I went to see Mark Ronson perform at the Palace Theatre on Bourke St last week - all in all a great concert, despite the mood being soured by one particularly individual with whom I made acquaintance. The conversation when something like this:
Random: hey man, are you a uni student?
Me: yeah man, I'm studying at Melbourne Uni at the moment.
Random: what do you study?
Me: I'm second year arts.
Random: I'm so sorry.
Me: (not happy) what about you?
Random: mate, film and media at Swinburn Uni - Prahran Campus, best degree in the world mate. I'm gonna be making the ads that will control your mind and tell you what to buy in the future (conversation over).
Bachelor of Arts, or artium baccalaureus, has been one of the staple degrees of the University of Bologna, Paris, Cambridge, Salamanca and Montpellier, dating back to 1088 AD. Young men, having successfully completed their studies of Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialect, Logic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music and Astronomy at a secondary level would continue on to the finest universities in the world to further their education. They would study things they had already addressed in schools but in much greater depth, as well as exploring new subjects such as philosophy, politics, economics, history, physics, chemistry and law. A man of true upbringing would seek an education not as a means to a vocational end, but rather to ensure he understood all the facets of the world in which he was living. The question of whether or not this attitude is still applicable in the 21st is debatable, and depends greatly on the quality of secondary education that one receives. However for those of us who do not feel that they knew everything there was to know at age 17, artium baccalaureus seems a viable life decision as far as bettering oneself is concerned.
It is hard to overlook the irony that those with the narrow-minded view that a scholarly pursuit is only worth as much as its vocational outcomes tend to be those studying something narrow themselves, indeed "this marginal attitude may result from lack of knowledge about the existence and importance of cultural capital in addition to economic capital, and the reality that many Arts students often complete a second or third degree after a BA, for the attainment of a position suited to their interests in the job market." (March 2011: Wikipedia)
To be continued...
"Ah... but what happened to your negative?" I ask my student knowingly.
"But didn't I factorised it out?"
I look at the page again. Shit. She did too. I'm being out-mathsed by a yr12 student.
"Oh damn you did too! You'll be teaching me soon!" I joke, "It's not my fault, I'm sick." I make a pretence of coughing.
She laughs. "Yeah, yeah, excuses excuses."
Out loud I laugh. But, no, seriously, I am sick. All I can concentrate on is how cold the air feels on my skin despite the two layers of clothing I am wearing and how I feel like I need to pee. Urinary tract infection: it sucks. I haven't recovered from my cold from four weeks ago, and my immune system is seriously struggling to keep the little armies of bacteria away. Is this what it feel like to be old and have your body failing you?
I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. And to make things worse my boyfriend is at a party (in Adelaide no less). If only I could talk to him then everything about my whole week would seem worth it*.
I flop my bag in the middle of my room. Pop two antibiotic pills from the packet, swig some water and swallow. I slump at my desk knowing that I should be doing my complex analysis assignment, reading that library book that is due in two days, and packing for the camp I have to get up at 6am for tomorrow - all at the same time. God the camp. Is this even a good idea? My body may not be up to it. How am I supposed to inspire first-year students to be leaders of society and valuable members of a team when all I want to do is pee. Instead of doing anything productive I stalk facebook for someone to whinge to.
Sometimes you come across the right person to talk to just by chance.
We converse about boyfriends. And ex-boyfriends. And how the phrase 'ex-boyfriend' comes with far too much stigma. Somehow on the side my bag gets packed. Complex assignment isn't due until Wednesday, I tell myself.
I'm already feeling better. "Hey I should look after my ailing body and go to bed. It was really nice talking though! We should do this again some time. Good night."
But of course one must always do something more on one's computer before actually shutting it down. And for some inadmissible reason thinking about boyfriends leads to thinking about the future, in turn lead me to the Teach for Australia** website.
I had heard about Teach for Australia, getting paid while getting a teaching diploma sounded pretty sweet, but it wasn't until I went to a seminar on Tuesday that I found out what it was really about.
"The dots on the opposite sides of a die always add up to seven. Draw in how many dots would be on the opposite side of this arrangement." The man giving the seminar showed a picture with six dice. "How many of you think you can answer this question?"
Everyone puts up their hand.
"In low social-economic areas how many students do you think got this questions right? 25%. That's right, one in four students from a low social-economic background can't even comprehend a simple visual adding task."
