Own Pace?

Source: http://digital-art-gallery.com/picture/2528

I'm slowly but surely getting used to university life. Maybe not that slowly. I find myself thrown into deeper waters at times, and everything starts to accelerate at a dizzying speed leaving me with brains turned to mush from all the anxiety and unnecessary stress. But I guess that's okay - I'm still just trying to find my own pace in this new environment.

I revel in the slow moments of life, when you're able to rest comfortably with your being and make little, seemingly insignificant yet intriguing discoveries about your surroundings.

Moments like when you gaze out of the train windows and find a different scenery despite passing by the same place (and you feel like you're the only one who's noticed because everyone else has their eyes on their smart devices). Have you noticed how trees are in full bloom now?

When you find a word that resonates with you, giving you a sliver of satisfaction as if you've ascertained your identity for a brief moment. Vestige - a trace or remnant of something that is disappearing or no longer exists.

When you find yourself in the midst of kindred spirits giving genuine encouragement to one another, and feel thankful for them.

I've enjoyed myself so much with my university friends recently. Exploring the stalls and doing the bon odori dance with friends from the Japanese Society during 夏祭り last Saturday, having conversations over lunch after seminars with Natasha and Shirley, attending lectures together with Hasini etc. I expected myself to stick with my cousin or friends from previous schools but I'm actually doing well making new friends.

Moments like these.

And then there's the fast-paced part of university life too that still needs some adapting to.

For example just today I had my first tutorial for Japanese Studies, and we had to jump right into forming project groups with people we barely knew after a round of brief self-introduction. Groups were formed roughly based on common topics we were interested in, that could be potentially pursued for the graded project work. I was half regretting my decision to not ballot for the same tutorial slots as my Oweek friends since it seems really difficult to envision work with people you've just met for under an hour.

I joined a group of 4 other guys from FASS  - a fellow Year 1 Lit major potential, a Year 2 Linguistics major and two Year 2/3 Lit majors. I felt slightly at ease knowing there's a fellow freshman in the group, but the intimidation I felt from the seniors was overwhelming at first. They were highly eloquent, focused and learned, and were definitely set on getting an excellent grade for this module to maintain a good CAP.

As we sat in the cafeteria at UTown discussing the foundation of our project research, I struggled to keep up with both the discussion and writing (as the self-appointed scribe who was the only one that had lunch before tutorial) as they poured their ideas and thoughts out. I think I'm a pretty decent English speaker, but these people were on a different level. For the most part, I couldn't help but notice the massive contrast in levels that only highlighted my inexperience and naivety that passion for the subject was sufficient for me to do well in this module.

It's probably overthinking on my part, but the fact that I'm the only female on this group on top of being a freshman seems to reduce my role as an equal, effective contributor to the group. Especially with members that really know what they want and what they're doing, I feel as if it's possible that they may not expect much from me. Oddly, I desperately want to work up to or even exceed their expectations and prove that I am capable of holding up the shared responsibility among us all. I may be wrong and there probably isn't anything to prove, but I really want to match up to the level of my group members, to show my worth.

As I described, I am desperate. Which kinda makes me feel a little stressed as to how I should go about being productive and useful.

Moments like these.

In retrospect, these are just different trials that will add on to my experiences and help me find my suitable pace of life. In the midst of the mix of slow moments to revel in and the chaotic flurry of events, I should strive to stay true and honest to myself and others around me, and absorb every bit of it all regardless bitter or sweet.

Hitting the Books

http://s-is-for-studying.tumblr.com/post/107064352524

It's 1.20 am and I'm doing early preparatory work for my first seminar class next Monday, which makes me start thinking about the idea of studying.

It's probably a shared sentiment among all university undergraduates - that we're all actually pretty excited and pumped up for school. It's been at least 8 months (much longer so for the guys) since we all hit the books, and even just the simple act of manually writing our name on paper feels unfamiliar and strange at the beginning. Time to dust off the rust in our brains and start revving up our mental engines again.

I've always been a procrastinator throughout my uniformed school days - drifting through lectures and tutorials for the first part before cramming my brains with last minute revisions before examinations and tests (and somehow I managed to make it work). So I was actually kinda worried about how I'd fare in university since there're no fixed tutors there to keep close track on your work and give pep talks on how you should organize your time etc etc.

Surprisingly, I'm more motivated about work than I expected myself to be. I'm guessing it's some sort of human psychology, when you realize the absence of the "safety nets" and start becoming a lot more cautious. After all as university students, we are expected to take full ownership of our studies and accept the outcomes of how we spend the resources here. Another factor I attribute my motivation to is probably my interest in the content of the modules I chose (and that means I'm not at all interested nor motivated for that pre-allocated Quantitative Reasoning mod *grumbles*).

