with chips and cheese is quite good,

Or when out on a Friday there’s no need to search,

Just grab 50p and run to toastie church.

A quick jaunt back home, then to prevent the sore head,

Down gallons of water in the comfort of bed,

It’s at this precise moment I really must say,

Justice for those who live in DRA.

–

Waking the next day in a state of distress,

Hoping and praying that you weren’t a mess,

The hangover likely got you feeling lazy,

Snapchat stories slap, if your memory’s hazy!

–

So why is 601 so extraordinary?

It’s the peak club experience – and that’s the tea.