I sat edgily on my seat glancing at the clock. I have to leave in five minutes, three, two, one, I'm still engrossed in the seminar when I realise I should have left five minutes ago... I rush to my other appointment but my mind is on wanting to know more about the graduate program. Teach for Australia is like everything I ever wanted to do with my life all rolled up together!
It's 11:30pm I should have gone to bed about half an hour ago, but I am engrossed by the website. At the moment only 85 graduates from two years' intake are doing the program, there must be thousands that apply, eek! I go through the application form and consider what my chances are and how I can improve them by the time I need to apply for a graduate program next year. There is nothing else I want to do with my life more than this. The stakes are high. I want to get in. I will get in.
It reminds me of the story I heard in another seminar, where the speaker talked about a boy he heard about whose life dream was to work with David Attenborough. The guy did absolutely everything he possibly could to improve his chances: a biology major, a film studies course on the side, a work experience placement with BBC broadcasting. It just so happened that word go to David Attenborough and he was offered a job without even having to apply for it. At the time I was only inspired by the fact that the guy knew what he wanted in life to exactly, but perhaps the other amazing part of his story is the clarity of his determination...
"What leadership roles have you undertaken in either the workplace or co-curricular activities?" Asks the preview-form on the website.
I'm going on a camp tomorrow to inspire first-years to be leaders and valuable team member. Yeah ha. I'm looking forward to this. Sick and tired may stop me from doing some thing, but it sure ain't going to stop me looking forward to camp no more.
-- --
p.s. please do not look at the time stamp of this post, and then compare it to the time when I first said I should go to bed...
*Warning: this is the sort of delusion that attached to expectations leaves you feeling more frustrated when you realise your boyfriend is not the solution to everything. But if you just need fuel for your bad mood, I highly recommend it, it burns real well.
** The Teach for Australia website, it's terribly uninteresting, you don't want to look at it, you certainly don't want to compete with jinghan for a position...
That's what it feels like these days; it's mountains and mountains of homework and obligations. It feels like no-one understands; like you're drowning in an empty ocean......until you realise you're surrounded by people in the exact same 'boat' (if I can continue with this metaphor). It's confusing and altogether unpleasant. But it's life and nothing worth having is easy.
At this point I'm treating this blog like my diary (the title comes from my current obsession with the TV series, of course). It's a place to vent. You know what they say; only the crazy don't have a psychiatrist. And at this point, this blog is my psychiatrist. It's a rather good psychiatrist at that; it has that unpleasant silence that you'd get in an office, a silence that allows for self-reflection.
In saying that, this has been possibly the best week I've had since I've been here. It's been super busy but fun. Let's see, where to start..... The Oxfam group* we've been trying to start is slowly finding it's legs. We signed up about 150 people at O-Week and subsequently had our first ever meeting 2 weeks ago. To be followed by our first official event for Close The Gap Day on Thursday the 24th**. We're going to have a stand on South Lawn selling Oxfam merchandise to be donated back to Oxfam Australia and handing out petitions that will be sent to the Prime Minister.
We have run into a bit of trouble becoming an affiliated Melbourne University group though. As of right now we're recognised by Oxfam but not by the UoM. The amount of information and the amount of seemingly silly, minute details they want us to give has me on the verge of a mental break. And they then informed us that it would take weeks to months to be officially recognised as an UoM group which means we won't have permission to even advertise for our upcoming CTGD event. It reeks of a completely redundant bureaucracy.
BUT I'm leaving this drama behind me for now as the most exciting part of my week will come tomorrow night. I've been volunteering for L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival for the past week but I have tickets to tomorrow nights runway show and I can barely keep in my excitement. If you're familiar with me at all from my blog entries, you'd know that I count down the days until each show. I don't go so much for the fashion, I feel Australia to be a bit of a back-water in that sense, I go for the fun of dressing up and seeing others do the same.
I have an early morning tomorrow so for now I'm signing off. But expect an update next week!
Until then, enjoy your weekend. Make the most of them before mid-semester exams begin.
* Here's the Facebook link to our official page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Melbourne-University-Oxfam-Group/151144901606832
** Here's the link to the official event page of our CTG Day activities: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169945616388715
I'd love it if you could come down and sign a petition.
Note from the author: I could be getting some well deserved sleep but this post is a week overdue, pretend I'm writing this five days ago.
I'm agnostic. But if I believe in some God(dess) of fixed identity, then s/he is a very sly cheeky deity that answers prayers in the most obscure of ways.
