what?

I'm pretty tired.

My co-blogger-darer stated that this is the natural state of the university student. She should know right? I mean, she knows three of them. That counts. :P The person in question should hurry up and write her blog post, or else. Every time I open her blog I am confronted by baby elephants, eukeleles and lasagne. Unusual thought the combination may be, it does get tiresome.

I should actually be typing away furiously at an academic language assignment that's due in three and a half days. But I'm not. Want to make an attempt at surmising as to the reasons for this? i.e. Wanna guess why?

I'm tired. My eyes bore holes in's the screen, (more likely it's vica versa) and my fingers lie limply and uninspired by the keyboard.

Don't worry folks, that was a gross exaggeration. I did manage to cover two-thirds of the topic in half the minimum amount of words required. WHich will not do but oh well.

Shabbat has come timeously.

Tonight I am obliged to join the res in what they call a ladies' night a.k.a. 'pub crawl'and jive (jive being a verb). Ho ho what fun. We're going
 to tour the towns selection of pubs and bars, and hopefully not clubs (I have bad connotations to those, in my mind). I am not looking forward to the excursion. Not just because I'm tired already. Because it's not my scene, okay?

But here goes...

obligations and what-not

Righty-ho everyone.

I'm back! As you can see from the title, I am fulfilling an obligation. I am, infact, behind schedule, if time has ticked at all since a certain oral contract which you may or may not have read about recently. Or not that recently.

I am grateful to the previous post, as it gives me a point to start at.

Chinese classes. Favorite subject, naturally. I don't think I would have chosen that particular strategy for teaching and learning languages. It focuses more on learning phrases than words by themselves. But I am no expert on chinese. yet. ;) I do appreciate the large amount of practise we get. That is a bonus.

Making friends. Had a novel experience a week or two ago. We were at a Praise and Worship gathering of a few residences, and a girl randomly turned to me and said that she feels she should tell me that I will make friends this year. That had been on my mind for a while, actually. I mean, it's one thing to meet people. It's quite another to meet the kind of people you can be lifelong friends with. I was really pleased that Elohim would use someone to speak to me.

Getting my degree. So far so good. :)

Soo... mission accomplished, blog post wriiten.

Today I became excited about teaching. I imagined what I could accomplish by really making an effort and looking further ahead. Seeing my pupils as people who are going somewhere, and seeing my role in getting them there. It's cool. Now, I don't see myself as a revolutionary teacher or whatever, but I saw that this can be a really cool profession.

I have heard from several sources that the beginning of first year is tough, and also that being a student is the best part of your life. So far I haven't really experieced the former. Only during Mad2, and that's because of sleep deprivation and overcrowding and overbusiness. It doesn't count. But otherwise I'm a very happy first year. Hmm, i wonder who to ascribe that to? i hope you can guess.

semi finals en grande

Learn Chinese. Why would I want to do that? I don't like China. I don't like Atheism or Buddhism. I don't like over-crowded cities. I don't like Communism. I don't even like Chinese. (No, actually I do like Chinese, just not its comparative difficulty. Or then again maybe I do like the idea of learning something difficult).

Find a church. I am not a regular church goer. I find listening to sermons boring and, unless they are scholarly and make fresh, valid points, a bit pointless. But I want to make Christian friends and find a bit of Christian 'community'. Also, I think student churches will be a bit different from those I've known so far. Will probably be more like youth. :)

Get a quarter of a degree.

Make friends. The chances of me meeting no-one at university are so small I'm not even going to consider it.

These are my goals. Year one.

Semi-finals

My time at home is running out.

It seems to me that I am leaving home at exactly the right time. I can stay at home for another couple of days, but that's it.  It seems to me that My Life at Home has in fact not been interrupted, but is coming to its timely end. And that's good. A while back I was feeling worried and apprehensive about the whole pending aloneness issue, but at the same time I knew I'd rather go than stay. I just can't bear staying home another year. I have to, I want to, get out. It's time for a change.

I'm not running away from anything, though I am happy to get away from some things.

