The best of times, the worst of times… [Vincent]

Why the literary reference ?¹ Simply because A Tale of Two Cities is on my to-read list, and how fitting that line is for what I’m going through right now. And since you’d be stuck as my imaginary audience for the year (while you enjoy the tasteful commentaries offered by my fellow bloggers), you might like to know a little more about this troubled tormenter that is yours truly.

Over with the obscure language. The name is Vincent, and hey, that’s actually pronounceable in French. (cenvii, or simply cv, is my alias.) As you may or may not have noticed, I have a passion for language and its quirks. Part of that perhaps arose from my ethnic background.

My life so far is a series of migrations : New Zealand » Hong Kong » Australia. Kiwi-land I have little recollection of, aside from the occasional anecdote dropped by my parents. Hong Kong the “International City” is of course by far my favourite, seeing how she has bred an entire culture in me, and I do love her dearly for that. Then on Christmas Eve in 2000, I found myself Down Under in the M-city. Believe it or not, I’ve stayed on for another eight years.

To review a bit, Year 12 was mostly a blur for me, probably to the consensus of many people. All I can say is, been there, done that, now moving on. As I said to my friend not so long ago, it’s a pity that the ENTER² phase lasts barely over three months. (“Oh how did you go last year ?” “Did alright…” Awkward silence, ensued by either a reluctantly produced or long-awaited proud moment of “I got so-and-so for my ENTER score”.) By the time you’ve enrolled in uni and found your footing in O-Week, you would’ve discover that VCE really is all in the past. Forget it.

At least that was the case for me. I got into what I wanted to do, so that’s that. Contrary to most people, I was actually of the opinion that Unimelb is the right place for me because of the Melbourne Model. I don’t mind doing breadth subjects – hey, that enabled me to do maths even as part of my Arts degree, to the initial dismay then relieved delight of most people (including my uhhh asian parents).

My focus in the Arts degree is linguistics and criminology, although I have yet to figure out which would be my major (or if I’ll double-major). I guess I’ll have more idea towards the end of this year. Linguistics, because I abso-fabulously love languages. (I just made up a word there.) Criminology, because it’s part likely that I’ll go on with the JD postgrad. Or I might just move back to Hong Kong after these three years and never come back again. Again, who knows ?

As I’ve mentioned, I’m also doing maths as breadth. Okay, I know some of you might say it’s to do with being “asian” and all, but honestly, I’ve been straining to persuade my parents that as much as I love maths (I do), I still feel the BA would be my natural niche. And it is. Except now that I’ve discovered there’s a newly introduced Diploma in Mathematical Sciences, I might be able to marry arts and maths together.

I made inquiries about the diploma at the Science Department earlier ; the staff there don’t seem too sure of the details either, so I left my contact details and hoped they would send along further information or something. So far nothing has come out of it, so as they say, I’m going to get out there on my own and do some investigative work next week, once semester starts. From the scarce bit of information I do have, it seems preferable to apply for the DipMS at the end of first-year so the selection officers have some academic records to go on. That means if I don’t work hard in my maths subjects this year, it’ll probably be a waste of time come application period.

So there, I tend to write a lot (and talk much less in real life), so I’m not even sure if you’d reach this sentence or not. But if you do, good luck and all the best to you, whether you’re starting uni this year like I am, or you’re looking forward to go to uni and just about getting your head into your final years of high school.

Out,

cenvii

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¹ Note the unorthodox way I punctuate. I like to be faux français among various other things…

² By way of explanation, the ENTER is one’s percentile ranking within the particular year’s cohort, calculated from the aggregate score of one’s high school exam results. It’s the thing that used to be crucial at one point, that which had determined whether you get into your preferred tertiary course (along with a range of other criteria).