Saturday Night At Home

I am just going to outright apologise to anybody who stumbles across my blog. This is pretty much a journal of things I wouldn't put in my journal. Currently that seems to be make-up. If you look at some of my older posts you'll find everything from Plinky posts (I still do those from time to time but Blogger doesn't like Plinky anymore so they don't show up here) to critical analysis of movies.

Why did I say all that? Mostly because the one thing I suck at more than anything is starting. The number of hours I spend contemplating the first few sentences of an essay is incredible (notably I am not Arts student, I do engineering instead).

So getting to the point. My day today was supposed to consist of study, assignments and generally getting my academic life in order. Clearly that is going to have to wait for another day. Instead I blog surfed through the make-up communities... As if I haven't done too much of that already in the last few days.  It is amazing how many hours you can spend doing that.

I couldn't actually do my make-up during that time though because I was headed to gymnastics (I'm no gymnast but flipping into the pit - and then having to climb back out again - repeatedly is good fun for something a little different). I've only done it a handful of times in the last 3 months and it would appear no more because our class ceases to exist from today :(. 

However I couldn't leave without going out with a bang. I managed to ram my knee into my own nose. I am rather hoping it isn't broken but it certainly just a little bit swollen. How does a person ram their own knee into their nose? An attempt at the vault (I told you I was no gymnast) where I was to use my hands to avoid having any contact with the vault with my legs. Well after a few tries I actually managed to get over the vault without my legs stopping me. But only just. Pretty much I got over the vault and tipped head first into the pit. My legs following behind and catching up to my face which had been stopped by the foam with enough force to give my nose a direct and rather brutal hit.

After gym I decided to pretty myself up for dinner and a movie. Dinner being myself alone at the mess hall and the movie being Enchanted since it was on Channel 7 tonight and I needed to watch some ads for a uni assignment. What a thrilling life I lead. See if you can tell that my nose is swollen =P.

This photo seems to pick up on the really goldy colour of my lids that none of the other photos I took did... 

Who is this person? Apart from the fact that my camera (which runs its own routine) has made me look like its summer not the middle of winter. I have to say that looks nothing like me (in a completely good way =] ).

Finally this one as you can probably tell has been auto-corrected unlike the others. However it probably does the best job of actually showing what my eye-make-up really looks like.

One Quarter an Engineer

So I might be counting my chickens... I mean there is the possibility that I could go into my exam tomorrow and forgot EVERYTHING I ever learned... not to mention some basic mental logic... in order to fail my programming exam. It is worth 50% of the course so potentially a rock bottom fail may be rather unfortunate for me... But improbable scenarios aside. Year 1 university complete.


I call myself one quarter of an engineer but really I don't think the relationship is quite the linear. I can't think of any reason though why it would become essential to but me to work at this point. It isn't like they would suddenly enlist me in a.... major electrical disaster (as opposed to a war or something)... and require me to step up as an electrical engineer. Mind you... if you need some very basic amplification... I'm your girl :). I have operational amplifiers (known as op amps) down so well.

After thinking about it. I think university is a compounding thing. I've seen my second and third year mates. More exams, more work, HARDER work. Definitely compounding. So that makes me 1/8th an engineering... cuz it means next year i'll be 1/4 then 1/2 and THEN i'll be an engineer. Now because it is a compound thing I better not be forgetting... well apparently I have already done that. Not great considering my exam was yesterday. Ahhh well... Lets see what I can remember huh?

1. Study is a whole body experience. If you can't convince every part of you that its what you need to be doing it doesn't happen. You sit down with good intentions but your fingers creep to the mouse, your eyes lock onto facebook - or google when facebook gets dull, your body suggests the bathroom - 5 times in 15 minutes, your throat drys up and needs water, you are suddenly way more hungry than you used to be, your legs are uncomfortable you need to get up and stretch - repeatedly... and so the list goes on. So only when your whole body realises that this study is IMPORTANT is anything likely to happen.

2. Sometimes it won't compute. You've read it a thousand times. Copied out the sequence a hundred times. Written out the equations with pretty labels and every other imaginable thing you can get from your notes. You know that from question to answer it goes like THIS. And still... for some reason in your head it doesn't. In your head 2 + 2 = 4... like it should... It is like being in 1984 (the book) and Big Brother and the marvellous propaganda is saying quite explicitly 2 + 2 = 5. The propaganda says it so it must be true but your brain refuses to allow the system to work for you.

3. Rote learning is good. Whoever said science/engineering students couldn't rote learn their way through their degree? Well maybe not all of it... But certainly first year. This is the one and only solution the the problem in question 2. You don't get why it does it or understand why that particular value even needs to have a place IN the formula. You just know it does. If you right out the answers to every tute sheet you've ever been given and cross your fingers... you may even manage 100% not understand... Unlikely sure but... 1st year physics lecturers don't actually but that much effort into the exam... which leads to -

4. Exams don't change. Unless you are unfortunate enough to be in a revamped course... You know when the uni decides that the old one isn't quite right so they need to overthrow the whole course.. maybe combine it with this other one... But essentially exams don't change. Questions may alternate on a 2 year cycle or the values get adjusted but essentially... Past exam papers really are your best friend. I don't use them often but I do know they work. There have been a couple of physics exams I've survived only because exams never change and rote learning works...

