Conclusion.

Which is always the introduction rewritten to save time and effort.

So, this has been a year of me blogging about my going to university. I'm pretty unimpressed with bits of it personally. I don't spend enough time in tutes or lectures to provide the reading public with enough cynical analysis of the people around me in class.

This has been a good opportunity to meet some people as well, having made a number of acquintances and the odd friend through the simple existance of this blog.

(I'm still rounding out my canvasing for my position as Melbourne's Most Eligable Blogger.)

Still, the poster post seemed to set a few people off, and was pretty good fun - an on the spot expose.

I have an exam in January, a throw back to an illness passed - there is likely to be some blogging surrounding that. But until then, I wouldnt expect to see much.

I will be at uni next year, and anticipate it being the last year.

Until then, thanks to everyone who has stopped by, and to everyone who has commented, also thanks to everyone who has linked to me.

See you all soon.

headLand

Has anyone else had the misfortune of sitting through more than ten minutes worth of this?

Apparently, this cross between E-Street and Ship to Shore features a university, and I only know this because of some of the choice lines that some of the ensemble cast of hip young leading Australian talent has dropped.

Lines such as:

'I'm training to be a professional sports scientist.'*

'I've missed two lectures this morning!'

and,

'I'll be late for class.'

Clearly the script advisor either studied too much, simply has no concept of what university life constitutes these days.

Further to this, the series was originally named 'Campus' - lame.

I'll keep you updated on when it's name changes to 'Cancelled'.

(* I've been notified of a complaint that perhaps I am not treating the many sports scientists out there with enough respect. From here on in I'd like to qualify the above remark with the following: you guys are nothing but p.e. teachers in white coats. That is all.)

War is Over, if you want it.

Yes please.

After what has been without doubt the most stressful and exam period ever, uni is finished for the year. What a frustrating year it has been. Plenty of new challenges and a new sense of direction, however still a great deal of work load and complication. However, I am leaving this year of study a more competant student than I left last years.

I drastically over estimated my ability to study politics again, the old 'good study' habits never really kicked in. Although, I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to study politics again; the, how shall we say... fickle, structure of essay marking showed how much I need to lift my game in the 'little things' catergory.

Not changing the exam venue at the last minute, and setting the venue as a tiny room ten minutes walk across the university might also help. I go to a big university, I walked over bridges. Bridges.

The exam period did finish with two of the better beers I have had lately with a fellow political theorist (of sorts).

This semester's exam period featured three exams, 8 days apart. Initially I was really happy with this. But, regardless of how much space there is, I am always going to spend no more than the last three days before the exam in this sort of format:

3 days to go: Meh.
2 days to go: Meh, I'd better check out that course guide.
1 day to go: Hardcore study.

The problem with this 8 day gap is the that days 8-4 before the exam are packed full of shit that I haven't done during those three days prior to the exam. I doubt I have communicated it properly in this forum, but I am not exactly short on shit to do. The 24 day length of the exam period wore out not just me, but work mates and friends also, as I grew increasingly irritable with the lack of time I had.

Now, my sleep patterns can return to normal, I can start looking 23 again, I can resume worrying about normal run of the mill stuff. Like sending fan mail to this girl:



This won't be the last post before I disappear till next year, but it's probably the second last. Maybe it's the last, I don't know. I need sleep.

References

I'd like to welcome the people who have arrived here over the past few days via the Google searches of:

'bullshit excuses'

and

'students group assignment i truly hated'

I trust you enjoyed your stay.

***STOP PRESS***

Add 'transperant female fashions' to that list.

Ding Ding!

For the first three months of my university life, I spent 3 hours a day on public transport.

Erica has summarised the sights, sounds and smells of public transport wonderfully with this post. She has also summarised her breasts.

I have nothing further to add.

Study Snapshot

The next step in assessing market segments is a company review of current and potential product offerings in terms of their suitability for the country market or segment.

Fuck off.

Nostalgia Burns

Meeting up with an old friend, a friend from the highschool before the highschool, generally brings forth a two hour conversation in which we assassinate the character of almost every person we used to circulate amongst at school, interspaced with a fair measure of self assessment.