It was Wednesday and my feeling of purposelessness was at an all time low, and I had just about has as much of long-distance-relationship as I could bare without tears and heart-ache. But as I flick through through the paper a headline catches my attention:
Why women aren't getting it in the boardroom or the bedroom*
-- Fear of rejection keeps women from pushing for what they want.
International Women's Day brought the usual complaints about the lack of women on corporate boards...
...most women dread these negotiations, putting them on par with a visit to the dentist. As for men - well, they are more likely to treat them as wrestling matches, happily coming back for a second and third round. And if they are knocked back, they take it in their tride. Most men handle this type of rejection much better than women.
What's really interesting is that the same pattern emerges in our most intimate relationships. My research on how couples negotiate their sex supply revealed men's extraordinary resilience, their willingness to keep trying for that green light.
...Women are afraid to ask and they pay the price.
Already the rebellious juices were dripping from my jaws. I don't want to be like the other women. For God's sake, I'm a maths major! Already, the fact that I was drowning in self pity just five minutes ago was being forgotten. God, women that dwell on self pity, eurgh, as if I'm one of those. Burn! Fight! Kill!
It's 12pm when I get home from the Start of Uni Party (my first uni party). On many occasions I have come home late from a night out, the adrenalin fades, and the realisation that I am tired and alone quickly kicks in and various horrible emotional pitiful things follow. But not tonight. Burn! Fight! Kill! Before I've even changed out of my party dress, I'm sitting on my bed reading my in2science training brochure and looking up google maps for how to get to my host school for the next day. I had left arranging my meet up with the teacher I would be working with for this voluntary program a bit late, but I was determined to make amends by being completely organised about it hereon... as I read the training brochure at 1am...
You'd think my God(dess) would be satisfied with my call to action so far. But being the sly cheeky thing s/he is I am thrown another headline that coincidentally catches my attention:
The Roar of the Tiger Mom.**
It was the "Little White Donkey" incident that pushed many readers over the edge. That's the name of the piano tune that Amy Chua, Yale law professor and self-described "tiger mother," forced her 7-year-old daughter Lulu to practice for hours on end - "right through dinner into the night," with no breaks for water or even the bathroom, until at last Lulu learned to play the piece.
...Most surprising of all to Chua's detractors maybe the fact that many elements of her approach are supported by research in psychology and cognitive science. Take for example, her assertion that American parents go too far in insulating their children from discomfort and distress. Chinese parents, by contrast, she writes, "assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently."
... if you repeat the same task again and again, it will eventually become automatic. Your brain will literally change so that you can complete the task without thinking about it. Once this happens, the brain has made mental space for higher-order operations...
Hardwork, persistence, no patience for excuses: whether Chinese or American, that sounds like a prescription for success with which it's very difficult to argue.
Outrageous unexplained opening, following through to scientific reasoning, softened by personal recounts, and a punching ending... I was too hard to resist. Toughen up. I told myself. Life's not a plate of cookies presented to you, you have to go plough the field, grow the wheat, grind it into flour, and do it all over again for sugar and cocoa before you even get to start baking your cookie.
It wasn't until I got home and actually practised the harp, like actually going-over-each-bar-carefully-and-repetitively practised, that I realised how much the articles had made me rethink my wafting about in self-pity. And weirdest thing of all: I could feel my playing getting better and I was actually enjoying the hard work and feeling good about myself. All while planning ahead to do three hours of maths study after dinner and actually looking forward to it.
Pft. The sly cheeky God(dess).
-- --
* link to full article for "Why women aren't getting it in the boardroom or the bedroom" - The Age, March 9, 2011
**link to full article for "Roar of the Tiger Mom." - TIME, January 10, 2011
Hello and welcome to another round of Shannon-style throwing words at the audience blogging.
I've been a busy little bumblebee, or so it seems.
Not in terms of doing much Uni work - mostly in terms of trying to keep up with birthdays and events and the occasional "HEY MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY, REMEMBER MY FACE?" appearance.
Decision 1: during week 1, I changed out of Japanese 2. It was beginning to get overwhelming - I mean, in the tutes all they spoke in was Japanese! Apparently you get used to it after a while, but I was asked a question and it stunned me. Deer in the headlight. Couldn't remember the Japanese word for family. Awful, awful stuff... So now I'm doing Darwinism!
I LOVE DARWINISM.
