In which I make a dramatic discovery halfway through trying to make an entirely contradictory point.

Liverpool Life It's the time of year when Liverpool fills with twentysomethings in gowns and hats attending graduation. For a time, roughly the decade between 1996 and 2006, when I'd look them with envy even though I'd graduated, I already had a degree. Some of this is to do with a bizarre sense of not having made the most of my undergraduate years (even though a proportion of all my stories begin with 'When I was at university first time around...') but also because of a perpetual academic itch, the impression that I must always be working towards a qualification.

Today though, I didn't feel very much at all other than -- 'I have one of those'.

My post-graduate course it seems has nullified my academic itch. I still want to be learning and I couldn't think of anything better than spending some more hours in an academic library just reading and I've enjoyed attended the odd lecture at the University as part of their Capital of Culture programme. And I liked the interconnectedness that people develop when their collectively working towards a qualification. And the sense of satisfaction in a job well done.

Erm ... oops ...

It seems in writing the last paragraph I'm realising that that academic itch really hasn't gone away. Reading random books and attending lectures is as nothing to exploring a subject in a structured manner and discussing the implications with your peers then writing up your discoveries and hopefully gaining praise. I miss the intensive approach to learning. In seeing these new graduates I'm not so much thinking 'I have one of those' as 'Can I have one of those'. At the age of 24 someone told me they thought I was an eternal student. They're right.

Nuts.