5. Nobody buts in the effort they should. I dunno maybe somewhere out there there is the hard slogging uni student, I am yet to meet them. One of my friends is damn near failing and she has to see a study aid person. I've looked at that time table she was given... Nobody can study like that and remain functional... We are talking 7-10.30 6 days a week... And according to the theory that should be typical of an engineering workload... Let me tell you unless it is the 2-3 days before an exam NOBODY can do that. See point 1. if you are question why not :)...

6. Deadlines can move. Yes, yes, they shouldn't have to, nevertheless thanks to procrastination and a failure to put in the effort you need in a timely fashion sometimes they do need to. I always thought a deadline was like a brick wall or something. A year or so of uni has shown me it is much more like an elastic, you can hit it and move it a little, just be wary the elastic is liable to snap eventually. Some lecturers are more elastic than others but they all will give you an extension... generally for little more than you approaching them with a pretty please. However this is a power you should not extort because it generally just means that you procrastinate to the later date at any rate... I suggest NOT doing that.

Last, or else I'll never finish, but possibly the exact OPPOSITE of least...

7. Procrastination is evil, bad and inescapable. No matter how many good intentions you have to do your work nice and promptly and not allow any aspect of your study to fall behind you are going to. Procrastination is always more appealing than your work. And while you are procrastinating you don't care that your work isn't getting done. Unfortunately the more you procrastination the more the study/work stress hurts at the end of it. Procrastination seems harmless, seems fun... it is EVIL. I say don't procrastinate knowing full well that you, I, everybody will... Its just life really...

Uni is fun... sort of.... Learning how to learn... I used to scoff over the past year that how has my learning been improved... and suddenly i realise that it has.. studying for exams is getting more effective... So much happens without you realising it... Nothing changes until everything changes... such is life.

Finished Exams? What a strange feeling...

Social mutterings? After a week of study, 10 days of exam block and the last mad dash of both Calculus and Indonesian in one day. My mind isn't up to its normal analytical framework. Its funny that I never the less find myself drawn here... I should have warned myself before I started anything that blogging would be addictive, particularly to my own personality. One of those highly strung, easily stressed personalities which lends itself to addiction of all kinds, that's me! I suppose its lucky I grew up the way I did with education and Church as valued parts of the week rather than falling victim to more negative forms of addiction early in life.

I bring up addiction partly because of the brand new blogging habit I seem to have developed. More of a Journal 2.0 that allows me to type rather that scribble though isn't it? But partly because of the varied array of minor addictions I managed to concoct throughout my study time. I am willing to admit to watching 2 seasons of a

anime cartoon I was a fan of... more than 6 years ago! and playing a gameboy emulator for many hours of the old classic 'Pokemon'. Both are things I was into before I was a teenager and swore never to repeat.

Yet I found myself at a time when I should have studying my arse off - something I was not to discover until the panick attack of Physics part of the way through exam block I could not study. There were points where every inch of my consciousness wanted study and yet I couldn't break the hypotic lure of the TV shows and computer games. More than that the breaking of one addiction would simply encourage a different one. I managed to convince myself not to watch for a couple hours... and I find myself staring and the never changing Facebook screen.

The marvelous thing of Facebook addiction - millions of people addicted to sitting WAITING for somebody else to do something so they can maybe/maybe not comment on it. Even knowing I'm one of the number I'm not quite sure what the mystical lure of the never changing wall is. I do know you are willing to claim 'Friend' of people you NEVER liked simply to have something to display at more frequent intervals. I think I have done more pointless quizzes on there than I have constructive conversations with people in the last few weeks.

Exam period has the ability to isolate a person. No easy task considering I live, work and more often than not play with 39 other people. More specifically my hall way of 4. However with one girl spending much of her time with her boyfriend rather than in her own room and the others being engineering students who finished exams early and got the hell away from this place... It has been pretty lonely around here for a view days. Plus I've been attempting to do all the study I DIDN'T do in the study week. So I haven't left this filthy study cave - which isn't actually that filthy - my bed is made and my floor is vacumned - its more just of a mental filthiness.

Its going to be good to get out and do something tomorrow. No more exams hanging over my head... Maybe after a good night of sleep my brain might start to register the fact it doesn't have anything to stress about. Though being the stress orientated person I am it'll probably find something. The real question is what to do with myself?

Well for the rest of the week whatever I'm told to do... I'm not sure if it is an advantage or disadvantage to this doing of university boarding school style? Much in the theme of the last weeks of school term in primary school we are resorting to playing sports and watching movies (with pointless questions to answer) - tomorrow at least. However on Saturday morning.... bright and early I'll be flying my way back to the great state of Queensland. For those of you who'd understand, Queensland has generally more friendly winter weather than the rather unglorious inland hole that is Canberra. Though I've heard it has been unfashionably cold in Queensland... but still I've done Disney On Ice impressions on the frost around here already... So 5 degrees at night wont be nearly so bad. It'll be normal!

Well as always I have amazed even myself at my ability to babble about things that only I care even the slightest bit about :). However nows about a good time for me to be getting my stuff together and heading to bed. To the majority of the.. of the world I guess... nine thirty is an insane time to contemplate sleep. I know for a fact my american friends stay up to 2, 3, 4 in the morning consistently. I don't know any of my australian friends who would match that... Or at least not without alcohol somewhere in the equation. However 10 o'clock is a good time for going to bed when you start you day every day at 6... So must be heading to that delightful thing across the room and sleeping away the residual exam stress... Yipee!