First Impressions of Semester Two

Now that it's the holidays, we all have the choice to not bother to do anything at all, and instead sit back in our loungers and ponder just how great -- or ungreat -- Semester Two has been so far. We can procrastinate from eating breakfast in order to write up a blog entry, because there's no set time by which we actually have to have breakfast. The whole daily routine of our lives has been yanked out from under us, except for those of us who are whittling away their holidays by working full-time. Those people, I do pity.

I certainly don't miss the daily routine. That's been my main gripe with university so far this semester. I went into Semester One with the overriding feeling that something really magical was happening; that I was about to set out on this huge adventure into the unknown, and it wasn't going to be like school at all, because I'm supposedly absolutely interested in all of the subjects that I take. At first the relative flexibility that university allowed you to exercise in your life was wonderful. But now that Semester Two is upon us... Well, I don't know about you, but I get the distinct feeling that everything's settled back into the old mundane rat-race, for lack of a better term, that was high school.

In Semester One, I really looked forward to my Sociology and Politics classes. Media Studies was awesome as well. Even though the papers were quite broad and general, I think I may have liked that. True, it did all feel slightly rushed, but it also provided this feeling that a lot was being encompassed in the teaching and you were really broadening your horizons of understanding. Everything was just so bright and colourful and you were discovering all these new fascinating things. There were those little bits of trivia that I could go home and tell my parents.

But now, it pretty much goes without saying, the papers which many of us share are, quite simply, the sleepmeisters. Honourable mention goes to Jeff K in Politics, the worst lecturer ever. Full stop (notice I didn't say period, because that's just wrong). He may sound like Ringo Starr when he narrates Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends, as Hannah so entertaingly pointed out, but the fact remains that Jeff K cannot assemble sentences in the verbal plane. Yes, Ringo did have a script to read from so it was a bit easier for him -- but Jeff K is a super-mega intellectual and shouldn't have to stop and think after every two words. He really shouldn't. The final stake in the heart of the Beatle is that Jeff K has killed what had the potential to be the best paper ever. Also, while we're on the subject of the subject of Politics, my tutor is Tan, with whom I am absolutely besotted and I just want to give him hugs and start up a Dandy Warhols cover band... and, and we can do vocal duets! That would be awesome.

Film and Anthropology were both enthralling at the outset, but -- not meaning to focus on the negativity -- my interest soon waned and their respective lectures have ended up being endurance challenges (moreso the Film one though). Thank goodness for that necessary Satanic evil, the mobile phone, when you're trapped in a horrible, physically draining class. The Anthropology convenor has consistently delivered energetic and entertaining lectures that draw on heaps of case studies, many of which were conducted by herself. It keeps your attention at least. But like other lectures it has really just degenerated into the frantic taking of notes from the slideshow, which we get on Cecil anyway. It makes me feel like I'm learning something when I actually write it though (I truely do hope I am), and possibly saves trees that would otherwise be killed by my printing all the material from the computer.

Not helping my increasing disillusion with university is the fact that I really don't see myself going anywhere in life. In fact, I don't want to go anywhere, if going somewhere means what I think it does -- that is, earning money. A few years ago my parents told me that when I am rich, they want expensive cars. They were serious. Good ol' parents, raising their children for the primary reason of supporting them in their retirement. I digress. The fact is, I'm worn down by the idea that I haven't actually really progressed any further towards my life goal -- that is, to find myself, yes I know it's an abstract concept, but I know what I want -- since I started university. I seriously doubt that writing really linear notes regarding the definition of "rights" in the context of social policy is going to help me achieve what I want. Basically my mind is always outside of class. University is social now. Academia is filler. That's it put in simplistic terms, but I find the idea a little difficult to put across because it gets real micro and insanely complicated. You get the jist though. Discuss?