I have two essays due on Friday
I'd like to say that the reason for my lack of posting in the past few weeks is due to researching in regards to the above fact, but that would be a blatant lie. I simply suck.
Just like this blog post.
I'M SORRY!

I'd like to say that the reason for my lack of posting in the past few weeks is due to researching in regards to the above fact, but that would be a blatant lie. I simply suck.
Just like this blog post.
I'M SORRY!

My phone buzzes. It's a text. "Oh god jing, can I just quit uni? It's so overwhelming and I don't know how to deal."
I calmly punch back consoling words, but what I'm really thinking is how much those words summarise how I'm feeling as well.
You think first year is going to the toughest year of uni, and at the end of the year you breath a sigh of relief. But now that I'm here, toughing it through second year, I realise that things are as tough now as they were a year ago, if not more - the challenges are still there, just with different names and faces and I have to get to know them and learn to deal with them all over again.
Maybe that was my downfall, I thought that once I had made it through first year, second year would be a breeze. That I would know the ropes and everything would just work out so long as I put in the effort.
I was wrong.
It's 6:30pm when I type to my friend, "I'm going to go to bed. I feel crap."
"Stressed?"
"I don't know what it is. I feel like I'm struggling to get on top of myself, and that if I don't everyone will get sick of me whinging about it."
":( These sorts of things take time. But you're getting better at it."
I almost say, as if you know that. But somehow his conviction make me believe it. "Do you think so?"
"mmms. You're getting better :) i guess it's just finding what works for you."
"mmm life feels sort of out of balance. I want to do everything. And I don't want to confront the fact that I can't do everything all at once."
"mmm well I think what might help the most is accepting that you can't. and accepting that worrying about it won't really work. I guess you just ahve to do as much as you can day by day. Think of what can be done now, what can be done later."
Somehow the need to bury my face in my pillow and feel crap has faded. It's so obvious, and so true, what he is saying. And yet only now I am starting to admit it to myself.
Second year has it's challenges, because you have all those expectations that you set up in first year to try and meet. And you want to do better, be more on top of things, get through it smoother...
I grab a scrap of paper and write out all the things that I'm trying to get done in a week. And I draw in arrows and write down the laziest way to get each of them done.
KLC:
- notes (lecture) --> don't bother neatening up what you write in during lectures
- notes (tutoral) --> ditto
Info:
- notes (lecture) --> leave this until swotvac
- tutorial (work) --> get through backlog eventually...
Complex:
- notes x3 --> try just writing these in the lecture
- tutorial work --> just do it in the tute and then forget about it
- problem booklet ---> ??? procrastinate?
Prob:
- notes --> swotvac
- tutoral work --> in tute & swotvac
I guess, I thought I was going to do better at uni putting in more work for each subject, but in the end my clumsy messy semi-organised first-year methods were the best ones after all. Why change something that is not broken.
Acknowledging the cause of one's stress is the first sign to solving it? I hope so.
Someone please remind me what that is? I know it involves a bed but that seems to be all the thoughts it conjures up. Between going to bed at 2 and being woken up every morning by other family members' alarms, I'm being driven slowly insane. I have to get up and wake my brother every morning because his alarm doesn't wake him. He could probably sleep through an earthquake.
Aside from that, the past week has been good! I've finished an assignment for one class, now I just have to write an essay (only 800 words) and study for a mid-semester test next Wednesday. I planned to have the beginning of the essay done by today, but so far I've been sitting in the ERC since 9:30AM and have written exactly 0 words. I couldn't even tell you what I've spent today doing; food comes to mind though.
I do have the entire weekend; I plan to have my essay done by Saturday night which will leave me Sunday, Monday, Tuesday to study for my French test. At this point, I'm basically using this blog as my agenda. Maybe I could bail on work tomorrow, which would leave me a few extra hours to do work. Hmm...
I also need to vent for a second. With the Baillieu library being renovated, I've taken up residence in the ERC which has become packed full of people doing seemingly very little. It has become a fight for a chair, or any space in the quiet study section. It's quite a conundrum; they're renovating Baillieu to make more room but in the process have made room more scarce.
