Fear Not

HOW ON EARTH will you get by now that The Student has finished the semester?

How will your idle hours of reading blogs at work to pass time be complete without a twice weekly Treading Water 101 fix? Where will you go when you simply absolutly possitivly have to read the ranting of the painfully self absorbed?

I have good news - or, indifferent news.

One of the things I have grown to enjoy most about the mid-year break is the fact that it brings the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) with it. And this year that means that I'm going uber minimalist and diarising my viewing and happenings at the festival.

Treading Water 101 will be quiet for a few weeks while uni is in recess, in the meantime, brace yourself for Treading Cinema!*

(* I'm reliably told the marketing term for this is a line extension.)

Delay

Anxiety.

Deterrent

As if you needed any clues after reading the post below, but I am officially battling the tendency to 'check out' of this semester. Studying is hard work because, well, I want to burn this first semester bridge and focus on the important things which I have tricked myself into believing I have been missing out on this semester, namely: sleep ins, not having to go to uni, freedom from homework.

The reality is that I have slept in most of the semester, rarely gone to uni, and haven't exactly stretched myself in the homework department.

So why is it that at the end of every semester of reckless laziness I breathe a sigh of relief and tell myself that finally I am able to relax and Take It Easy?*

University Life Glossary Term #9

Disconnection

The period of time between your second last exam and your last exam. During this time, a student will automatically disconnect from the task at hand, and descend into 'holiday mode'.

Desolation

We got 12.2 out of 20 for the assignment.

Fuck.

Clutter

How about a behind the scenes, blow by blow analysis of an all nighter? How about Treading Water 101 takes uni based blogging to new heights? How about I take procrastination to new lows by bloging about procrastination while procrastinating?

To study for this Marketing Communications exam, there are 12 sections of between 8 and 10 pages each, which I need to read in order to have any idea in the exam - which is at 9am Monday morning.

Sunday Nite:

9.00pm: TV is turned off, and a sugar free V is consumed (The Student likes to watch his weight while staying up all night reading about sales promotion) there by signalling the begining of study.

9.38pm: Part one finished.

10.00pm: Realise: 'Hey maybe i'm not so fucked afterall!"

10.17pm: Second V is consumed.

10.30pm: Receive comment from usch (hi usch!)

10.33pm: Part two finished.

10.42pm: Scrap doing certain section in favour of less bullshit one.

10.50pm: IN TER STI TIALS

10.51pm: Part three finished.

10.52pm: Repeatedly say 'hi' to snobby fucker on msn who won't say 'hi' back.

10.53pm: Change msn username to 'It's Snobby Fucker Night'

10.54pm: Contemplate the wisdom of being on msn while trying to study.

11.24pm Download Cruise Control by the Headless Chickens after reading this post about the dolphin duo.

11.28pm: Part four finished.

11.30pm: Switches on TV to watch Roos V. Freo replay.

11.39pm: Wonder what 'THOMOOO is doing right now?'

11.45pm Start slacking off after having realised I'm going to have all the reading done by 2am at this rate.

11.46pm Realise what a fucked logic it is to stay up all night, when I only have to stay up half of it.

11.51pm Continue slacking off.

12.36am Part five finished.

1.27am Listen to Breakdown by Seven Mary Three after talking to Erica.

1.47am Part six finished.

2.26am Part seven finished.

2.30am Wrote this post.

2.45am Consume third V (According to the can, I have now officially exceeded the MAX DAILY INTAKE)

2.50am Consult with Ruth about how I'm HYSTERICALLY funny tonite.

2.57am Download Tiny Dancer by Elton John.

3.11am Delirium kicks in.

3.22am My knees start to hurt.

3.16am Part eight finished.

3.28am Part nine finished.

3.29am Part ten is skipped as it sounds like total shite.

3.40am CRAVATS!

4.00am Switched on US Open Golf, in the hope I'll see some nameless Australian win.

4.03am Part eleven finished.

5.23am Part twelve is finished.

5.25am Still delirius.

5.30am Contemplate doing part ten, decide not to after once again confirming that it's arse.

5.40am Ate a breakfast of porridge and skim milk.

5.45am Watched more golf, trying to fight off the need to sleep.

6.45am Fell asleep.

7.30am Woke up.

7.45am Left for Uni.

8.45am Arrived at Uni.

9.00am Exam begins, with my wrists stinging and my head jammed in neutral.

Test it!

Three tips I recall a politics teacher, and former VCE exam marker telling me on the eve of final high school exams, these go slightly beyond 'dont use shit handwriting'.

1. Use black pen. Upwards of 80% of students write their exam in blue pen, which after reading several hundred exams, is hard to read on a white page. Black is easier to read and will make a happier marker.

2. Write on every second line. This leaves more room for alterations, is easier to read, and looks less cumbersome to your overworked (and reportedly underpaid) exam marker.

3. Know when and how to use ' : ' and ' ; ' - and when not to use ' , '. These three babies can make or break a well thought out and constructed set of ideas and points relating to a short or long answer essay.

Of course, if you're a business student, you should focus on exhibiting the following key attributes:

Boring, Dull, and, Lifeless.

Prayers

Just pass. Just pass. Just pass. Just pass.

FINISH HIM!

The Group Assignment has now become the Never Ending Assignment - as it still hasn't been submitted.

In the end, Swaziland became the provider of more than hugs, and chipped in with the extra work needed to ensure less work for me. 4th however became a silent partner, apparently, as it turns out, too STRICKEN with a SUDDEN BOUT of EXTRA STRICKENING Glandular FEVER - SO STRICKENING, that he can't pick up a phone or reach a keyboard, for fear he will be STRICKEN MORE SO THAN HE IS CURRENTLY STRICKEN.

