Write the night away, and dream the day away…

It’s that time of year again. When the days are getting longer, sunnier, and warmer, and all I want to do is roam, free as a bird, and take in the atmosphere of an approaching summer.

Then there are the exams. And essays. Those big bullies. They force me to remain inside, locked up in my room, or behind big glass windows in the library, laughing at me as I longingly look out on the sun-bathed city and harbour.

This year, another bully has joined the others. A bigger and badder bully than the rest. His name is Rugby World Cup. And he teases me with the prospect of drinking and partying all night long, and having a lazy as day the next day.

But my brain, bullied and beaten, recoils from its dark corner, and tells me that no matter how tempting it is to give in to the bullies’ taunts and bad influence, I must focus on my assignments first and foremost. And so I try to do that.

On the first day I wrote 1,100 words on a 2,500-2,800 word film essay. On the second day I added another 1,000 words. On the third day I decided to try a different approach and started all over again; 660 words on the third day. On the fourth day the New Zealand national rugby team, the All Blacks, were playing Australia in the world cup semi-final. Words written: 0. Beers consumed: roughly 7.

I can’t know the meaning of self-discipline unless I cave in once or twice, right?

On the fifth day, I woke up at 11am and then spent almost 4 hours reading Harry Potter. Word count so far: 281. On assignment: Zero.

Time to turn the day upside down and live out my fantasies while I’m awake and spend the dark hours writing without interruption…

1/3 down

I have officially (and hopefully successfully/satisfactorily) completed my first year at university.

I spent nearly 6 hours on campus today. I sincerely hope that that’s not going to happen again fot at least another 3 months or so. I went to the library at noon to do some last-minute cramming with some friends, and we spent the next couple of hours having an awful good time, considering we were about to sit an exam. Which I reckon was the best preparation anyone could’ve asked for. It was also quite entertaining to watch as we one by one (myself included) took turns studying our notes for a few minutes before throwing our arms up into the air and declaring to the library at large that it was hopeless and that we would just have to make it up as we went along.

At 2.30pm the exam began. At 4pm, halfway through, two of my friends were done, and left. Half an hour later another one left, and I was the only one still sitting there out of our wee study group. I finally finished about 10 minutes before the time was up, and when it’s 15 minutes to go no one is allowed to leave, so I was forced to stay for an extra 10 minutes and had a quick second glance at what I’d written. Which, in hindsight, I suppose might have been a good thing.

When I was allowed to leave though, at 5.30pm, I was so happy I could have kissed everyone in my path (of course, I didn’t). Once outside, I sat straight down and felt the warm sun on my face and the wind in my hair, and I just couldn’t stop smiling. Free at last.

So I went home, got changed and went to the liquor store. Obviously. On my wee shopping list I had written ‘gin, lemons, and lemonade’. You smiling now? I know I am.

On my way back from the supermarket in town I stopped at a red light. (Everyone knows I’m a sworn pedestrian right? Good.) While I was standing there the cars coming from my right were turning into the road on my left-hand side, and when the second car was going slowly past, I accidentally caught the driver’s eye, and he stared at me, transfixed, and I stared back, and I saw him, quite clearly, utter the words ‘Fuck me’. Now how is one actually supposed to react to that?

If this was any other day, I would have been furious at being objectified like that, and probably felt compelled to give him the finger, but instead I just tilted my head a little and smiled resignedly at him while barely shaking my head. I saw him repeat the words, never breaking eye contact with me, and that, I must say, made me feel a little angry afterwards. Does it mean that he has absolutely no respect for women? This is where I’d like some opinions, please. Is it appropriate to feel flattered? Upset? Compelled to chase after the car, tear open his door and threaten to send your (imagined) boyfriend after him? Like I said: If this had happened on pretty much any other day, I would have hated it.

But at the time I’d just come out of a 3 hour long exam, my last one this year; I was carrying a newly purchased bottle of gin in my bag and the sun was shining. Let’s face it; I was happy to the point where I could have been walking through a blizzard and a wee sun still would have been shining above my head. Living in perfect bliss.

But yeah, curious though. How normal is it for a guy to be that “rude” to someone they see? And how should I feel about it?

 

And tonight? I’m going out to celebrate with friends, of course. It’s not every day you finish your first year at university.

Know your onion!

And God said: ‘Let there be madness.’ And there was exams.

Oh, sorry, did I get that wrong? From my point of view: No.

Fortunately, I’m not terribly affected by the pre-exam stress. Unless you count insomnia and fasting as symptoms, I’m doing pretty well.

I had my first study “group” today. Three of us girls got together in the library to study for the exam. So, naturally, we spent half an hour discussing the exam and four hours talking about boys. An afternoon well spent.

Spaghetti bolognese and a glass of wine goes a long way after a long day of – uh – gossiping. It’s such hard work.

Add music according to taste. Mix in someone to chat with on any kind of social media, and the night is almost complete. Casually round it all off with a couple of hours of studying, and you’ll avoid the madness.

(And if you happen to react to cutting onions like I do, pour a bucket of water over your face before you attempt to get any reading and/or note taking done.)

Carlson, Brady, Lessing, Stalnaker, Armstrong, Mill, Feinberg, Montague, Neill, Carroll, Hume…

In case Mill didn’t give it away; these are some of the philosophers whose ramblings I’m reading at the moment.

You might detect a slight resentment in that sentence. Allow me to say that you are correct if you think you do.

