The venue was brilliant. The Millenium Galleries! Galleries which I walk through at least one everyday as I hike from the train station to campus. But never, NEVER, did I imagine that I would one day be laid prostrate on the floor with four super hot girls and one of my best buddies posing in front of an overly eager camera man (with a remarkable memory- he knew me from last year) on that very gallery floor… (Oh yes, expect pictures. Many more pictures).

We arrived to a (mostly orange juice) bucks fizz reception, all dressed up amongst a crowd of equally dressed up post-grad- oh now wait! These guys aren’t post grads! They’re all, literally ALL, under grads. Weird. It said all were welcome on the poster. As this dawned on me I figured it wouldn’t make that much difference, we’re all students at heart, right?

Well. It was a good night, a great night. I love my MA friends. Genuinely. I can’t believe less than 12 months ago I’d never even met most of them, and the two I did know I barely knew well enough to say ‘hi’ to in the street. And here we all work, looking great and having a good time. But the night also brought with it a heavy dose of perspective, smacking me quite hard in the face with the revelation of how much I’ve changed since my own final undergraduate ball.

Kent, Jane, Viki and I ended up on a table with six or seven first years, whilst Kaja and Bish got stranded on the opposite side of the gallery with a similar crowd. At first they eyed us suspiciously, no doubt wondering why we all looked so old (especially Kent- Joke!). So, we introduced ourselves but that looked remained. Wary, fascinated, as if when we said ‘MA students’ they had heard ‘martians’. They were friendly enough, but tentative. And you could tell, they were awed by the whole situation. They were 18/19 and at their first University ball, at then end of their first year! Probably their first time away from home- independence, laundry, lectures- it’s all fairly new. Why wouldn’t they be awed? They had every right. But our lack of awe by any of it made me feel old.

But the game has changed. We can still be awed by the next level- and here it comes. The moment that made my night, and made me see everything through new eyes. I asked them who their first year tutors were and they started listing names that I’d never heard of (again, this made me feel out of touch) but then they listed a couple of good PhD friends of mine, one in particular I know quite well. And they loved him! They talked as though he was Stephen Hawkins! He was absolutely their favourite thing about this semester- And I remember bumping into him in our department cafe, and him telling me he’d just led his first ever first year seminar - all the planning he’d done, how nervous he was… Well, he obviously knocked it out of the park! They LOVE him.

And that’s when it hit me. I was closer to the tutor than the students. I’d be more comfortable at a staff ball than a student ball- Infact, I did feel more self concious at that table than I do at research seminars with the tutors- And that’s what has changed. That’ what it means to be an MA post-grad. You’re closer to being a tutor than you are to being and under-grad!

That’s the lesson that I learned at the 2010 English summer ball.