Life is elsewhere, and I'm going to visit it. (Suzanne)

A few days ago I woke up, and came to the startling realisation that my life is boring. In fact, I realised that the most exciting thing that I had done the day before was watch somebody’s cupcakes baking in the oven. As in, I had actually sat there in front of an oven for 20 minutes and stared at a tin of muffin mix rising and solidifying in the heat. And enjoyed it.

This, I believe, is what happens after you get past the mid semester break at uni. All the shiny newness of it all, the excitement of upheaval, the adrenaline rush of being thrown into the deep end, it’s all gone. And you’re left with your normal daily routine, except it’s even less exciting than normal because you’ve just been through all the shiny glittery stuff.

To be honest, it hasn’t been that boring here. In fact, this week was actually loads of fun. Especially since it involved lots of free food. So, Monday I handed in my LMR essay, which marked my last graded written assignment for the semester – yippee! Tuesday I went to the 85 Broads Launch, which gave the most awesome free food ever and I was very upset that I didn’t get to eat more because I had to go back and attend college tutes. (And yes, it was very empowering, and a great chance to meet people, and all that jazz, but the food was my personal favourite part :D) Later that evening was the college auction, and I lost every single bid because of my cheapness.

On Wednesday, the JCH choir got up at 5 am and went to sing the national anthem at the uni ANZAC day dawn service with the Melbourne University Regiment. I didn’t conduct this time, because I don’t actually know the Australian national anthem (or any national anthem, for that matter — that’s what happens to kids with geographically displaced childhoods, I suppose). Afterwards, the regiment invited us back to their headquarters for a free breakfast, and gave us a tour of their machine guns and grenade launchers and stuff, which was very cool. Later that evening we had the JCH musical soiree, which wasn’t really that great in terms of musical quality compared to what we have at the Con, but was more fun and laid back, with a wider variety of music than the usual Bach/Brahms/Beethoven that you see in the faculty. Plus more free food.

Thursday I went to watch my music tutor’s recital in the Trinity College Chapel. Needless to say, it was amazing, although it was a pity that there were very few people there aside from the JCH music crowd.

Friday was the college Ip Dip party. The general concept of Ip Dip is that you’re assigned a character, which gets posted on your door the week before. You then have to dress as your assigned character, and go to the party, where you can see everyone else’s costume. The characters are set up in groups, so if you’re Winnie the Pooh, you know that you’ll be able to find Tigger, Piglett, and Eeyore at the party too. I ended up as Beyonce, which, as those who’ve met me in real life know, is probably the complete opposite of how I normally dress and look. (And for those of you that haven’t met me in real life, imagine a short Asian girl with large glasses in jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, carrying around an oversized backpack, and you’ll understand why) It was awesome fun getting together the costume, and there was more free food at the party :D. So you can see that I’ve had a pretty busy and food filled week.

But anyway, despite the fact that there’s been so much going on, it still all feels like there’s more out there that you’ve been cut off from. I suppose it’s the fact that almost all of it has happened in college, and after a while, especially in a small college, you kind of start to want to go somewhere else, to take part in the wider community. College begins to be a little bit too much of a bubble.

This is especially true once you start thinking about how you almost never visit the east side of uni. Or in the middle of uni, really, because all your classes are on the western edge (music), or the southern edge (law). Or how you’ve never aware of any of the events on at uni. Or how, despite the fact that you’re a music student who’s lived in Melbourne for almost three months, you’ve never gone south of Flinders street except for clarinet lessons, and have therefore never been to the arts centre or the National Gallery. Or the State Library, any of the museums, the beach, or Max Brenner. In fact, once you start making lists of where you’ve been (and by you, I mean me), it starts to become painfully obvious that you don’t get out enough.

Because of this, I have resolved to make more of an effort to live outside of my usual haunts and explore the city. It is about time I got a life.

P.S. Bonus points for anyone who can name the reference in this post’s title. (No googling, thank you very much, and it’s a reference to both a philosopher’s words and the title of a book, so special brownie points if you can get both of them)

P.P.S. Come to the Orchestra concert on Monday, in Hawthorn Town Hall (take the train to Glenferrie). I’m playing in Sculthorpe’s Sun Music III, which is a VERY COOL piece of music, because you get to hear the strings make noises that sound like puppies being kicked by squawking seagulls, and the other pieces we’re playing make a pretty awesome programme too. [/shameless plug]