"Our revels now are ended"

It's the end; but the moment has been prepared for...

Well, that's that then. All done. Todo acabado. C'est fini. Consumatum est. I will never have another class, another essay, another exam, or another reason to go to my university campus ever again. I've dreamt about this moment for a long time.

The last three months have been an intense experience. On top of finishing my degree, I've been doing auditions for the top four drama schools in the country, as well as rehearsing and performing in a piece of devised theatre. Every day I've been waking up between 6 and 8am and going to bed between 1 and 4am. I've spent more time, energy and money in three months than I have over the course of a year.  I've pushed myself to new intellectual, physical and emotional limits: reading and writing about 16th-century drama; bending my body into a variety of shapes; and playing a range of roles, from kings and misfits to cats and pieces of dried spaghetti. It's a wonder I managed to complete any of it, considering how difficult doing any of those activites are on an individual basis, let alone together. Add to that the fact that I'm something of a lazy so-and-so, and I've had one of the first real tests of character I expect I will undergo throughout life.

After four years at university, I would never have expected to feel the way I do right now. Firstly, I feel so ready to finish studying. I know that in other countries university can last longer, but really: four years is too much! I sometimes even wonder if going to university was the right thing for me to do. After all, I never wanted to have a career which would have anything to do with English Literature or Spanish. I always wanted to be an actor. I applied to university for the sake of education alone. However, academia was a whole lot harder than I thought it would be. I enjoyed studying, reading, improving my critical faculties, and meeting so many other people, but I could have done all of those things through other means. I've always believed that university is not for everyone - god knows, I've met some pretty stupid and annoying people at that place - but I'd never thought that maybe I was one of those people not suited to it. Sure, I may be intelligent, and I might be articulate and able to analyse a text, but I realise now that I most certainly am not disposed to the discipline of sitting and writing down ideas in a manner which will convince other intelligent, articulate and analytical people. I basically bluffed my way through university.

Without a doubt, I developed more through working on student drama - another way of saying "amateur drama", but with the conceit of intellectual superiority - than in any other aspect of my university experience. With the exception of my year abroad, when I didn't perform once over the eleven months and three weeks I spent in Spain, I have been occupied with at least one play or theatrical production every term. I've spent two summers at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and spent most of my final year preparing and attending auditions. Despite the occasional moan and duff show, I've loved it. I can't help being a luvvie at heart. Sir Ian McKellen once said he shouldn't really have gone to university because he wasn't very academic, but doing badly with his studies gave him the chance to work on several plays and productions with John Barton, who then went on to set up the Royal Shakespeare Company. It's unlikely I'll have as good a time of it as Sir Ian, but the point still stands. I've done pretty well in my auditions, even if I do say so myself: I've ben offered places at three of the four schools, and am on the waiting list for the other one. Discretion and superstition forbids me to disclose which schools they are, of course: one wouldnt want to be presumtuous.

So, after four years of protracted preparation, I did it. I've lived and loved, cursed and cried, and done as much as I could possibly want to do which has no relation to the theatre; and yet I find myself, like Thespis' prodigal son, making my way back home. The chapter ends; the story continues.

The show must go on...