Teensy life update (Suzanne)

So, I had a bit of a stress-and-bad-practice-related mental breakdown in the middle of the corridor yesterday, and I really, really appreciate my lovely and wonderful college friends for providing hugs and support, as well as for knocking some common sense into me. See, freshers, you do end up making friends who care. 🙂

Anyway. In other news, life at uni is as busy as ever. Just a taster:
– Last week in a nutshell: intercollegiate swimming competition, went to see the New York Metropolitan Opera production of La Boheme via live broadcast at Nova Cinemas (another one coming up on May 10, for interested parties), application deadline for Victoria Law Foundation internships, application deadline for Goldman Sachs scholarship program, legal theory topic outline deadline. Lots of stress.

– Today the US-Consul General came to JCH to give a talk on the US elections, courtesy of the JCH Historical Society (quite a coup for them, since they’re a group wholly run by students on a budget of zero dollars and the goodwill of the college administration.) He brought his political advisors and bodyguards, too. And he hung around to chat to students afterwards, which was nice – since we’re a small college we all got a chance to talk to at least one high-level diplomat, which was pretty cool. Plus the kitchen provided sushi snack platters for the night.

– Also, the latest edition of the Australian Journal of Labour Law came out today. Gotta go get my copy and see what the article I edited ends up looking like 🙂

– Tomorrow the uni is holding its Exchange Fair! Yay globe-trotting.

– On Friday, I’m taking out the JCH Choir to sing the national anthem in the University’s official dawn service.

– Afterwards, a group of friends and I are going hiking/camping. I’m not too sure where, but it’s somewhere in country Victoria about three hours drive from campus.

– Music Students’ Society AGM is coming up; as Secretary, it’s my job to organise it.

– On a less fun note, Schenkerian analysis assignment due tomorrow (thankfully a pretty easy one), music history assignment due Monday, BIG music history assignment due in two weeks, MASSIVE (as in, 100% of my grade MASSIVE) legal theory essay due in four weeks and I have no idea how to do it at all, plus I’m behind on both practice and Obligations reading/outlining (misleading and deceptive conduct annoys me. I hate reading legislation, especially unwieldy legislation like the Trade Practices Act, which is an example of what I call legislative sprawl – it starts off as a nice and simple Act, then continually gets amended until it’s three times its original length and filled with a random patchwork of provisions that don’t really fit together. Case law all the way). Yeah. Me and academics, not getting along so well at the moment. Which is basically why I had that breakdown in the corridor.

– I got assigned to play in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto no. 3 for the next orchestra concert, which is one of my favourite pieces of music ever. It made me very happy to hear that. Unfortunately, the part’s hard. It’ll be worth the effort, though, I love Prokofiev’s orchestration – there’s always such an interesting interplay of instrumental colours, and particularly in this concerto it works really effectively to create a little world of sound of its own.

– Melbourne Journal of International Law issue is also coming out near the end of this semester, so it’s proofreading time!

– I was supposed to graduate from SALP a month ago. Whoops. Eh, I’m not sure if I want to be bothered with the paperwork – I did the community service, and the seminars, and I’ve gotten the learning experience and benefits already, the only thing I get if I graduate fully is the line on the transcript. Speaking of SALP, a number of readers have asked about the program, and I owe you all a blog post. It will get written eventually, just not now.

So yes. Love-hate relationship with life right now – I love what I do, I hate the time I have to give up to do it.