First Year Diaries

Chapter Thirty-Two: And then the stress hit me in the face like a speeding truck (~jinghan)

Note from the author: Bit of a crazy emotional week, last week was, but don't worry, I am okay now because I have made cake! (and I would not have the energy for writing a blog if otherwise). And also note that I have distorted some of these events for the sake of the story, and people's privacy.

Chapter Thirty-Two: And then the stress hit me in the face like a speeding truck

It was Friday evening and I sat on the back service steps of the Grand Buffet Hall, my sobs echoing through the concrete stairwell, and, I hope, not into the Buffet Hall - where dance music is pulsing through the air, interjected by applause. This is shameful. I am crying in front of people who are  good acquaintances, but acquaintances none the less. This is shameful, I tell myself, but stead of quelling the tears it brings about another tremendous gasping sob.  I feel a powerlessness. It feels like this conclusion was inevitable. As if everything in the week was leading towards this: me sitting on the concrete step in the service stairwell at the back of the Grand Buffet Hall.

---

Monday evening, my back aches. I rotate my shoulders hoping to ease the strain, but as soon as I put my pen to paper again the ache is back. I look at the list of maths theorems, rules and little piece of miscellaneous that I'm trying to memorise. Almost there, just a few more left to go.

The aching in my back is probably not because of the three continuous hours that I've spent doing maths, but a sum of the eight continuous hours on Saturday, eight on Sunday, and the three today. I search for a sense of regret: regret at not being more organised and studying earlier in the day, studying during the weekend, studying in the previous week, or studying more during the semester in general. But I find none. I find none because all the moments in my days that could be considered wasted time were filled with sheer exhaustion.

Sheer exhaustion is what I feel as I scribble out the last formula. I flick through the pages of my exercise book. Their rustling is the only thing that suggests a sense of productivity. My mind has already wandered onto the thought that I haven't practised enough questions. You can never win with rote learning in maths. I put a sheet with problems in front of me on the desk, but there comes a time in the day when no amount of will can force anymore learning into one's brain.

I recall I conversation I had with a friend. He had been much more ambitious about marks and the such than me back at school, but now he was doing Med and he "just wanted to pass." When had studying with thoroughness become a luxury, rather than a bewailed obligation?

I pack up and go to bed.

---

Tuesday morning, I am intensely looking over questions on the train. No time to look at them now. But its better to know what you know and don't know before you head into the mid-semester test. The word 'test' reminds me of my physics in-class test, where the first question had caused me to panic, despite the fact that I had been confident in my studying leading up to the test. I dislike tests, I decide.

Wilson Hall is filled with neat rows of desks with numbers pinned to the corners. I find mine and sit down. I remember that I have left my phone and wallet in my bag outside and hope that no one will steal them. The clocks around the room tick their ominous chant. I open the test paper. "State the intermediate value theorem," is the first question. A rote question. A rote question!

A flow of relief: my studying paid off. By chance, it seemed.

---

Tuesday afternoon - or rather, it is still morning by definition, but so much energy has been spent already that the beginning of the day seems already far off: I head straight from the test hall, back to my tutorial room where I left my coat. I head straight from the tutorial room to Union House to meet up with my dance partner.

We rehearse in front of the Buffet Hall on the landing of the stairs. Two floors worth of people can see us, but I don't have the energy to care; and I am thankful that my partner was not picky about the location of our dance practice, because I could not bare anymore trekking back and forth. The Interversary Dancesport Competition is on Friday, and I just wanted to get it over with as painlessly as possible. He counts and we dance. I want to just do the routine we learned in class, but he keeps changing the steps. I don't have the energy to argue.

---

Thursday morning, I am pacing back and forth in front of the mathematics office. What was supposed to have been a painless copying of some files to a USB, lead to said USB not interacting with the computer, and said files being shuffled into the seemingly slow email system. I flip open my phone. I flip it closed. I flip it open and enter a number. There is ringing, the click before the answering machine kicks in, and "Hi, this is the office of-" I impatiently drop the call and dial again hoping for a different outcome. "Hi, this is the office of-"

Another place I should be.

"Hello?"

"Hi, I'm kinda held up in the maths building, did you want to join me here instead?"

"Uh no. I'm going to get lunch."