Tonight will be a nice distraction though. I'm going late night shopping because *GASP* I FINALLY have money again! It used to be that I'd work 10 hours a week but all of that money would go towards paying my tutor (for a university subject). But now my very nice parents have offered to pay and I accepted their offer in what would've been record-breaking time (if someone had counted).
As I type this my friend, who I convinced to go buy me a coffee (practicing being persuasive for my future career as a lawyer), will be returning with one ginormous white mocha from Castro's. Is it sad that this is the highlight of my day?
Anyway, I've filled this blog with enough of my (hopefully coherent) rambling for today.
Just a last note; as it's getting to the pointy side of the semester remember, don't stress. Stressing only makes things worse. Make sure you enjoy your weekends too, pretty soon they'll be non-exisent.
Hello my lovelies. It's been awhile since appearing on cyber space and with ONLY 7 WEEKS OF UNI LEFT EVER much has happened. I've changed jobs - and m'dears those who are doing SALP or KLD or any other acronym... hello and hi... come and visit me in my office.
It is rather hectic - with three subjects (although the online one finishes next week!) and working four days w/ two jobs + a lovely not-so-little youth group I run, there barely seems time to go to a pump class and have my triceps ache for the week.
Oh yes, I moved house as well in that time, so I now pretty much live at Uni... and broke up with my bf (although if this were fb it is "its complicated") I've applied for several gazzillion jobs and have gotten through a few rounds with a few of them - at the moment the promising ones are; PwC, Grant Thornton, ANZ, KPMG and Google. <-- that's right!!! *she jumps on a chair*
The careers people here at uni are lovely. You should totally go and make an appointment with them to have a chat about "yea, dunno what I'm going to do... I like people... and numbers n that" it is worth it - they know their stuff.
okaayy. here is your to-do list...
Ciao!
Being motivated and hardworking: it's good, but there is also going too far and just burning yourself out. I forgot about the danger of this when I was trying to shake off my holiday-laziness. And then it all came crashing down.
It didn't help that the weekend before I had said something stupidly mean to my friend. It was a fuzzy stupid feeling in my head, I was barely thinking about what I said before it came popping out. "Hey look I'm really tired, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I think I really should go to bed. I'm really really sorry," I type to her. But 'sorry' is just a word. Hot tears are rolling down my cheeks, by the time I turn off my computer. "Why the fuck did I just do that?" I scrawl furiously into my journal. I haven't felt anything quite as close to self-hate as this for a long time. It scares me.
I calm myself down, and write a letter of apology to my friend. It's 2am by the time I let myself sleep. I may have been stupid, but I've done the right thing, right?
Tuesday, I wake up with an ache in my head. My friend once told me "the morning is wiser than the evening," something that has proven true on so many occasions after a night of stress and tears. But not this morning.
I was trying to get my work done the night before and I was trying hard, but most of it was not making sense. It wasn't as if it was a particularly challenging topic, my head just felt like it was full of fuzz. I felt so stupid. I thought perhaps I would feel more clear-headed in the morning. But I wasn't feeling it.
It didn't help that I accidentally knocked my mini-shelf off the wall in the morning and my glass flower and ship-in-a-bottle smash against my bed-side-table. Perhaps the weaker person I used to be would have collapsed at this point, but instead I tell myself: "It's okay it's just stuff that has been sitting there collecting dust. Don't let it ruin your day." And true to my word I've forgotten about it by the time I'm at the train station.
I'm sitting in Probability trying to make what the lecturer is saying make sense. This is my easiest subject. I've scraped through all my other class work today - but deep down I know that I'm only fooling myself. I know that I don't really understand any of this as fully as I could. I know that my high-school self could have picked all of this content up with out trouble. I know that I could have got a better score on my assignment that I got back this morning. Why is it such a struggle right now?
I lean over to ask my friend "wait I don't get it, what did he do there?"
"Gee, your so loud. The people in front keep turning around and glaring." My other friend teases. He's just teasing, he doesn't mean it, he spends all class distracting people himself; but my resilience was already broken. I say nothing in reply and dashed away a rogue tear that escaped.
"Don't let small things like that get you down," I tell myself. But after that the emotions were starting to leak all over the place and it was just impossible to understand anything the lecturer was saying.
No matter how hard I tried.
The feeling of stupidity and worthlessness was accumulating with every word the lecturer said. And all I could do was grit my teeth and hope that the lecture would end soon.