If you need a level 2 Breadth subject, or if you're an Arts student - TAKE THIS SUBJECT. It is so amazingly awesome. For instance - oh my god! - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928033.700-tumours-could-be-the-ancestors-of-animals.html - WE COULD BE RELATED TO CANCER. This is actually only vaguely relavant to the things we study, but it's been a damned long time since a subject has made me so consistently excited.
I should have been a history student. Damn.
Decision 2: I quit Biochem. I'm now only doing 3 subjects this semester. It was a tough call because it means that it will take me longer to do my Bachelor of Science - by about 6 months - but I will do a better job. I will not be constantly overwhelmed by running around campus/freaking out over the tiniest of assessments/I can get my pre-reading done. Etc. I think it was harder on me this semester, having just moved out and am now living in a share house instead of under my grandparent's roof. But it's okay!
Withdrawing from that subject was a good idea. A relief. And besides - I now have spare time. And life is for living my dears - you can never tell when your last moment will be. May as well enjoy yourself. (also, stress causes wrinkles.)
Yes, yes.
I'll get to the good stuff now.
My boyfriend is an artist. A wonderful guy, genuinely loves to draw. (Opposites attract? Science VS. Art?) Last time we attended a Steampunk get-together (This is what steampunk is.) he sketched people, and so he was invited back to do it again at the same club.
A fetish club in St. Kilda was having it's 7th Birthday party, and I had an industry guest pass. Sweeeeeet.
I actually really recommend going - even if you're not into that kind of thing (which, by the way, is every kind of thing.). This place has the most wonderful atmosphere, and it's not full of obnoxious drunken teeny boppers. If conversation is more your thing this is the place. And certainly, you will find a very fascinating subsection of the population here...
Some interesting characters I met the other night: (NB: at 19, I was certainly the youngest there. And this is just a selection of the awesome folks.)
Also, I have noooooo idea how much I'm allowed to say on this blog regarding these denizens of the night.
- some guy in nothing but a mask
- a crazy hyperactive lady dressed like Michael Jackson with vampire fangs and a massive... Err...
- a guy dressed like Charlie Chaplin, complete with facepaint.
- a dominatrix from Adelaide
- a girl who looked exactly like Cleopatra from Rome, who, having noticed that "The Sketcher" was "[my] property" (read: boyfriend), advised me to treat him mean. By the way, Rome is really good, watch it. Perhaps not for the faint-of-heart however...
- several man-slaves clad in very, very little. Complete with collar and lead!
As the second week of university comes to a close, the work is speeding up and time seems to be getting shorter and shorter. Or I'm just losing motivation.....already. What I used to get done in about an hour now seems to take me a week. Even this how-ever-many words blog has taken me an hour.
Where did my motivation go?!
In all honesty, I love Melbourne University, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I love my course, and most of my lecturers and tutors. And the weirdest part is, I enjoy doing my homework. That's right, I actually enjoy doing homework. But my enjoyment doesn't seem to be translating into making me want to study. It only seems to be once I actually start doing it I enjoy it.
.....Maybe lecturers should outlaw homework all together and instead give everyone take home exams. I think I'm onto something here!
While I'm on the topic of outlawing things; public speaking. I think I read the other week that it's the #1 fear in adults (even above death). We should make those people do an oral presentation in another language. Let's see how many break down in tears. I imagine there'd be a lot of used Kleenex tissues.
That's what I'm grappling with this week. How I'm going to do a debate (that's right a debate) in French and then the next we have to perform a play, also in French. The topic is 'Should smoking be banned in public?'. A noble topic; yes. However, for the moment I can barely string together a sentence in French let alone a coherent debate.
There's also something that I'm hearing more lately that's causing me concern; my lecturers are stressing that they're already behind on our study plan. Being only the second week; how is this possible? It's not a good look when lecturers are stressed. It makes the students even more stressed. Maybe Melbourne Uni should introduce compulsory yoga classes to de-stress everyone.....Or maybe they can just give out free chocolate. What obesity epidemic?
It occurs to me now how single-minded this blog post has been. With the current devastation in Japan, my complaints are silly and pointless. So I'll end by saying that my thoughts go out to anybody currently in Japan or anybody that knows somebody in Japan or the Pacific that may be affected.
P.S. Here's a link to the top 10 fears of the average adult (I couldn't find a more reputable source, unfortunately): http://www.speech-topics-help.com/fear-of-public-speaking-statistics.html but rest assured, it is true.