This self assessment has been the same for both of us, every time we have spoken, for the last two years - we are bored. During this time I have left one relationship, left one job, started another; my life doesn't measure up to the same stable boyfriend and same job she has held for the past two years (and well before then) yet I'm as stale as she is.

While we talk, my mind flickers back through the potholes of my past, and most vividly, the sister she has, whom I loved like any boy would love the last hand that grabbed him before he tumbled into the abyss. I think of my friend as a 15 year old and myself as a 16 year old. I remember a smile, orange triangles, and a sunny August day in a fuelled country town.

I consider the way in which I viewed myself as a potential adult when I was in my teens, what I expected I would be doing, where I expected I would be. There were no plans then, nothing; I have no memory of what I thought I would be doing. There are no plans now. My life is now a 12 month deadline, beyond which I have no idea where I will be and what I will be doing. A deadline flavoured with the sinking feeling that I may still be at university in some capacity beyond the end of next year.

Where we talked two years ago almost exclusively about the characters of our past, and in some cases, her present - now we deal more often in taking stock of our lives now, and where we are going. My friends have travelled, some have moved out. I'm treading water in this set of middle grounds - I can travel, but I don't fancy paying for it. I can move out, but I don't like paying rent. I can leave university, but I don't want to work fulltime. I want a pile of debt, but can't have it while I don't work fulltime.

We collect our thoughts across a half hour of sighs and raised eyebrows about the self imposed inescapability of our situations. I realise that despite my protests, I'm addicted to being boring, and nothing will change. It is an addiction with the most boring of side effects.

Never really tied down, but never really free.

One Summer

It's tough studying, trying to motivate yourself to do something you truly loathe.

However it's even tougher when, as a hater of managment jargon such as 'value add', you come across a phrase like this in the preparation notes.

Techniques for Change Implementation
...
Create change teams.
Foster idea champions.

Hope and Validation are united again.

The essay is finished.

I now know more about the Howard Government's proposed industrial relations reforms than I care to share with you. There are few sweeter feelings you can have as a Uni student than the feeling of handing in an essay, after numerous days of computer based labour producing it. The arboury sound of the stapled paper assignment slipping into the oldschool wooden essaybox. The brief satisfied smile that greets my lips.

I want this on record because I have found over the many years here that this feeling is in fact one of the few fleeting 'joys' of uni life. The sheer underwhelmingness of this fact leads me to believe that maybe I am not getting everything out of university that I should.

We now enter the exam study zone, where the ingredients of the coming days are a stew of study, procrastination and fretting. Add in a pinch of calculating my mark in the subject so far, and you just about have my plans for the next few days leading up to Monday's exam.

This period of the year sees me become weary in appearance and mindset, prematurely aging my boyish good looks.

(I can nay uphold my spot as Melbourne's most eligable blogger if I look tired and disheartened.)

That's enough flirting with my readership for one day.

Public Folly

Gladly I'm not the only person suffering through a public holiday here at uni. Although, I have to say that the idea of coming here to spend your time on the main lawn sunbaking makes no sense to me. Don't people have homes? Backyards?

I guess sunbaking on the university lawn is an example of the sort of sacrifice that 'on-campus' students make. I'm sure their parents are glad their hard earned is spent on sun screen.

I digress. I'm here finishing the unfinishable essay - I'm also here in a cruel twist of fate (Nb: probably not the correct use of that particular phrase.)Ordinarily, the week of the Melbourne Cup is during the exam period, leaving me unable to attend for the duration of my adult life - except for that year I wasn't at uni, but I was probably too busy being poor then, I don't know, I forget.

This year I was considering going because it would leave me ample time to 'study' before exams. My motives for going are weak, I have no interest in horse racing, but during almost every exam period in the past, I have had an exam on either Cup Day, or Derby Day (the Thursday following). This has meant sitting through an exam that is attended by approximately two dozen girls in full evening attire, ready to hop a bus to Flemington.

This year, I would strike a blow against the evil god of university exams and go to the Cup, and still attend the exams...but it isn't to be, I'm here finishing the unfinishable essay.