This protracted cold war style festival of distant tardiness started the day the assignment was initially due, with a scratchy phone call in which he told me that the work he was meant to have done wasn't done, and that late the night before, or early that morning, his 'friend' has FALLEN ON HER NECK while DRUNK - and she was at the ACUTE WARD.

ACUTE WARD! OMG! WTF! BBQ!

When you're presented with what appears to be quite a serious scenario, imploring that they give you their share of the assignment is kind of arse, I mean, she could be a quadriplegic right? She could be seriously injured? She could be...in a coma? What does a pissy assignment count when a girl is suffering from a serious neck injury right? This guy is MID-BEDSIDE-VIGIL right?

No, she 'sprained her neck' but in the meantime, over a week passes before 4th manages to email any of us to say where he is. Luckily we had secured a Swaziland related extension, that became a 'we don't know where the fuck 4th is' extension.

From the outset, I've suspected that 4th simply hadn't done any work. The tell tale signs were there, the emails asking to see our sections before he did his, not showing up to meetings - right from the passing of the deadline till now, I've been certain he hadn't actually done anything, with a litany of bullshit excuses in it's place.

Bullshit excuses are my major. Don't bullshit fellow students, we know bullshit excuses, infact, odds are your bullshit excuse is one we've used before; and if it isn't, we're likely to steal it and use it ourselves.

Early last week, 4th reappears with the news that he has had a GLANDULAR RELAPSE - and the more stunning news that he has completed the work, and has emailed his sections to the tutor... but not to us, because, ya know, we only have an incomplete 24 page assignment sitting here waiting for his sections - and his three sections are basically worthless unless they are handed in WITH THE REST OF THE ASSIGNMENT.

(My ability to articulate my frustrations via the use of upper case text KNOWS NO BOUNDS!)

After two emails asking him to send me the assignment, he sent it to me with the instructions that I didn't really need the sections from him - as he had sent them straight to the tutor... fucksnap.

Yesterday he sent me the sections, and today (after considerable editing and cussing) I finished the assignment - tomorrow I hand it in.

Group work sucks.

Acceptance

In the past, when I had exam study to do, I would make offerings to the gods of uni in the form of denying myself social outings and the like. If there were a party to go to, or a football match, or a night out being planned by my friends, I'd say no, then stay home and not study anyway. It's taken a few years to learn that even if I do stay home, I'm not going to do any study, under any circumstances.

With an exam tomorrow, and this being a long weekend, Sunday was spent in the front row at the footy, with cold beer and a winning team, and let's not forget...



...THOMOOOOOOOOOO!

Procrastination

I'm avoiding study.

Meantime, ABC 774's decision to update it's folio of promotional shots is doing NOTHING to quell my crush on a certain talkback radio presenter.



*swoons*

I am doing too much nothing with too little time.

Final Boss

13 weeks of intermittent study, blery eyed trips down the Eastern Freeway, reasonably mild weather (yeah I mention the weather a bit, but at my uni the weather counts), missed tutes, unopened text books, and one blog are over.

Showing up late in the semester means two things, i) no trouble parking, and ii) the sense of community you feel in witnessing the same look of faint relief in the faces of everyone else who has just been to their last tute for a subject, the last lecture, handed in the last assignment.

By this stage, the same teensters who showed up first week in their hipsters, are now cold and fluey looking, replete in bad hair and last years trackpants. Nothing says 'Uni has broken me' quite like getting around looking like you have just returned from a camping trip.

The same mid-March sun that warmed them and assured them their year twelve of drinking and a mid 60's final score was going to work out alright has turned into an early-June sting of 1,500 30% assignments and mindless cramming ahead of the upcoming exam period.

I have three exams over the coming month, all well spaced, allowing me maximum panic time before each.

Tortoise

I have issues with handing in assignments. It'd be fair to say I'm lazy. But, much the same as the last few semesters, everything has come together at the last minute. It's this constant, ongoing, never relenting 'uni work requirements cloud' I live under for 12 weeks - which leads to the best feeling of the semester, the one where I have no more assignments to hand in.

Multiple assignments suddenly get done in a mad flurry during the last week of the semester. For a long time this has stressed me out, but now I've learnt to accept that coming through at the last minute is my specialty, it's when I shine.



My Hero.

Gary Status: Very Single

(The Gary Saga: 1 - 2 - 3)

After a reasonably wtf? group meeting, I snuck a copy of the age out of the SRC offices and sat down to eat some nori rolls, sold to me by a cold asian girl, and read about the federal government's latest plan to screw workers. Hand extended, Gary appears with a friend of his I was later to discover was Mauritian.

For the next ten minutes, Gary, his mate, and myself shot the breeze about how mindlessly impossible the assignment we were all working on (in our own groups) was. Gary also gave me the unabridged, directors cut of the Taiwan debacle, including the awkward phrase, 'Every time we were out in public and held hands, her dad would come and stand between us.'

Matt appeared, just as Gary spotted a girl clearing up some cafe tables about twenty meters from us, the same cold asian girl who served me nori rolls a half hour before.

(it's important you remember Gary has an rhythmic Indian accent)

Gary: 'See that bitch?' *points at the cold asian girl* 'She is in on of my classes.'

Us: 'Yeah.'

Gary: 'And one day I say to her, 'How about we go and get a coffee sometime?' and she is fine with it, I ask for her number or email. She gives me the email, and it's fucking wrong man, it's fucking wrong.'

Us: *laughter, sly looks of assessment towards the girl, who is by this stage almost done wiping down a coffee smudged table*

Gary: 'I mean. If you aren't interested, just say so, just say no, but don't give me a fucking fake email address. What a bitch man.'