It certainly wasn't for me.
Three weeks into an International Relations/Law degree in the Hole That Is Canberra and there are few periods in my life when I've been as depressed.
I'm effed up. I feel like I learnt a lot during my gap year and that's why I don't regret it.
I've changed so, so much in the six months since I got back from Europe. I've done things that relatively goody-two-shoes Joanna wouldn't even have considered. I've gained whole new outlook on people. Relationships. Society. Life in general.
I'm so effed up.
I don't know what happened to me, but over the past year I've just really changed as a person. Strangely enough, I think I may have been deeper a couple of years ago and now I'm just a bit more superficial. Sure, I'm still myself. But I feel like I've lost certain elements of my personality. I read some of my own posts and sometimes I'm like 'wow, I was such a different person back then', or 'I really hit rock bottom' or 'I can't remember the last time I've been that relaxed and carefree'.
Why did I used to care so much about reputation, and prestige, and money, and success, and ambition? Was it arrogance? Was I just way more ignorant and naïve than I realised? If anything a gap year snapped me out of idealistic dreamer mode.
There's something strangely comforting about blogging even when no one's reading. I keep a diary too but this is somehow different. I feel like I'm more of a writer on this medium, rather than just spilling a bunch of jumbled thoughts.
As part of my combined International Relations and Law degree, I do four courses. Intro to IR, French, Torts and Foundations of Australian Law.
I'm doing this course called Introduction to International Relations: Foundations and Concepts and I hate hate hate it, which really surprises me. I don't know what the heck I thought it would've been about. I don't know what I was expecting. Am I really that surprised about the amount of readings, or the amount of complex theory, or having to see the Communist Manifesto again? At least I now get where my old history teacher was coming from when she said she was trying to prepare us for uni. I like to describe IR as a combination of the shittiest and most mind-numbing parts of HSC Modern History, except on steroids. The thing with me is that something within me builds up gradually and causes stress, then all of a sudden I tend to make snap decisions and stick with them. I know the source of stress now. My brain's telling me I need to drop Introduction to International Relations: Foundations and Concepts. Now.
The other half of my international relations degree is French. French ain't too bad. It's as bludgy as uni gets, really. Brainless work. That's what's nice about learning a language. You simply rote learn the entire textbook, cram that memorisation in a week before the exam, and voila: satisfactory result. There's no mindfucking going on with languages. No 'discuss a current world issue and apply theories of realism or liberalism'. No actual creative thinking involved. And that's why French is such a relief for me. You know life is effed up when a subject you once dropped in year 11 for good reason suddenly becomes your saving grace.
Then comes law. Oh boy. Law.
As I've said, I used to be very idealistic. Much less cynical towards myself than I am now. It's interesting because I can tell that just by reading my evolving blog posts over the years. Much like I once thought 'Even if I don't like kids I will just put 110% effort in and ace au pairing', I very recently had the same mindset towards studying something I didn't necessarily enjoy. If only life worked that simply. Put the effort into something you don't like, and it's all good. Au pairing made me realise that's impossible. And I'm glad I'm mature enough after my gap year to realise immediately whether something will work for me or not.
You see, law is a funny subject for me. I don't hate it like I hate IR. There's no bullshitting with law, and in a way I like that. There's a lot of bullshitting and long-winded essays and personal opinion involved in subjects like IR, History, English. Whereas in law, as my tutorial teacher once pointed out, you can have a guy going way over the speed limit but no one is going to question the moral implications of that. Lawyers don't give a shit about why, or morality. All they care about is what the law says, and whether it is legally right or wrong. And there's something nice about being so straightforward in your writing. There's none of that fluffing around to fill up that space in your essay like high school English was all about. At the same time though, I have a particular talent for bullshitting. I've always been good at hiding the fact that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. And I can't do that with law.
The difference between Law and IR, for me at least (and this is only after 3 weeks), is that I can read a sentence in a legal case 10 times if need be but at least I can semi understand it. IR? I can read a sentence in a reading 20 times and my brain just zones out automatically. It's like my possible ADD-riddled brain won't even attempt to allow me to understand something in IR. And that's why even though I dislike law, I don't hate it. Hence why I'm dropping IR but not law. Not yet, anyhow.
I'm still tempted though. What's stopping me from quitting everything and moving back to Sydney and practising piano intensely for 9 months until I audition again for the con, and this time rather than doing Music Studies/Arts just go all out and do a Bachelor of Music (Performance)? My mum is one of the factors. I think she might disown me if I did that. She is never usually that pushy, but when I told her over the phone I think she almost had a heart attack. As I haven't played properly for over a year, I would never be able to get enough money for piano lessons to prepare me for that intense con audition.
The reason why I hate IR is because it's a bad subject for perfectionistic procrastinators. It has all the hallmarks of a perfectionistic procrastinator's worst nightmare: the type of subject where you have to procrastinate by research the heck out of the topic in order to get the most perfect info, and hence write the most perfect essay. The problem with that is if you actually manage to do it in the perfect way that you intended, you end up with a 24/25. Unfortunately 4 times out of 5 you end up spending 20 hours on the research element because you're too scared to write the actual essay.
Tomorrow, I'm going to attempt to transfer to Music/Law if they say it's ok that I don't audition. In a way Music/Law would be just as stressful as IR/Law, because piano brings out the perfectionist in me in a way that I would spend ALL my time on it. Music for me, as it is for a lot of people, is an all or nothing subject. You don't do a half-assed attempt at it. I could never find the time to study law if I did music at the same time.
I'm thinking either an arts/law or languages/law if they won't let me do music without an audition. I can take the bludgy way out and replace IR with German to make my degree arts or language instead of IR. Or even do music as a major in arts, to see whether I would want to do it at the con.
It doesn't help that I have practically no friends here. The only nice people I've met either do IR or Science. Well I've met one nice person who is in my law torts class, but she's the only exception and she does science as well. That stereotypical view of law students as competitive and lawyers as soulless is actually quite true. I like the people in my French class, there are at least 5 people I get along nicely with. I'm not used to being surrounded by people whose IQ's aren't sheeplike. There was something comforting about the sheep guaranteed to be in each high school classroom. It used to be ok if I found Marx confusing, because hey at least I knew how to spell his name. I don't like how at uni everyone needed a certain mark to get into the course, so there are no sheep. I've met nice people, but I've made no friends. When a change happens in my life I get super antisocial. But I feel like working at Uniqlo, amongst other things, has made me realise I'm not as introverted as I once thought I was. It'd be nice to have a friend, or friends, in Canberra. I've just been to lazy to attend lectures and make any when I can take the online way out.
I should have appreciated that time between coming back from Europe and starting uni more. Life in Sydney for the 5 months I was back was good. Uniqlo was good. The money I made in that full time job was good. My colleagues were awesome. Going out clubbing every week with my colleagues or old school friends or old old school friends was great too.
I got a new job here in Canberra. Casual at sunglass hut. I know polishing prada sunglasses all day sounds nice but something tells me it'll be harder than uniqlo even though it pays less. I don't start till the 9th. I passed a group interview for Apple because I'm good at acting like I'm a people person for short durations. So now I'm waiting for the one on one apple interview. A job at apple would be high pressure I think but shiny on my resume.
I'm too tired to continue even though this is actually therapeutic. You know shit is bad when you're pulling all nighters three weeks into your five year degree. And just for homework too, not even an assessment.
