Dusty books… stale coffee… the vague trace of terror and Pro-Plus in the air… Surely these are the things that one should associate with a university library? And yet, if you walk around the floors of our library here at Birmingham, everybody seems remarkably calm, jaunty even, and more worryingly… stylish. Maybe the panic just hasn’t set in yet, and come May, the pretty dresses and carefully selected accessories will be abandoned, but at the moment, if you walk around 3C, the boys are clean-shaven and smell of aftershave, and the girls are fresh-faced, high-heeled, hair-straightened. We can only hope that the period between May 1st and June 5th will come as a great equaliser, and these shiny, groomed specimens will crumble into the woolly hat-wearing, Red Bull-swigging messes that should be populating our library. 
Please understand, I mean no ill-will towards them, I just think that there is an integral moment in every student’s life, when they realise that they haven’t eaten a proper meal in a week, that they now run purely on caffeine and adrenalin, and that their entire outfit would not look out of place at the gym/their Nan’s house/an asylum. Dissertation hand-in week has not seemed to deter the stalwart fashionistas, but final exams might just do it. Perhaps this is a naïve observation, and in some cave in 4D, there is a group of malnourished, unwashed, exhausted workers, that will fulfil every grubby student stereotype, but until they emerge for supplies, I’m watching for the cracks to appear in the Purple Computer Room, the makeup to slip, and the hoodies to come out.
Angharad Jones
photo credits: fashion156.com, stefaniegraceblog.blogspot.com
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