By Coco Shellim

Obsession.

The obsession has crept in. The realisation hit me hard last weekend. I’d gotten into bed after a party, with only a couple of hours before I needed to be awake, staring deeply into the backs of my eyelids, desperately willing my brain to switch off and sleep. In my half asleep state or maybe I had fallen asleep by this point, I’m not sure, I began trying to work out the proposition. I then proceeded to the role of communication ‘go to sleep’ and I think I even thought about the audience. I remember working on this brief for what felt like a full 10-20 minutes before I realised what the fuck I was doing. It was a scary and funny moment, what has being at SCA done to me and who have I become? 

If you happen to be reading this SCAB and thinking of applying for the 2020 intake, prepare to get obsessed. Sure, I read SCABs this time last year about how it becomes your life and how its the best and hardest time of your life blah blah blah. Of course they made me intrigued and excited, but I thought it was primarily exaggeration. Turns out its not. 

You will find yourself bailing on your family and friends to spend even more time with SCAers. Because right now they are the only people that get what you’re doing everyday and it feels really good to be around people that get it. You’ll find yourself starting the year off adamant that you will stay in close contact with your friends and family, but then you’ll realise it’s OK to tap out for a few months, because these will be some of the best months and you don’t want to waste a minute of it. You’ll find yourself getting genuinely pissed off at shit ads, on the tube, on the TV, wherever. You’ll find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, opening notes on your phone and writing some interesting thought down that could be useful later. Then you’ll read it in the morning and see it will be total bullshit. You’ll find yourself drinking a Diet Coke and then thinking about a good SMP for it. You’ll find yourself boring your friends/ girlfriend / boyfriend/ family with a ‘really interesting insight’ that they don’t find so interesting. 

My first ever SCAB I sent to Marc was called Cult (it was about the docs-series Wild wild country) and when writing that SCAB I remember feeling nervous and sceptical about the intensity of the year ahead. I just had no idea the intensity could be so fun.  

The copy scores 71.9 in the Flesch Reading Ease test