"Oh." Wasn't I supposed to be having lunch with __ ? But I don't ask.

I peer into the office, and the lady who said she would send the file is talking on the phone. Do I need to be here for her to send the file via email? Why have I been waiting here for 15mins? I am annoyed at I hurry towards Union House. I flip open my phone.

"Hello?"

"Where are you having lunch?"

"The Cafe near Alice Hoy."

Ack. I should have called before heading all the way to Union House, only having to head all the way back to the other edge of the campus. I let myself relax for a minute and a half while my lunch heats in the microwave. I'm with other friends and I worry about bothering them, because I know they will feel obliged to come with me to the other side of the campus. All I want is to just sit (sit!) and eat my lunch. Oh well, the quicker I get there the better.

"Do you want to join us outside? I have my own food so I don't want to eat inside the cafe."

"I think I'll just have lunch by myself." *

Perhaps it had been a long time coming, but that was when stress hit me in the face like a speeding truck... the first time.

Once I've hit this point, the best I can do for myself is head for the nearest bench and sit myself down. "Sorry," I smile-cry as my other friends watch on with the look of people that do not understand what happened, and do not know what to say to make it stop. And I can't say I was in too different a situation myself.

---

By Thursday evening, I have patched up my differences, dried up my tears, and rested myself into a state of quasi-calm - only to have to survive three hours in a computer workshop and one hour in a disastrous and awkward lecture. I think I will rest myself in the evening, but I end up debating about the Bill Henson case**, while trying not to neglect another conversation.

By the time I have managed to collapse into bed, I am exactly that, collapsed. Usually talking to my friends brightens my day, but I can't help thinking about the work that had gone un-done, and the day I have ahead of me the next day: a 7:15am start with a 9:30pm end. And the more I thought about it I less I could sleep.

"I'm really sorry, I can't come to your party on Saturday. I'm really stressed out at the moment. I will bring you cake on Monday. Really sorry," I text at some point after midnight because I need to stop the thoughts running through my head.

---

Friday evening, I am prodding the empty container that had been my food-court dinner around on the table. My friend had decided to stay around to see the dancesport competition on a whim. I don't know why, but I am glad that I'm not sitting here alone. Its hard to feel too dejected while making conversation. The cleaner shoos us away from the table so that he can put up the chairs for the night, so we make our way up to the Grand Buffet Hall.

I'm in a pretty red dress, but very nervous. I mean, I know the dance well, I just wish my partner would turn up so we can go through it once just so I know for sure that I know it.

"Can all competitors please head across to the registration table to get your number as soon as possible."

I head across, and scan the list for my name. I find it next to someone who is not my partner.

"I'm sorry, but my name is written down next to the wrong partner."

The girl at the registration table looks stressed and frazzled. "Uhg. Who is your partner? But I called him up and he said he was dancing with ___. Look can you wait till he gets here and bring him over so we can sort it out?"

I am a little bit unnerved by the news. He did say he was dancing with someone else, but that was in another dance right? I nervously go over the dance steps on my own. And then call my other friend who should be coming to watch because I don't know what else to do to stop the ominous sense of foreboding. "Hi, are you coming to the dance thing?"

"What... dance... thing?"

"Uh. Dancesport competition. It's tonight."

"Oh no. What time?"

"Like, now."

"I'm on a tram heading towards T___ at the moment, will I make it on time."

"No. Don't worry about it. I'll see you next week!"

"Sorry! Good luck!"

The sense of foreboding has only increased. I smile weakly at my friend. I cross the room every time someone I know arrives. I keep harassing the frazzled looking girl with the clip board. (or was it that she kept harassing me?)  He finally arrives.

"You are so late!" I say in a light-joking manner.

It is several minutes before we finally sort out who is dancing with who. My dance is first, and I beg for one quick rehearsal before we hit the stage. But half-way through a muddled version of the routine, he stops and ponders: "Don't you think it's unfair. I don't think I should be dancing in the beginners and the advanced sections."

I don't care! I don't care if we get disqualified! I have survived the day, and I just want to get to do the dance as painlessly as possible! Can we just run through the routine once? Just once? Is that too hard to ask? But all I do is smile and then cry.