And then as I was getting up to leave at the end of the lecture my books all came sliding out of my bag. I could not help feeling the frustration and slamming my lecture notes in my hand to the ground, but in doing so I knocked all the things out of my pencil case. I tried stuffing things back into my bag so I could catch up with my friends who were already leaving, but for every one thing I put in something else would slide out. And kneeling on the floor between the lecture hall seats, surrounded by books and pens everything that I was trying to hold together all day finally cracked.
And I couldn't stop the tears after that.
And as it is when you wish you were stronger and that you weren't crying, in the middle of a lecture hall no less, I was sobbing and laughing all at the same time, and really had no idea what to do with myself. All I knew was that I was tired, and scared and I wished that everything would become easy and clear again.
My friends must have been surprised by the turn of events. They helped my bundle my books into my bag. Guided me me out of the lecture hall against the tide of people coming in for the next lecture. Sat me down on a warm sunny patch of grass, hugged me and let me cry without judgement until calmness faded back into existence.
For that I am so grateful.
"Promise me, that you will not study, and you will go to bed at 8pm, and that you will not read past 10pm," my friend sticks out her pinky.
I pinky promise her.
And it makes everything seem like it will be okay, at least for today.
-- --
Note from the author: I think I've reached my current miserable physical and mental and emotional condition because I'm so scared of failing my expectations of myself, working myself hard because I think that'll make everything okay, trying to drown the feeling of missing my boyfriend... Don't worry, I've been strictly ordered to look after myself, I'm leaving myself at least 10 hours for sleeping every night, I'm not doing any work that is not absolutely necessary. Every morning feels really bleak at the moment, like I might collapse on myself again at any point during the day, but my fears have so far been unrealised, and I'm usually pretty cheerful by the time I've been to a class and interacted with people. And after sleeping deliriously during the night and sometimes the afternoon too, I actually feel more clear headed. It's a slow tentative recovery process, but things'll be okay.
Okay, I've flipped through my copies of "The Principles of Writing in Psychology" and "Writing for Psychology" (Which are both orange. Conspiracy theory, anyone?) but I feel like the world is lacking a more back-to-basics, stripped-down guide to attacking a lab report from a world-weary second year perspective.
For you, my pretty stars of readers, I've broken it into a handy and accessible bullet point format. Let's go.
1. Wait. Until the due date of your work is actually looming so close that it's countable in hours, it is ridiculously early to start work. You're just being neurotic!
2. A few days before (or after, if you want an authentic Cara experience) the due date, start to panic. Intensely. Triple your caffeine intake and talk non-stop about your assignment to anyone who will stay still long enough to listen, not excluding your pet cat. Do not, however, confuse this with actually starting to write.
3. Build a study-nest. I've had a few over the years, but my current masterpiece is a 1970s squashy armchair, and a writing desk across which I've arranged everything I need to stay alive for several mind-numbing hours. Textbooks, pens, snacks, drinks, No-Doz, painkillers, phone and lucky trinkets are all within easy reach. Accessorise with blankets and cushions to make you feel like this is actually a space you want to inhabit.
BONUS TIP: If your study-nest is in your bedroom, make your bed completely inaccessible, or else as the hours click by, it will entice you in. I cover mine with clothes and books, pointy things and remove all the blankets so sneaky naps are not an option.
4. Dress the part. Pyjamas, cozy jumpers and the most unflattering woolly hat you own are essentials. As well as perfecting your comfort levels, this will ensure you are too unsightly to leave the house and do anything not assignment-related.
5. Really, dears, you've got to write the damn thing. See you on the other side.
The water is a perfect temperature on my skin: not too cold and not too warm. Light dances on every atom* of air suspended in the the water; it's like swimming through sunlight. Surrounded by the blue of the water below and the blue of the sun above, my mind and body relax. Thoughts flow and expand with every stroke that I take.
Back when everyone that was anyone was sixteen and other girls were trying to be slim and beautiful, I decided in a rather rebellious stubborn way that bellies were made to be round. I mean have you ever looked at your belly in the mirror and considered what it would look like flat? It would be weird, that's what. There's nothing wrong with a healthy curvature, I told myself. However... that said there are still those days where the curvature is a little bit too close to being spherical even for my liking, and your belly feels like it doesn't quite belong to you anymore. That's usually when I head out for a swim, to swim off all the sluggishness and weight and to feel strong and awake. But today: it's my mind that is taking delight in the exercise.
