Louise Ripley-Duggan

So, here we are: my final column. I know that some of you will undoubtedly be convulsing with sobs at the thought of next term without my weekly life updates. But I, along with the probable majority, am quite looking forward to next term without ‘me’.

Writing this column has been something of a social and personal experiment for me. The opportunity came along at a time when I was vulnerable and a bit lost. I was struggling to ‘redefine’ myself as a strong, single, young woman with a Fuck You attitude after a somewhat messy breakup. All of a sudden, I was handed the opportunity to broadcast myself in whichever way I wanted: not just to myself, or to my friends, but to everyone. And it’s been a real learning curve.

I was expecting column writing to be fun. And, it actually has been. Sitting at a computer with no bloody clue what you are going to tell several hundred judgmental people about yourself week after week, and then sending your musings into cyberspace where they might make you the most hated person in town, is bizarrely exhilarating.

But, the most interesting part of this whole process has been how playing the ‘ladette’ or ‘party girl’ has affected my own perception of my own identity over the last few weeks.

When this term began, I had a vision of who I was going to be. Not a ‘whole new me’, but a revved-up, improved version. I imagined Louise Lent Term 2011 to be a paradigm of independence and individuality, a force of nature who would do what the fuck she wanted, when she wanted. I would get all of my work done, I would have bloody mental nights to remember, I would write a column every week, and I would be generally fantastic at everything. Not to mention blissfully happy.

However, this was not to be. I soon found that reinstating who you think you are meant to be to an audience, and not just yourself, is really quite tricky. I began to feel under pressure to be the person I had decided I should be; the person I was unapologetically telling everyone I was every week.

Before this term, I’d never really done the whole ‘reinventing myself’ thing. When I moved from primary to secondary school, I simply felt that I had moved into an environment in which I had more scope to express who I had always thought I was. As a fresher last year, I didn’t really feel any impetus to shed anything of who I had been at school. I know that lots of people try to reinvent themselves when they get to university, but I just didn’t feel the need to do so myself.

That said, the power we have over what people think of us in the flesh is limited. Strangers are confronted with real people. People are always judged on far more than their words. My ‘fun ban’ in week five came about because I started to feel I was losing the real me, and I was starting to judge myself as a stranger would. I had to reacquaint myself with my personality and learn to understand myself properly again.

It’s odd that it is in this last column that I have actually written anything completely honest about myself. But, I thought I ought to share something real with you, not least because I reckon these kinds of things are defining moments in all of our lives, and it is important to take notice of them.

Anyway, I hope you all have Easter holidays full of BOOZE and CIGARETTES and HANGOVERS. And whichever comical genius wrote that comment under my last column – I am still waiting impatiently for your left thumb.