Like science students with their lab coats and test tubes, architects with their innumerable rules and art students with their brushes and canvases, literature
students also have necessities. But what exactly makes a proper literary starter pack?
And I’m not talking about an overpriced edition of Jane Eyre or silly little shiny
bookmarks, I am talking about the suspiciously specific niche artefacts every literature student has.
To begin with, funky socks are a must for literary folks. It just feels like a personality inhacer, and it can counteract the serious looking appearance we might have, with our dark coloured outfits (in a cool mysterious way) and pretentious vocabulary.
Continuing with the fashion realm, long coats have to be second on the list, it does not matter how hot it is, the moment the first autumn leave lies on the ground, long coat season is started, especially for us literature enthusiasts. Bonus points if your coat doesn’t have a hood, so that when it rains and you don’t have anything to cover your head with it makes it all the more dramatic to get home with soaking wet hair.
We might not always have the prettiest bookmark in hand, but something you will not catch a literature student without are sticky tabs, simply because it gets to a point where you need to keep some sort of colouring track of whatever you are reading.
Another pattern I have noticed around literature students’ possessions is the owning of the weirdest, most random lighter design. Doesn’t matter if they smoke or not, they (us) always have a funny looking lighter with them. Think about it, who knows when you could be in need to burn a passionately-written love letter? Or light a candle for atmospheric purposes?
The drink matter is a big one, but I would say that red wine is the lit student’s go go
juice. This question comes down to the fact that the best written pieces are those you
write while being wine tipsy, which doesn’t compare to the atrociousness of looking at a draft you wrote on a night while being beer tipsy.
Altogether, I hope to have broken the stereotype that literature students only carry
books with them, since those are probably the least interesting things about us, and
that is a big thing to say of a lit student.