By Josie Finlay

You Won’t Believe Why This Girl Made That Weird Photo Her Scab Headshot

I was planning a cool relaxed Monday eve at the cinema and then I felt it – that familiar jolt of panic. It couldn’t be…it shouldn’t be…it can’t be…oh, but it is…it’s SCAB NIGHT! I did my scab-ly routine of

–                 Asking everyone on my side of the studio what I should write my scab about

–                 Asking three to five people on Facebook messenger what I should write my scab about

–                 Saying ‘hmmmm, no’ to all their suggestions.

This time, though, I tried to really savour and enjoy the routine because – I’m so sorry readers – but this is my penultimate SCAB. My second last chance to go viral with an experimental clickbait headline. And your second last chance to see that awkward photo of me in the blue T-shirt. It’s one of an excruciating 40-strong Photobooth shoot I did last summer specifically for my SCAB headshot. It seems like a really weird choice now. Who was that girl and why did she think such an intense picture would make her seem appealing to her future classmates? I barely know her.

One last SCAB. The end of our time at SCA really is nigh. P******** Day is only a few weeks away and then we’ll be phlegmmed out of Brixton and rebirthed a few stops up the tube, maybe in Clerkenwell or Soho or Shoreditch. It’s bittersweet. There are plenty of things I’ll miss about the chaotic amniotic (microbiotic?) sac of St Matthew’s Church. And also a few that I’ll be glad to snog goodbye to.

I’ll miss the fact that my desk is on the opposite side of the room to the water fountain, so that I get to walk past everyone’s desk at least twice an hour and ask them what they are up to and if they have anything I can eat. I won’t miss the intimate cutlery-passing charade that happens every lunch due to the sad lack of forks in the kitchen. I’ll miss the sublime haven of the office and all the people that work in it. But I won’t miss the feeling of going in there to ask them annoying questions like an incompetent schoolchild – ‘Hiiiiii Marcia, the printer doesn’t have any ink, how was your weekend?’ (NB I do actually care how your weekend was, obvs).

I’ll miss live brief presentations and how they always leave the client surprised/delighted/disturbed. I’ll miss walking down into the pit to sit on the sofas and watch a brilliant masterclass. I won’t miss dropping my pen down a crack in the sofa, having to send my hand down there and seeing it return anxious and distressed, holding a completely different pen lost by an alumnus who is long dead. I’ll miss Friday reflections and their sense of manic relief and camaraderie. I won’t miss spicy Monday Town Hall, where Marc tells us how many hours there are to go until Portfolio day.

Mainly, I’ll really miss all of it. But anyway, I should calm down because there are still three weeks left. And one more SCAB, you lucky lucky people.