I wipe my face of tears. We rush into hall. I pin the number to his back. They don't announce our name, but I pull him onto the dance floor just as the music is starting. We do the first few steps and then we keep repeating those first few steps. I smile, but in my head I am wondering what happened to all those steps we spent so many minutes rehearsing on Tuesday when I could have been... could have been! Or the fact that I could be right now, at home letting the week slide into the past, instead of hanging on for these last few minutes. I feel cheated of something.

I probably made him feel like it was his fault. It wasn't, it was everything in the week that had lead to my collapse into tears after I left the stage. People probably assumed I was annoyed that I had danced badly. I wasn't, I was just disappointed I had survived the week not to even have the chance to have something to show. And there I was on the concrete stair in the back of the Grand Buffet Hall, crying, because the week had run be down. My friend put his arm around me. If he thinks I am a pathetic sobbing mess he does not show it. And I am thankful. A girl from my dancing class brings me a drink and I am thankful. I wipe my face and one of the girls takes a group photo. She shows me the photo; I am surprised that my smile doesn't look forced at all. And I am thankful.

I settle into a book as I take the train home. I can finally relax because the week is over.

"Hope you are feeling okay now," says the text from my friend.

"Yes. Thankyou. Thankyou for hanging around."

It's the end of the week. And I am thankful.

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*post script: don't worry, it was all a misunderstanding, and has been sorted out between us. (moral of the story: do not make phone calls when you are stressed out of your mind, because you will not hear what you hear.)

** in 2008 Bill Henson's photography sparked an art-versus-porn debate in main media. And on any other day I would have been glad to discuss the topic, since it is one of the few political things that I have a strong and well-read opinion on. But debating the one thing that you can't let go off when you're in need of rest is not good.

A short moment of writing wedged in between many other moments (~jinghan)

Right now time is flying at a hundred miles and hour while getting nowhere but piling on a lot of work and deadlines stare you down the throat.

The luxury of studying things in detail as you go is, just that, a luxury few can afford.

But despite that, remember: you also have a life now (sure it may be the reason that your staring some deadlines very very near to the barrel of their gun) but it is also the reason for happiness and purpose that you never felt before this first year of university life.

Chapter Thirty-One: The Best Notes… (~jinghan)

... always include stick figures.

Chapter Thirty: Out of Time! (~jinghan)

I'm sitting on the train reading my book. "Sugar and Spice" says the cursive writing on the pretty pink cover. The thing about books is, you always feel like the lives that you are reading about are nice and under-control, even when the protagonist is having a personal crisis. Occasionally I convince myself that my life is like a book, and then go write in my blog about how my life is all nice and crazy-but-controlled like in books, but heck, the blunt honest truth at the moment is: I have no time in my life!!!!!!!!! Between being in lectures, studying at home, and sleeping the only time I seem to have is eating time, travelling time and brushing my teeth time.

God look at those arts students with their two hour lunch breaks every day, or those commerce students with their one day a week off, my friend doing health sciences at La Trobe only had to go into uni three days this week! Even other science students seem to have time to spare at the end of their day. Me? I'm sitting at home typing at speed into the blog editor because I really want to write a blog but can't afford the time.

In a week in order to keep up with things I need to: read two chapters of my physics text book, do my physics tute sheet, read and do exercises for the previous weeks maths lectures, finish project of the week (whichever subject it happens to be this time), do my readings for my Breadth, listen to my clashed informatics lecture on lectopia... oh and don't forget to read and submit physics pre-lab. Recently I seem to have adopted the habit of doing all this work from 7:30-11pm on mondays to thursdays. But this week my evenings have been snatched away by a couple of meetings and seminars and I am in crisis!

Who knows what I do on weekends. I haven't developed a consistency yet. (I like it better when life is a little bit more predictable. Not monotonous-predictable, but don't-have-to-keep-looking-in-my-planner predictable.) I spend last weekend a) catching up on sleeping b) guilting about not studying b) doing the epic last-question of my maths assignment (which I then photocopied for fear that they would lose my epic attempt at answering that epic last question) And despite the sense of achievement of item c) it still feels like I could have got some other study out of the way.

