As a postgraduate student, my superiority complex needs to be fed and Trinity is ready to supply with the 1937 Postgraduate Reading Room, aka Cool Kids Only. It’s a beautiful circular building right along the main campus square next to the kick ass bell tower and if you’d hadn’t guessed yet, is exclusive to Masters and PhD students. The words “Hall of Honour” are even inscribed over the entrance. (In truth it says that because the building is a memorial to the Trinity students and staff who lost their lives in WWI, but stroking my ego is cooler.) It can seat up to 160 of us and is complete with a row of balcony seats I’ve never been lucky enough to get. With a beautiful dome glass ceiling, it lets in the single second of sunlight we get a day. But the best part?
It’s silent.
I’ve been in there with easily 100 other students and the sound of clicking my pen rings out like a bomb. I think we’re all holding our breaths with the lack of noise, which is perfect for getting shit done. Not like the noisy library with those pesky undergrads floating around. I’m pretty sure the building was almost brought down from the noise of my cane falling onto a metal grate. I do have to confess though, I’m “that guy” who uses the printer. I tell myself that since it’s a quick printer I’m not going to hell because I don’t know where the printers are in the library and am way too lazy to find out. I looked for like maybe five minutes once and decided I couldn’t spend another second in the unexclusive library.
Another fun perk is it’s great people watching. Women with brown hair in a messy bun (yours truly included) easily make up half the population in there. But there was this one dude who was sitting across from me that looked so familiar it distracted me from reading about scholars fighting over the definition of porn. Rose is really throwing shade at Rea, but I had to figure out how I knew this guy. I finally got it! He’s wearing the same Trinity sweatshirt I have. So turns out he wasn’t familiar, his hoodie was.
Then of course there are the mystery books. The most random collection of books are spattered throughout on the desks and empty shelves including every “chemical abstract” ever written and mysteriously, a bright green Guinness Book of World Records that belongs more in a third grade classroom than a prestigious European reading room. My only conclusion? These are the ghost books of students past. The ones whose souls never made it out of the reading room, may they rest in peace. With my dissertation proposal coming up, maybe years from now a future grad student will find A History of Sex and Morals in Ireland and think of me.
Leave a comment