Friends who say they like you so much and yet practically ignore you when their special friend is around. Friends who make it hard for you to believe what they say, but you have yet to prove they're lying.
Family issues, arguments that come around again and again. Trying to get involved, to help sort it out, is so greatly discouraged its not even worth it. The argument just turns on you.

I don't imagine things will be better at University. I know it won't.
I know it will be hard.

I hope it will be fun.

And I'm looking forward to it.

Thank Elohim.

one of the last

Ah, so I thought it pleasing to inscribe another of these ill-written testimonies to life before I am released.

Soonish, My Life At Home will be interrupted for the next episode: My Life At University.

I have mixed feelings about this. Naturally, the current episode must draw to a close sometime, as eighteen years is a fair length of time to play a daily show, daily. I am not at all sorry to call it a day and move on. The alarming prospect of spending one more year in my current fashion would induce a shallow state of depression, which is only being held at bay by the thought that I will not.

I want adventure. University is not the adventure I was looking for. Staying at home being the alternative however, I gladly take the plunge.

There are many unforeseen advantages to heading out to campus, as opposed, say, to China. For one, my granny is overjoyed. Important to keep your friends and relations at ease, I'd say. Naturally it would be more fun and make for more interesting conversation if I had gone to the East. Would have ruffled many feathers. I wouldn't have needed to say "Thank you, I also hope I have a splendid time." It appears I am obliged, by now, to enjoy myself as a student and all that.

Yes yes, I don't sound grateful. I am grateful. Not many people have the opportunity...etc. It's one of the best universities in the...etc.You think I do not know that? I do. I worried about it, but now I am over the fact that children are going hungry while I, the rich brat am going off to enjoy myself and get an education. I am very sorry that there are hungry children but my giving up university is not going to feed them. If it did I would feel... way more guilty. So lay off, I am grateful.

Another advantage to going to university, particularly the one I am going to, is that I know a lot of people there. This is not the case with China. That's probably why people go to the East to find themselves. If they went to a nearby town someone else would. Find them, that is.

At present I know where I am, and if not I'd rather be found before I go off to the land of the Squints. Wouldn't be of much use if I went there lost.

I try not to imagine what being there will be like. This way I can't be very surprised or disillusioned. I imagine it will be rough on me, that way I won't be disappointed by it's non-smoothness. Also, I expect that many of my preconceptions and prejudices (that I do not know I have) will be brought to light and challenged. I hope the way I think will only change in a good way.

I hope this year will be enjoyable.

I'll have to do something about me, in that case.

University

It's a privilege to be able to study, to get a degree and an education.

I'm afraid I'm not very excited about it. I like studying. No, make that I like learning things for the first time. I just have this unhappy feeling about going to university.

It's probably stupid.

There are several reasons for it, I guess.

1) I'm not sure that I'm going to enjoy the program I applied for. I think its the- no a -right thing to do. BEd will enable me to make an impact. Teaching is a people-related vocation. It will get me places, because many countries need teachers. Apparently the Primary Education Degree course is not challenging and may even be boring.

The subject I like the most (at school) is Biology. I don't want to do a BSc however, because I don't want to become a research scientist (and work with test tubes) or a High School teacher (and work with rebellious teenagers).

2) I was intending to do something exciting in my (now non-existent) gap-year. I wanted to go volunteer overseas, or even in this country, where there was need. Nothing exciting worked out (not even anything unexciting worked, come to think of it), now I default to university. I hate to default. It seems such a compromising cop-out. Better than hanging around at home, I guess. That would be bad.

It feels like I have waited for God to show me what to do, he hasn't, now I do what everyone else does. It feels wrong. Thankfully I don't just go on my emotions. I don't know what to go on at all though, besides my parents' approval and encouragement.

3) I feel quite plain and unpopular. I feel that everyone around me will have nice hair and fashion sense, and no-one will know my name. I'll fade into the background like an appendix (no-one knows what it's purpose is).

I wonder what is the matter with me? Why can't I be all cheerful and positive about this?

Maybe I'm just tired.