I sit at my desk typing madly, and changing the font colours as much as I spend leaving them alone. I was falling behind and struggling to understand everything in my Informatics class so I decided that this weekend I would go through the lectures and type out all my notes pretty colours and all. (Colours help me to remember things and organise information in my mind.) But it's been six hours since I first sat down at my computer and the words are starting to not make sense anymore. My shoulders feel cramped. My legs feel cramped. But most of all my mind feel cramped. Staring at my 15inches of screen space for six hours has confined my thoughts to that same small eye-stabbingly bright rectangle. I don't really care what the stuff means anymore. I feel like a bloody typing machine!
Time for a swim.
The sky stretches out before me as I backstroke down the pool, no box, no boundaries. Thoughts flow and expand with every stroke that I take.
-- --
*I apologise for this misuse of scientific terminology, please don't kick me out of my Bachelor of Science *winsome smile*
Is anybody else loving this cold weather? It's bringing back memories of big coats, gloves, scarves.... basically the best parts of winter. I've also really enjoyed sitting at cafes on campus and watching people trip and slip and step in puddles while wearing thongs. Silly people! My least favourite parts would have to be the constant runny nose and having to wake up before the sun is up, which is something I plan on making illegal before I die. I don't know how but I'm going to do it for 'others', of course! It's not a completely selfish motive....
I'm also happy because for once I'm actually tanned. I went to Queensland a few weeks ago and got a pretty awesome tan, I'll admit it. Sadly it's starting to peel but seeing as it'll be winter soon, I'm not going to feel so out of place being as pale as a sheet of paper after it has peeled.
It's been a crazy busy week, I've had about 4 hours sleep each night. Between volunteering for Oxfam, work, uni and volunteering for L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival I'm living on coffee and nut bars. They're the only things keeping me from falling asleep while eating breakfast and drowning in my cereal. My grandma's also in town for the week visiting some friends and so all of my spare time has been spent with her. My homework's feeling pretty neglected.
Speaking of LMFF, I thought I'd update you all. It was so much fun. I volunteered for a few events last week setting up business seminars and packing bags, and I actually attended a show on Saturday night. I spent probably 2 months pay on the shirt I wore but it was worth it! Myself and my friend had our photos taken by 4 different (professional) photographers; one blog from California, one from Sydney, a magazine from NY, and the official photographer for LMFF. Okay, enough with the bragging!
The brand spanking new UoM Oxfam Group that I'm a part of establishing had it's very first event; Close The Gap Day! It was yesterday and we had a table full of free goodies (tattoos, wrist bands, etc...) set up at Old Quad. We were planning on hosting it at South Lawn but it was completely washed out. We had so many nice people come track us down because they had seen our notices on Facebook and the Student Portal. It made my very cold heart a little warmer when people said they came because they wanted to help us achieve something. We've only been a group for about a month, we're not even uni affiliated, and we already have people willing to come help us! It did make me think that maybe this will be a worthwhile venture and that we can actually achieve something.
All in all, I think it was successful. We got 200+ signatures from students across Melbourne University. Our main aim is to first create a presence for Oxfam and hopefully as we recruit more people we'll have the resources to stage bigger events. But we're completely realistic, this won't happen over night. It'll be a lot of hard work. Hard work that I look forward to. Nothing in life worth having is simple! Remember this! It seems to be a recurring theme on my blog entries.
As I'm writing this, I'm sitting on a train on my way to class. I have one lecture today that I can't miss (well, I refuse to miss it). Being at uni 5 days a week have basically made my days and nights a complete blur. I can barely tell when one day ended and the next began. It's good though, I prefer to be busy. But at one point I want a day off to catch up on this work I continue to push down my priority list.
I hope you're all well, and being kept busy. With the news that Borders (my employer) is stopping redemption of all gift cards after April 3rd, I'm sure I'm going to have some funny stories of irate customers to tell you all on my next blog. I'm also due for a rather lengthy rant about the current political climate.
TGIF!
