A Cup of Summation with a Dash of Fortuity

Welp, my last exam is in… 44 minutes. Not looking forward to it. For various, emotional and psychological reasons, I have not been myself this semester. Keyword: Apathy. Subtext: Delusions of grandeur. Playing the DVD backwards: Unadulterated sadness.

But one half of me still managed to drag the grieving half through it. And dare I say it, forced her to have some fun* along the way.

I’ve gone through this semester with blinders on, forgotten my brain, and have almost lost the ability to speak with conviction. Case in point; this blog. Most of my posts have to take on a personal perspective because, quite frankly, I don’t trust my grasp on certain facts. If facts are given, they must be… factually perfect. Even now I go on about myself because I cannot think of anything else to say that will be useful for you. I can only hope that the ploofy feelings described will help you… I don’t know, think more about your own? Fear sucks. As does people telling you what you are and what you should be.

Have you ever just wanted everyone to BE QUIET?

So you can figure things out for yourself? I think there’s a reason why we all have different DNA; in order for thought processes to continually differentiate, until the human race becomes a collective of variant ideas and operative possibilities. Not to say all ideas are good; plenty use their brains to exact all kinds of hatred and atrocities. Removing those, we could have something really good going on, huh?

I’ve done a lot of thinking. A lot of thinking I don’t feel I need to elaborate on here. A lot of personal thinking. The way a student relates to their school life is often a reflection of their life as a whole. This is why low marks can lead to the furthest forms of self-hatred and inner contempt. This is why your choice in major/minor/specialist can make you feel like your whole life is a lie. It can easily be taken out of healthy perspective.

So. At the end of this semester, I better understand what I need to do to be… happy. Perhaps not happy. Maybe ‘content with myself’ is a better term. I don’t think, what with outside sources, unexpected events and unwanted interruptions, it is possible to be the conventional understanding of ‘happy’.

These are some things I have learned, or maybe things I need to be told, so I’d like to share them with any other students out there who are shy, angry, afraid, exasperated, and susceptible to soul-suckers, negative vibes, vampiric factions of society, self-hatred, demonic expectations, and general unhappiness.

  • Know your stuff. Perhaps more importantly, know that you know your stuff, so when the time comes to prove it, you don’t shut yourself up because you think you’re wrong.
  • Try to be honest and say what you feel. Lying about your feelings is draining. Saying nothing can be more draining, especially if you are prone to regret. Don’t be afraid to put someone off by telling the truth, because odds are they could care less about you when they talk, and may not even notice if they hurt you.
  • Don’t be afraid to try something new. I’m serious. I would not be writing this blog if I hadn’t decided at the last second to send my application in. Which, by the way, I had finished prior to the actual ‘last second’… If you don’t try, you’re actually wasting more time, or rather life, than if you do. Something is usually better than nothing, as nothing… is exactly that.
  • Don’t let negative influences sneak their way into your psyche. It’s difficult to extract them once they are deep enough. Even if it’s your parents, don’t let it get to you. Your parents, friends, boy/girlfriend, society, community, etc., cannot always love you unconditionally. So don’t rely on them. That, and you cannot love others as they need it if you cannot love yourself as you need it.
  • More on the negative influences in your psyche; don’t listen to them. Don’t focus on them. They will become you.
  • Do not let others make you feel ashamed of yourself, for any reason. Even if it’s a bad quality; if you can acknowledge it and work to change it, you don’t have to feel ashamed. Maybe that’s just the way you are. Unless, of course, you are an unabashed bigot or something. Then feel as ashamed as you want!**
  • Negative daydreaming is the devil. By this I mean, reoccurring visualizations of failure and the like. Your mind should be your first and foremost ally. Life is hard enough, and then your brain turns on you. Not good. Avoid.
  • Take books out from the library. For recreation. Chapters is for wusses.
  • Shopping will not make you feel better. Unless, you haven’t gone shopping in five years.
  • Pay attention to and learn everything. Newspapers, lists of ingredients, pamphlets, radio DJs, your textbooks, the news, intellectuals, annoying pundits, everything. Then, analyze it. Think about what you’ve just taken in, its perspective, what it’s trying to tell you, and what is really there. Always think. Cats meow, bees buzz, hippos do that flapping thing, humans think. If you take things at face value, you’re not thinking. Use caution only when analyzing people; you never really know someone (unless you ARE that someone).

And the final realization. I am on MSN with my cousin in Ottawa. When I sat down this afternoon, it was 12 something and she was heading back to school. It is now 3:28 pm.

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  • Time flies. Not just when you’re having fun. When you’re doing nothing.

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Thusly, always do something, always make sure you’re… living, I guess. Actively. Rather than… vegetable-ly-ly. Deactivate Facebook, read, doodle, call a friend, make a good meal just for you, study, study, cough hack study…

And that’s all I got. Whether I can do what I just wrote is something else.

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THIRTY MINUTES.

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*(existential internet vortex)

**But you’re probably not. ^_^

The Coming of the End: How to [Messily?] Wrap up Loose Ends

Like most other U of T students, I have just finished the fall term for 2008 (and boy does it feel good). Unlike the majority of other students, however, the end of this term signifies for me the beginning of a momentous event in my undergraduate career: the start of my last term [ever!] as an undergraduate student. There were times when both I (and my ever-fretting mother) thought the day would never come, yet here it is. This past term was a lot like many of the others that I’ve survived at U of T, and seeing as the next is my last as an undergraduate (and maybe my last as a student of any kind) I’ve been thinking about all the things I meant to do at the university that I haven’t yet.

As, over the past two weeks, I’ve somewhat exhausted list-making, here I’ll mention only a few of the things I really want to do before potentially leaving the school for good.

First and foremost, I really need to get myself over to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, where I’m desperately hoping that I’ll only be able to turn the pages of age-old books while wearing little cloth gloves. It sounds like a history student’s Shangri-La, filled with medieval manuscripts. Presumably the library smells like knowledge (dusty and sweet) and once arriving, I will never want to leave. I will most likely soon be letting you know if this is anything close to the truth.

Second, I will submit a few papers to the HSA (History Students’ Association) Journal, The Future of History. I have a pile of papers I’ve written over the past three and a half years, a half dozen of which I am sufficiently proud to submit for publication. (This includes one of my personal favourites, a 12-page paper on the nineteenth-century advent of the toilet as a popular household commodity, a catalyst behind the birth of modern medicine and urban infrastructure, and behind the death of outdated Victorian ideals on the body. I’m a little worried that the editors will be a bit insulted by it, as I have dubbed it The Toilet Paper: The Nineteenth Century’s Silent [But Deadly] Revolution, but I feel nonetheless that it is a worthy historical paper, and merits at least a try). 

Next term I will also photograph my favourite alleyways, nooks, crannies, and stained-glass windows: my favourite parts of the U of T campus. These I plan to amass into some sort of photographic map, to which I can turn to in later years to remember the school. 

And finally, this spring, when the tulips are in bloom, when apple trees pour out their blossoms onto the wind, when migrating birds belt out a thousand merry songs from bobbing tree branches, and when I am drowning in the murky blackness popularly known as U of T exam time; I will make a point of packing a tablecloth and basket full of food and scooting over to the campus to enjoy an early May picnic in one of the school’s more isolated courtyards.

-Mary