L is for Level 3 Study Area

CHARLES HOPKINS
Volume 2, Issue 6 (Originally Published 27 August 2012)
 
I’ve been storing this one up since February.
 
Nothing causes me to feel as much as the level three study room; feelings of attachment and knowing, of love and security, of frustration and anxiety, at times of downright loathing. I wrote in this column some months ago that law school is toxic for romance, but that was before I realised that I’ve developed feelings for something that are unrivalled to any I’ve experienced in my relatively short lifetime.
 
I’m in love with the level three study area.
 
She is my partner, my mistress and my closest friend. She is my East, she is my West; she is my North but not my South because of its location in the building.
 
If it’s at all unclear to you – the preceding three paragraphs are absolutely not the truth. If you thought it possible I was in any way representing my true feelings then you either think I am an absolute law sicko (which would explain why last week someone said to me “oh you’re that guy who obsesses over irrelevant law school rubbish when he could be enjoying his spare time”), or you in some way feel romantically toward the study area.
 
If you’re the latter, seek immediate help or kill yourself.
 
The level three study area and I have a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, it’s a lovely space in which I can work in relative ergonomic comfort and aesthetic serenity, and even though it’s a silent study space, I can have full-blown exchanges about how super hard Torts research can be (SUBTLE SARCASM). On the other hand, my time there is forever spent studying and/or stressing; it’s worse than my negative association with my Eastern European language classes (I’m always running late, and I hate Russian).
 
At a more abstract level it annoys me by virtue of its exclusivity. I understand the logic – the law school library has become too popular with main campus kids because we are so downright awesome (EVEN SUBTLER SARCASM). But on top of the logic comes the pretentiousness; it’s like being in the VIP section at a popular club – you buy the same drinks and listen to the same music, it’s just everyone in the general section thinks you’re a tosser (I can only assume those first two details because the one time I was in a VIP section, I didn’t remember any of it the next day – it was with J.Gil back in 1995 so details are sketchy).
 
And yet as I rile against the study area, I know that as soon as my day off Uni rolls around, I’ll return to that timber-clad beauty with open arms that are carrying books.
 
From henceforth I shall call it ‘Stockholm’, with me its syndrome.
 
Catch Charles Hopkins at the Melbourne Writers Festival this Thursday for his seminar “Specific demographics repeated in-jokes: how not to write a column”.
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