Oh hello there. I am quite surprised that I still have author privileges for this blog. Some of you might be wondering who the hell am I. But I suppose that's to be expected, since I left everything hanging about, oh, three months ago. Fast forward to this month then ---
Yes, I have indeed graduated and am well within my rights now to put 'Benvs(Melb)' after my name. Yeah... like that is going to impress anybody. As of now, I'm currently on a semi-official gap year. I have applied for the Master of Landscape Architecture for Melbourne Uni, and am supposed to be guaranteed a place for 2012 based on my undergrad average. I'll only get my offer early next year, so it's not quite official yet. I have been rejected for every single field-related position I've applied, but that might be expected since the market hasn't been tested for Environments graduates. Now that I think of it, it's probably for the best that I didn't get into any full-time position because then I wouldn't have searched for other outside-the-box options.
So then, what's next for me, you might ask? I'll be embarking on a working holiday in UK! Got my 1st ever Australian passport (oh, I've officially become an Australian last month), 2 year UK youth mobility visa, flight itinerary and travel insurance sorted so far. I have about 8 weeks to sort out everything else. It's not quite the big backpacking trip that some people in my batch are undertaking. I've never been a backpacking-sort-of-girl. Probably never will be. Nonetheless, it WILL be BIG. It is, after all, my first ever solo overseas trip. And I'll end up living halfway round the world for at least a few months. I'm nervous, yeah. But I'm excited as well! This will be a great opportunity for me explore what's out there in the 'big bad world' and hopefully, grow up along the way. See, I have had this nagging suspicion that I have the emotional maturity of a 12-year-old. So off to the British Isles I go. The rest of Europe will be on my doorstep, which is a massive plus.
So this is farewell then. I'm not really good with goodbyes, and for a while there, I did consider just fading into blogging obscurity. However, blogging for UoM during my three years in Uni had been a part of my life. Thanks to Kathryn, Ron, the rest of the transitions team, my fellow bloggers and the readers of this blog. I probably haven't blogged enough to make myself memorable but hopefully, my meagre posts enriched this blog to some degree. And without further ado, this is Gianina signing off.
Oh, and don't forget to dream large! :)
It's Thursday 11am.
"Listen to the crackle of the beanbag beans," I tell myself, "the mumble of a whispered conversation, the quite snore of someone else on the beanbags. Listen to the gentle hum of the air conditioning, the quiet buzz of the film being played through the headphones. Feel the pressure of the ground on your hip, feel the rush of your own breathing..."
I'm trying to exercise mindfulness: an awareness of one's surroundings and senses. It's supposed to relax the mind, and open your awareness, and tune your focus, but what my mind is really thinking is: "I'm so tired. I still have to finish my probability tutorial questions, I have to find some time to do my informatics workshop work some time... when do I have a sufficient break between classes to do that? Oh god. I'm so tired. What should I title my next blog? Slow fall of the sleep deprived swan? What? Why swan? Shutup! The word just came to me okay?? Fuck. I still have to go to my KLC lecture. I really don't want to go. Maybe I should skip choir since I'm so tired. Should I eat lunch before my lecture? Slow descent of the sleep deprived swan? Better alliteration but too many syllables? What time is it? I should set my alarm so I don't miss my lecture. My head hurts. My head hurts. Listen to the crackle of the beans. Listen. Listen! Mindfulness... Ragh. So tired."
I'm curled up in foetal defeat, on the beanbags of the Rowden White Library. A slow ache is throbbing in my temple. They say sleep deprivation is a terrible form of torture. I think I understand now. I'll do anything for you, just tell me what you want to know, just make my mind shut up and give me some sleep. It's only half way through the day and three quarters through the week and here's how I got here...
It's Friday - sorry I mean: Saturday 12:30am and I should be sleeping, but instead I'm lying on my belly typing madly into my computer. I have to get up at 6am the next day, but it's okay I'll make up the sleep later, good blog ideas should not be wasted to tiredness, the mind should be used to it's full advantage when it is full of inspiration. It's 1:30am when I turn off my computer.
It's Saturday 6:55am and I am late! I dress and eat in 10minutes. I'm attending the Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars camp, and as one of the second-year leaders I'm determined to be cheerful and friendly and set a good example of leadership to the aspiring young first-years.