I wonder how I’m going to feel when I wake up tomorrow morning. Considering I only read one philosophical essay yesterday (John Stuart Mill’s “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion”), I was surprised to discover this morning the instant I tried to sit up in bed that I felt like I’d been poisoned or exposed to some other evil; the world was spinning faster than it has ever done while I’ve been under the influence of alcohol, and when I finally managed to stand up I crashed into every bit of furniture in my room in my attempt to get to the bathroom. (And of course I will attribute this weird physical state to having read philosophy.) As I stumblingly found my way back to bed, I was determined not to let the swaying sensation keep me from studying harder than ever before for my philosophy exam (which is next Wednesday), so I fell back into bed, pulled the covers up to my chin, picked up the course reader and continued reading (Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “A Propaganda Model” this time – it’s not even a proper philosophical essay, just a bunch of numbers). My attempt was stymied, however, by a sudden attack of drowsiness – so I dozed off for a couple of hours, and when I finally woke with a jolt it was past midday. Sigh.

Anyway, the instant I awoke I continued my perusal, and I just kept reading and reading and reading throughout the day. I didn’t even stop for the customary meal breaks, meaning I read all day without a single bite of food – unless you count three cups of coffee with a ton of sugar as a nutritional substitute. I didn’t take a break until 7.30pm, when I went to the local fish ‘n chips shop and bought a hot-dog and some chips to take home. (Unfortunately it takes just long enough for the food to be prepared for me to walk down the road to the liquor store and buy a bottle of wine and walk back up to the fish ‘n chips shop in time to pick up the yumminess.) So I got home, and read another essay on freedom of speech and the free press. Damnit, I actually decided today (I swear it was peer pressure – those bloody philosophers) that I’m going to spend a couple of years as a journalist. I suppose that’s what I’ll do to pay back my student loan once I’m back in Norway after I’ve been deported…

Guess what, I’ve decided to join Victoria’s student magazine, Salient. It totally kicks ass, and I feel way more confident writing in English for a larger audience now (I mean, I got an A+ on an English essay this year – not to sing my own praises or anything) than I did at the start of the year. That’s going to help me get a job at a newspaper or magazine at some later point in life, I suppose. Plus, I love to write, so why not?

But I digress. Back to philosophy readings. My brain has turned to custard. Information overload. On several occasions today I found myself laughing at something the philosopher wrote (Feinberg is exceptionally funny), and now I’m worried about my sanity. Is the philosopher actually funny, or am I completely missing the point? Also, what I fear now is how I’m going to feel tomorrow morning, considering the amount of philosophical texts I’ve read over the past two days increased by 400% in a single day. If reading one essay makes me feel like I’ve been on a sea voyage for the last four months and only reached land yesterday, I’m scared to think what effect reading so many more essays today will have on me tomorrow…

But even all this mad studying has its silver linings. It allows me to crawl into my own world of solitude without feeling asocial. Yesterday I did what I said I’d do a couple of days ago; I packed up my philosophy course book and my notes, and went to the Wellington Botanic Gardens, where I have found ‘my’ spot, which is rarely disturbed by other people, plus it’s relatively sheltered from the wind but gets all-day sun. So I went there and lay in the sun for a couple of hours while going over my notes. Sa-weet as. Turns out tanning and studying aren’t as mutually exclusive as previously thought.

All the thinking has also stirred my brain from its slumber, and last night, while I was trying to go to sleep, I had the most important epiphany of my life. I suddenly had a pre-conceived idea for a short film in my head, and I knew straight away that that’s going to be my debut. It just clicked instantly – it is my film, my idea, which no one else has come up with, and which no one else is likely to copy, in fact. I’m so looking forward to the time after my exam next week, when I can finally sit down and write it out, and even create a storyboard; I know exactly how it’s going to look. What’s so brilliant about it is that it’s so simple; I can probably make it without any funding whatsoever, which means that it’s the best kind of short film to be making as my first. I’m so excited!

PS. Facebook, consider yourself no longer part of my life. This separation is good for us.

Studying = Student dying

Yesterday I overdosed on coffee. Before you say ‘wait, is that even possible?’ I will assure you that it is. There’s this cool website that tells you everything you need to know about caffeine. Within the space of 4 hours, on an empty stomach, I consumed 5 or 6 cups of (very strong) coffee, and for 4 hours afterwards it felt like my head was hovering somewhere around Jupiter and I felt confident my bodily fluids were at least 95% caffeine and I couldn’t control my hands. Not to mention I felt sick and dizzy, and basically stumbled around the flat every time I had to get out of bed (where I was studying). It was awful. But necessary. You see, I stayed up quite  late on Monday night to finish my essay (I didn’t have to pull an all-nighter though; I was in bed by 3am), and then I had to get up early because the essay was due in before 10am, and I had to go to the library to print it out first. After that was done, I spent the rest of the day studying for my Media Studies exam, which I sat this morning (another early start; 9.30am). I struggled to keep my eyes open while studying for it, and when you’re extremely tired, haven’t had anything to eat and really like coffee, it’s rather easy to overdo it.
In the end I think I got a good 14 hours of studying done, which really helped. But what I was most impressed with is that I managed to stay off the computer basically all day, only starting it up after 9pm to do some PDF readings, and not spending any time on Twitter. Amazing! It proves that it’s doable.
I didn’t have a very good sleep last night, what with all the media terms racing through my head as well as a million other things. This morning before I went to sit my exam I had one (double shot) cup of coffee and a can of V and now, a mere 4 hours later, I’m already experiencing withdrawal symptoms because my caffeine consumption today is nowhere near as high as it was yesterday. I might try to go outside to escape the lure of the espresso machine; besides, it’s sunny and warm in the capital today, and a smell of summer is in the air (I mean that quite literally; I think it smells like the South Island in summer). It’s tempting to pack my Philosophy coursebook and just head over to the Botanic Gardens for a good afternoon nap…