For this semester I picked exposure modules for English Language (Linguistics), Sociology and Japanese Studies, and a freshmen seminar on Heroism and Society. I'm pretty pumped up for the lessons (please let this attitude last as long as possible) and I really want to do well for them. It's great that we're given the option to S/U our grades if we don't do well, but I'm hoping that I won't have to use them!

Looking at the timeline for the modules, I find that I don't actually have the leisure of idling my time away since our weeks are planned out with plenty of prep work for presentations and group projects. Class participation is important too, and in order for that to work I believe reading ahead is really important so I have to clear as much work as possible in order to prepare adequately. Yet the content is really fun to grapple with so work doesn't seem as daunting anymore.

I think my greatest worry at the moment is group project. Sure, working in a group does take quite a bit of load off since it's a shared responsibility. However, you'll need to be able to see eye to eye with your mates, trust in and depend on their abilities and contribute as much as you can to earn their trust. It's not an easy feat at all and things could potentially be disastrous. It can't be helped, so I'll just try to keep an optimistic view to the best of my ability.

This is possibly the last stage of formal education, so I want to make the best out of it not just academically, but also in terms of just being able to learn freely as a student and enjoy a discussion with a teacher.

University Kid

The ideal image of a female university student:

She's sociable, knowledgeable, stylish and knows what she wants and what to do. She's the one you turn to when you have no idea what the lecturer is talking about, and she whispers back the answer with an easy smile. She strides the corridors confidently and comfortably in her casual but well-put together get up, occasionally waving to friends passing her way. Ask her what she thinks about a topic, and she starts engaging you in a serious yet exciting discussion. 

Actually, that's the image of my own eldest sister Stella back when she was a university undergrad at NUS FASS herself, and when I was the puny sniffling 8 year-old youngest sister whose world at that time revolved around how Germaine Kong didn't want to be my friend anymore and how abacus homework was such a pain. (I can't remember if Germaine and I did end up friends after all haha)

Fast forward 11 years and I'm now a university undergrad myself at the exact school my sister attended. Years ago I probably thought that by the time I hit 19 I would have my shit together, look as awesome as Stella and be rocking university life like a champion.

Emphasis on "I thought". 

I'm totally not feeling up to all those expectations from before (laughs coldly to myself)! I feel LOST all the time, and every time a saviour (a friend) asks me if I've done or if I'm aware of something, I almost always react with a great, big question mark followed by feelings of dread and horror. While I'm all intimidated by how university life seems to be bearing down on us with a load of information we struggle to make sense of, I feel as if I can get through with my friends helping me out and all.

On that note, I really really need to thank my awesome friends who are always looking out for me. Thank you so, so much! TT^TT 

Which is why I titled this post "University Kid",because essentially I still feel like a kid, lost among the sea of real adults. In fact, I would gladly do my abacus homework now without any complaints. Pfft.

I've been in a real deep slump lately, which is not hard to tell judging from the previous few depressing posts. It took a friend whom I met during the Arts O week camp to reach out and help me snap out of it. I guess I was too self-absorbed, wallowing in my own sorry pit foolishly expecting things to get better just by waiting.

It's ironic. I wrote a post (You're No Tragic Hero, June 2014) once long ago saying something about how much I hated people wallowing in self-pity and not actually using that energy to change their situation. Now I'm the very example of what I disapproved before. And I'm not going to take that standing down - I can't have my very own self be what I hate, can I?

So from now onwards, I'm going to push myself again with a new resolve. I can't let anyone catch me in such a sorry state anymore. It's going to be real tough since I've tried stepping out of my comfort zone before (and look at how quickly I snapped right back into it) but with shortlived success.

Here's to the start of university life, and the start of a new me :)

"I'm doing it all wrong."

I've been feeling and thinking this a lot recently and it's not a good feeling at all, to not be able to get my shit together. I'm losing control again.

There's never a restart button no matter how much you wish for it. I can only cope with an illusion of one - isolation. Erase everyone and everything off my surroundings, pretend nothing happened and suck my thumb in a corner like the fucking coward that I am. I'm so mad at everything and nothing.

Why is it so hard to belong somewhere? All I've done is just run away from people. I feel like I can't stay in one place for too many reasons that are ultimately excuses I refuse to admit. 

Everywhere I go, I try to please everyone. But in doing so I have lost my identity. I try too hard to be things that I'm not. It'll probably be better if people bought those lies but they aren't stupid. I'm sure they can see through this facade and see what a huge impostor I am. People don't want to associate with fakes.

I wonder when I'll stop running, or when someone who is strong enough or cares enough would stop me from escaping. It's so tiring. So tiring. And so lonely.

I'm just too afraid of getting expectations up and then facing disappointment. I'm just too afraid of commitment. I'm just too afraid of being disliked. I'm just a coward that acts strong. 

And so what if I'm aware of what I am? The frustrating part is I don't know how to solve myself. People don't like problems. And I don't like to burden others. I'm just a passing phase for people I meet. Like a roadside tree.