It's Sunday 1am and with hiking boots on bare feet I groggily plod over to the shower block with my towel. Not matter how hard I tried, and how tired I was from the first day of the camp I still couldn't get my mind to relax and sleep. Maybe a shower will help. A lone spider waddles into the shower cubical and pauses to drink from the condensation. I'm to tired to care about its lack of consideration for my privacy.
It's Sunday 6am and I am making indeterminate vocal sounds as the other campers start to move about the cabin. I pull the sleeping bag hood over my face, but I know that I'll have to roll out, get dress and ready for a day of good healthy physical activities.
It's Sunday 3:30pm and I groggily wake up without opening my eyes to the rumble of the bus against my pillow. My muscles complain as I attempt to tilt my head. I discover that I had slept all the way through a toilet stop at Ararat and we are now at Beuford. Should I do my Complex Analysis assignment when I get home?
It's 11pm Sunday and I am not doing my Complex Analysis assignment. Instead I am watching Conviction Kitchen on the channel seven website because I cannot bare the idea of missing an episode when they take down the web-stream tomorrow after the next episode is shown. It's okay, one has to make sacrifices like this to enjoy life. Right?
It's 11:30pm Monday and I am doing my complex analysis assignment after coming home from Book Club. I could have skipped book club, but my friend was going, I had read the book, and heck I needed something to change the rhythm of my mind from struggling over the Complex Analysis assignment during all my breaks between lectures. Besides I'm not tired enough to not be able to concentrate, I'll feel good to get this done.
It's 11:30pm Tuesday and I am talking to a friend online. I've been so busy trying to get things done and catch up on all the things I would have usually done during the weekend that I didn't realise that I missed having time to reconnect with people until a spontaneous "hey, how are you?" sent as a facebook message triggered a conversation. Oops, I'd better get to bed, I have to get up as a decently early time tomorrow morning to provoke year 10 girls to be enthusiastic about science.
It's 12pm Wednesday and I am 'reading' an article set for my breadth subject. What I'm really doing is letting the words wash over me as I eye the progress of the scroll bar down the side of the page. I take a 'break' to go watch Hungry Beast*. Maybe I should stop sacrificing my time to engage with life and try and get some more sleep, but it's the first episode of season three and only half an hour. When I get back to my desk I discover that the author of the reading has used the word "culture" far too many times for my tired mind to make any sense of what he is saying anymore.
"Culture (in the sense of the arts) defines a quality of fine living (culture as civility) which is the task of political change to realise in culture (in the sense of social life) as a whole."
Culture what?
It's 9am Thursday and I'm starting to feel the effects of my careless expenditure of energy and enthusiasm. By 10am my head hurts and I'm having trouble concentrating despite how much I want to make the most of all my time. It's a battle between the need for sleep and the need for study and both sides are losing.
By 12pm I'm engaging with class discussion only to discover that I've lost my chain of thought half way through a sentence and ending everything with an awkward "... and yeah..." before retreating into my seat as much as is physically possible while thinking "shut up Jinghan. You are too tired to say anything worthwhile and not off topic. Please please don't say anything, even if you do hate those awkward silences after the teacher has asked something and no one is answering."
It's 5:30pm when I crawl home with a aching, scattered mind drained of self-esteem. Motivation is good. Enthusiasm is good. Not folding to petty excuses is good. Working hard is good. But this little Jinghan has completely toppled herself over with trying to be good.
"Slow down," I tell myself for the first time in the week. I make myself a pot of hot, scented jasmine tea, and breath in the aromatic steam as I sip it down slowly. I let down the blinds. I put on my pyjamas. And I plug my favourite calming music into my ears. At first my mind is still struggling with the rush of thoughts that have not stopped all week. "Maybe 'Slow Torture of the Sleep Deprived Mind'? That's what this feels like. Gotta ditch the swan, I guess, as cool as unnecessarily poetic phrasing can be..." But by 6pm I have finally surrendered to fatigue and am to all extents and purposes unconscious to the world.
I guess I need to work on my ability to share my time. No more waging of war between study and sleep.
At last there is peace in my mind.
Or at least a ceasefire.
It's a start.
-- --
*if you enjoy quirky facts and the opinion of open-minded youths you will love Hungry Beast. Wednesday 9:30pm on ABC1 and Thursday 10:15pm on ABC2 or on iView on the internet.
Number of posts found: 575