Today I sat down to stick a chocolate wrapper into my journal (hey it was the first time I had come across a Cadbury fair-trade chocolate bar, you'd understand if you've ever had delicious happiful fair-trade chocolate.) and frankly I wish I had more time to do un-productive but meaningful things like that. I am sick of feeling guilty for every second that I don't spend studying.

...

... though now that I've said that, if I just stopped feeling guilty for every second I don't spend studying, then my life would be fine. Ha ha! I'll work on it. I'll learn to be more lazy. I promise.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: A Virtual Tour of Melbourne Uni (~jinghan)

My alarm was ringing. It was a Sunday. I looked out the window. It was unfortunately cloudy as clouds could get.

So why was I up on a Sunday? Why was I caring about the weather on a Sunday? It's Melbourne University Open Day of course!

But wait! Why am I caring about open day even though I'm already enrolled at Melbourne University? Well, my friends, I was being a tour leader. Let me take you on my virtual version of my tour...

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Meeting point: Union Lawn (AKA concrete lawn) - in front of the big metal sculpture

Hello, are you here for the tour? That's good. What's your name? Nice to meet you, I'm Jinghan. Can you find you name on this list? Have you been around the campus before? Well welcome to Melbourne Uni then.

That building over there, that's the Redmond Barry building, I have most of my lectures there. And behind that is the physics building, I have my labs and tutorials in there. For most of my subjects I have three lectures a week, and a tutorial and possibly a workshop or a lab depending on a subject. Okay, I think we can head off now.

Union House:

So this is Union House, I would say its the social, and food hub of the university.  Have a wander through the food court if you want.

Okay lets head upstairs. This is where the Rowden White Library is, it's my favourite library complete with "do not study" signs. It has novels, DVDs, comics, but no text books. There's even the TV room with beanbags where someone people come to sleep between classes.

System Gardens

Over there is the pool and the gym, it's fairly cheep for students, and is conveniently on campus. I quite like the pool anyway. And this walkway here is called the Professor's Walk, because the professor's residences used to be here.

And here is the Botany Building, my friend thinks it is absolutely wonderful that the Botony Building is covered in vines, and is entirely green in summer. And behind here is the most beautiful little garden in the university, the botanist's best kept secret. Here is the System Gardens, with it's little white tower in the middle. It's the most beautiful place to sit on sunny days (unlike today).

Baillieu Library and the Bookshop:

Here's the bookshop, books at uni are quite expensive so we buy the essentials and do our best to borrow the rest. Some departments print bounded lecture notes and readers and you buy those here as well. And if you are ever in need of melbourn university branded golf balls, you'll also find those in the Bookshop.

Now here's the Baillieu Library, the one without novels and DVDs and where you are expected to study. I come and study with classmates here. And it's also handy that all the textbooks are available for two hour or over night loans, so I don't have to lug my tome of a physics book to uni in order to study. Have a look around if you want.

South Lawn:

I'm not sure what they do at other Universities, but at Melbourne Uni we like to do a lot of lawn sitting. Here's the South Lawn; on any particular day there is always at least one, if not three barbecues and student society activities on. There's a car park under here, they designed it especially to accommodate the roots of the trees above. And there's the Old Law Building which is one of the oldest building on the campus, and the Old Arts Building next to it, was the last sandstone building built.

If we walk out this gate, you'll see university square, there's the Law Building, the spotty one is the Commerce Building they call "The Spot", and infront of it is the IT building. I have my Informatics lectures and workshops over there, so on those days I do have to treck all the way across campus to get there.

ERC and Student Centre:

This is the Easter Resource Center, or ERC, it's another library but has more working spaces and less books than the Baillieu. There are nice couches, collaborative working spaces, lots of computers and laptops you can borrow if all the computers are used up. If you come around here we'll be in the Frank Tate Learning Center, which has more working spaces, though I sometimes see students sleeping on the couches in here.

If you press that button you'll be able to open the door... In front of us is the Eastern Precinct Student Center. Each of the courses has their own Student Center, this one is for Science, Biomedicine and Engineering students. There's a help desk and we can come here for time-tabling issues, enrolment problems, or just for course advice.

Well that concludes our tour. Do you have any questions? If not you can head across there to Wilson Hall where they have the Science Stalls or head out on your own way. Thankyou for taking my tour!