Well it's been busy, and hectic, and a whole lot of this that and the other. And and and..... <- literally the way my life has been feeling, there's no steady helping of commas or full stops just a constant flow of consciousness.
It could be the moving out; the lack of a job still or the full on Tuesday's that I have (still a small cry compared to science kids). I mean it could be that all this newness is getting to me causing some sort of *gasp* return to the study, work; sleep efforts of high school VCE.... Yet for the sake of this readership and my delicate mental self, I'll leave that option as the fevered self pity of a madman (no fate is as hard as VCE....pffft). Leaving that satire aside living outta home + uni + work that may or may not be in existence, is tiring more so than you'd originally think (Especially if your roommate doesn't cook/clean a lot :/).
I mean it has its benefits peace and quiet, independence, and.... well your own space... But at the same time you miss out on all the freebies at home home. That being said I am being a particularly big moocher especially for veggies/meats (I hate supermarkets they rip you off). Accompany that with the fact that I have no car the mere logistics of moving all the food I want fast becomes an issue on public transport. So that all being said the moral is get help when you can (even if you are a big shot moving out :p).
Hoo, look at the time already late mc latey, 11pm and I haven't even reached the crux of my blogging that is (very conspicuously):
I have reached the day where I have walked away from uni and thought to myself, why don't I simply not? Why don't I just stop and go full time at some nondescript yet monotonous job and get money, not think and play computer games? Why simply do uni?
So I stopped my general wonder at the nature of worlds, the lives of others, looked to the dark streets around me- tired looking Asians treading over Styrofoam trash- and thought, why?
It isn't for some trinket, or shiny piece of paper, for some far off job or chance of employment. It's for something more entirely than just a physical urge.
It is because university is what I want beyond the tiredness, the money, the simplicity of existence. It's what I want beyond the immediacy of these minor problems around me. It's what I want to make me who I am. And it's what I want to be a part of for another year.
So tired and defiant against the complaints of weariness I walked and caught the train home, annotating notes of writings aporia "the pathless path," and smiled.
Well that's my attempted flourish for tonight, based on what has been one of my most demoralizing days. Not because of incompetence (well perhaps) or bullying, but due to the fact that I am simply tired and stretched. I can only hope that I am not stretched too far by these self appointed commitments, as to destroy oneself is a horrible, yet just, fate indeed.
Anyways, I'll leave you with that to not give up when weary and nor either drive yourself to destruction.
More to come,
Dan
P.S In case you wanted something more concrete I made a fool of myself in Philosophy (easy to do) and wrote what is possibly the worst half hour of writing I have ever done in Creative Writing.
My belly feels bloated, and my brain too. But not the crammed-with-interesting-thoughts sort but the blubby-useless-for-anything sort. It's so bloated that I can't even work out why I'm feeling like I'm slowly sinking in a world where other people have noble and passionate goals and I'm just drifting through.
It's Monday. And I'm staring at the sheet of paper before me.
Exercise 1
a) simplify abs( (π+i)^100 / (π-i)^100 )
My first practical class for mathematics, and I'm struggling with the first question. Three months of not doing any maths: I feel like I've been knocked back to square one. I look around, everyone else seems to have caught on to the knack of it and are proceeding to the second question. I stare at the page: something I could have easily done in high school. And, I vaguely recollect, I would have actually enjoyed working on such a problem. But right now, I stare at the paper, and the little maths symbols flounce around my head like flippant butterflies that refuse to land. What was wrong with me? Why is this such a struggle?
"How was your day? What are you up to?" I text to my boyfriend studying med in Adelaide. Maybe he will reply with something nice and make everything seem better.
"It was okay. Doing tutorial prep. What about you?"
It's what he's been doing every day of last week and this. I stare at his questions. What was I up to? To be honest, I was thinking about how what he's studying seems so noble, hardworking and with such a certain path to walk. Me? I want to teach secondary maths, a thin line on the ground that I'm chasing hoping I'll find a pot of gold before I lose interest and fall off the trail. I was so sure and passionate about this just last semester, but right now I'm not feeling it. Do I have what it takes? Is this where my heart wants to go in life?
I wafting from class to class wondering why I was studying what I'm studying. The people in my class talk about interesting theorems they have heard about and want to studying in the future, while I'm desperately scrabbling my brain trying to remember everything that I learnt in high school. I recall that at one point I was that enthusiastic about new and outrageously ambitious maths, bouncing on my toes to be learning things, but right now I just want something comfortable and familiar to cling on to.
