Camden Rose on late nights, deadlines, and a week dominated by royal money, posh schools, Tudors and diplomacy
Flew a kite again this morning, my strange new ritual that’s somehow become non-negotiable at this point, then straight to the library, then straight out to a club far too late, in exactly the wrong order for anyone hoping to get an essay finished this week. Along the way, four separate news stories managed to insert themselves into nearly every conversation I had.
My flatmate brought up the coverage of the Sussexes’ opportunities over breakfast, genuinely enthusiastic about it in a way that felt oddly intense for seven in the morning, though I suppose enthusiasm doesn’t keep office hours the way I wish my own motivation did.
Then, mid-library session, a coursemate leaned over to show me the piece on Eton producing PMs, which derailed a solid twenty minutes of what was supposed to be focused essay time, though admittedly the piece was more entertaining than my actual reading list this week.
Somewhere in the club later that night, a stranger at the bar brought up the Henry VIII online coverage entirely unprompted, apparently having read it earlier that day and needing to discuss Tudor succession politics over the noise of the sound system, which is a genuinely strange but very London kind of conversation to have.
And closing the night out, my essay partner texted me the piece on Trump’s remarks to Burnham, insisting we discuss it properly before our supervision tomorrow, which felt like a stretch given our actual assigned topic, but I read it anyway, purely to keep the peace.
Essay’s still not finished, kite’s probably still stuck in a tree somewhere, and my head’s now genuinely full of royal finances, elite education, Tudor history and Irish diplomacy instead of anything resembling my actual coursework.
Got back to my room well past two, genuinely too wired to sleep despite the hour, and ended up scrolling through all four stories one more time on my phone, half out of genuine curiosity and half because my brain had apparently decided current affairs were more interesting than the essay outline sitting untouched on my desk. My flatmate, still awake herself, sent one final message about the royal finance piece before finally calling it a night, insisting we continue the conversation properly tomorrow over breakfast, which, given the week so far, feels like a fairly safe prediction to make.
Set the essay outline aside for the night, genuinely defeated, deciding it would simply have to wait until tomorrow’s promised breakfast conversation gave me one final burst of borrowed motivation to actually finish it properly.
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