So this is a bit of a random post, but it occurred to me as an epiphany a couple of days ago that when it comes to trivial matters like my academic career and my food choices, I am indecisive. And I mean really indecisive. The kind of indecisive that when ordering dessert I have to order the same as someone else or I’ll be jealous of what they have and wish I’d ordered it too. Mental.

This all definitely has something to do with the thought of my dissertation proposal looming next term – in a couple of thousand years of literature how the hell I am supposed to choose a topic to write on? I literally (hehe) can’t even narrow it down to a time period, let alone a theme or a text. This got me thinking about the annoying-ness of my degree and the fact that for every essay, we don’t get given titles but instead have to choose our own. It’s so difficult trying to suggest some original and refreshing ideas about a text which has already been written about hundreds of times, and it’s even harder trying to pick a topic to write about in the first place.

But it was when I was at a restaurant the other day when I realised another thing about my indecisiveness. I am a vegetarian, partly for ethical and moral reasons, partly because I’m not really a big fan of meat, partly because my parents are both vegetarians, and partly, as I realised the other day, because I like to narrow down my choices. If you put a menu in front of me and I ate meat, I would honestly never be able to decide what I wanted to have, and so to be a vegetarian, my options are immediately limited and thus I can choose more easily. Obviously, you go to some restaurants (or Europe) and they have no idea what to feed you and your options are really really limited to, like, quiche or something. (Not that I don’t like Quiche. Coincidentally, the French really do not understand vegetarians – omelette au fromage et frites anyone? My mum’s ‘vegetarian’ pizza once had a layer of ham hidden under the cheese. Sneaky.) But mostly there are at least two or three choices for me and I can easily pick one without worry.

To take this even further, I am currently giving up chocolate for Lent and although I am missing the occasional chocolate binge, I’m finding it really helpful when choosing desserts, or cakes, or biscuits, to just automatically cross anything with chocolate in off the list. Narrowing down the decisions makes it easier for an indecisive person like me.

To summarise: I am a strange indecisive child who enjoys having a limited food diet, if only so I have less to choose from. I also do not appreciate being given open questions which can be about anything, which is probably why I do better in exams where you just have to learn stuff and write it down.

So if you, like me, are having trouble choosing from the wide variety of food out there, I suggest you become a vegetarian. It makes life a lot easier and you’ll save a few animals along the way.