My brain feels bloated. And my belly too. Perhaps its because of being sick and being stagnant at home for so long. Maybe I need to get out, clear my head and then slowly step through all the things I've learnt so far. I need to walk this bloated feeling off.
I plug my ears with the ipod to drown out my increasingly pessimistic thoughts with calming abstract music. I've never done this at this time before, but I don't look back as I head out for a walk in the warm night air.
My head is filled with drowsy mystical music. Pools of light collect under the street lamps. And it surprises me how beautiful the park looks like at night. I have the whole park to myself and there's a sort of peace, room to think, away from everyone else's ambitions and goals.
I sit on the swing and surge forward in the grey night. Above me the dark shapes of bats are drifting, almost aimlessly, across the dusk sky, some looming large and close to the earth, and some but a fleck high in the sky. The bats make the sky look as if it's a dark pool of water pulling forward and forcing everything into the same aimless drifting. I close my eyes. As I swing forward and the air rushes past me; for the first time in the week I feel a sense of power and that familiar thrill that makes you want to do things with your life. It's comforting to know that the feeling is still there, that I'm still who I am, and I'm not going to throw away my dreams just because my brain has grown bloated over the holidays. I fly away on the swing and leave all the drifting bats behind me.
Tomorrow would be just another day to drift through at uni. But I think I'll make it a day where I put determination on my face and concentrate on working at my subjects... until that feeling of enthusiasm and competence comes back to me. (And then I'll wing it from there.)
Lol jokes we'll have none of that soppy stuff - robboblog 2011 is all Man. And it is indeed reasonable to ask how a blog that has already used 'lol' and 'love' could be so manly, to which I say that I am so comfortable with this blog that nothing could make me uneasy. Poetry. Drinking Straws. Baroque music. Pink polo shirts. Bring it on.
As a French major, a lesser man would have chosen to study literature, cinema or history. However this semester I find myself appreciating the nuances of French cuisine in the form of lectures and tutorials. The relationship between French wine and their cuisine is the first essay subject I have ever been excited to begin writing. My inspiration for this area of study has been drawn from the summer I spent overseas, in a charming French village called Narbonne. Whilst Paris, like any major city in the world, has adopted a rigorous city-culture, Narbonne manages to stick to its French roots. Any community that takes two hours off work everyday to return home, eat a two-course meal complete with cheese and wine (only local wine - foreign wine is considered piss) and then return to work for the afternoon slightly inebriated, is a community with which I can whole-heartedly relate. The daily habits that most westernised countries ignore - eating, drinking, social interaction - receive much greater emphasis. Work and school are structured around those habits, not the other way around. Similarly in Barcelona, just on the other side of the Spanish border, is the afternoon siesta an integral part of day-to-day living. Shops shut, work stops, streets grow eerie, as an entire city succumb to the fatigue of clubbing until six in the morning.
In short, the midday cheese and wine and the afternoon siesta are both great traditions that I have begun to adopt, and only time can tell if they will catch on.
Quote of the week (translated loosely from French): "God punishes us with appetite, and rewards us with pleasure".
It didn't occur to me until it actually happened that my first week of uni finished on Wednesday. That's right. My childhood dream of three days school, four days weekend has finally and amazingly come to fruition! Of course, I'm sure I'm supposed to spend all this free time studying and the like, but...well, I guess I don't really have any excuses. I LIKE SLEEP.
I'm pretty happy with all my subjects, though, which is refreshing. My core subject, Net Communications, sounds like it was tailor-made for my interests, as do Cybersociety and Screen and Media Histories, all three of which overlap content-wise in some form, which is good, I think. For the first time in ages I'm actually learning about stuff I'm genuinely interested in and am good at, so I hope that I'll do well in these subjects! I'm also taking Creative Non-Fiction, which I hope will enhance my writing skills. I still don't want to be a journalist, though. :P
I'm also pretty happy that in all my classes sans a tute, I have friends with me. I've made so many great friends over the past year and I'm really happy to be able to spend more time with them this year. It's also great finally having my boyfriend with me at uni, even if he is doing Commerce. (We were first in line for free Grill'd on Tuesday, hell yeah! We are an unstoppable force)
In the coming weeks hopefully I'll get back into the swing of studying (lol), and I'll be headed off to FOUL camp for a few days too! So far this semester is shaping up to be a pretty good one. :)
Cristina.
P.S. Obligatory funny picture (will only be understood by fellow Tumblrers):
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