Let's misbehave

I was just lunching with the absolutely incorrigible Charlotte Salusinszky, and explaining about my anxiety about returning to Great Britain when she came up with absolutely the best solution to the problem: a time machine.
That way I could totally do everything I wanted to in Australia, get bored with it and then still make it in time to catch my flight. Wouldn't that just be swell? So, if anyone has one spare that they could let me use, I'd really appreciate it.
While lunching, Charlotte offhandedly expressed her wonder at one of my descriptions of myself from my Edinburgh time, specifically with regards to desperation for attention et al, and I was proud to see how far I'd come (at least in one person's view) in just a year. 

Speaking of delisting my bucket list, so a mere bucket will be left, I'll be visiting the Great Ocean Road tomorrow. My first thought on this is that Australians like prefixing their tourist attractions with 'Great', which makes me feel like they're compensating for something. My second was that I'll be going with a bunch of strangers, which made me nervous, but then I thought of Phillip Island, and how awesomely that turned out.

Some were known to remark that it was 'neato'.

It's hard to believe that that yank above has now graduated with highest honours. Well done, Hannibal, sir. Now you can get back to solving that Buffalo Bill case.

In other news, we had a mini-Aussie Rules reunion on Sunday, which involved Pancake Parlour, which I kind of think of as my equivalent to Central Perk from Friends, even though I've been to about three different branches of it. I say 'mini-' because it was only me, my stage sister Emily and Alan-a, who insists upon placing a hyphon in her name for some strange reason and has been literally throwing fits because she has not appeared on this blog yet. So hello to Alan.
A.

In other news, I have an essay due in in a week and I'm already nine tenths of the way through it, so expect to rest on my laurels for the rest of the week, and so an influx of more posts like this, which really didn't have any content. Alack.

365

A year from today, I will be finished with my undergraduate degree.

This is quite a terrifying thought: it signifies onrushing adulthood, a looming crossroads and that there have been three years since I finished sixth form, which I cannot fathom.

Unusually, I can actually recall my last day at Shrewsbury; frollicking in the meadows, building human pyrids, my friends sneaking me drinks at weatherspoon's cos I'd forgotten my ID. I simply cannot comprehend that that happened three years ago. It makes no sense.

I am inordinately grateful that I took this year in Melbourne, for a multitude of reasons, but at the moment because it's given me an increased fervour for my subject. Before coming to Melbourne, I was seriously considering dropping out of uni, convinced that I'd made the wrong choice, that I had no future in my elected domain, that I was going to fail. I watched in envy as Becky and James and Sam took everything in their stride and I couldn't even manage a single step forward (or so it felt- I obviously made some advances in academia, else I wouldn't be here). I refuse to take all the blame for this melancholy- I truly feel that Edinburgh put some of their worst feet forward during second year (incidentally, this criticism is moot now because I was the last year to do my course): syntax, phonetics and globish all in one year? It's like they wanted us to stop caring. But, yes; I was dissatisfied and dreading honours. Now? I kinda wanna do post-grad; obviously, some of that comes from there being more choice in honours, but I think it also is due to Melbourne Uni's different approach to the tertiary educational experience and, most importantly, some of the professors I've had here. 

I'm trying very hard not to completely disregard Edinburgh; when skyping Daniel recently, he accused me of exaggerating my dissatisfaction there, and that's not at all what I'm aiming to do. But, I also feel I have to be honest (or else, what is the point of this blog?) and I really credit Melbourne with rejuvenating my appreciation of my course. 

Ask me in a year what I want to do and maybe the answer will be radically different, but currently further education is top of the list. 

...I kinda wish it was something less expensive.

And, to make this post not just words, here's a picture of Victoria and I molesting a giant Manta. And, no, there's no glass.

Educate good times, come on!

George returned yesterday, proving it's never too early to create a tag for someone. I also got another 'I no speak English', proving I defy the god of CATI*, whom I've deemed Katy, and am some sort of Telephone Marketing Research messiah.

I'm now done with tutorials for the year; take that, people from Uni back home (depressingly, I don't think that there are any Edinburgh students reading this- you don't count, Dr. Fowkes, being a staff member and all). I have one more week of lectures and then I am done with Uni 2012, which is kinda scary. Thinking back to January this year, and how absolutely awful I felt about my course, I couldn't have imagined I'd actually be interested in what I was studying- but, looking over my Language, Society and Culture text book today, in preparation for my upcoming test, I was actually genuinely piqued by the ideas inside. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if I have a future in Linguistics, it's in Socio-**. Syntax continues to prove the bane of my very soul and the enemy of life itself, but I guess you can't have it all (and with Syntax, you really shouldn't have any).

I must say, I prefer the Australian school system- the idea of choosing modules (including some which aren't directly related to your major), and thus not feeling trapped into drawing upside-down trees for however bloody long, is much more condusive to work, if you ask me. If I ever have children, I'd want them to be in a university system like this (I believe the American system is similar), because it allows you to actually find out what you like, as opposed to the British system, which just tells you what to take, like it or lump it. And I lumped it. Of course, were I enrolled in Edinburgh this year (and when I eventually return), I would be given a degree of choice within my degree of choice, but I kind of see this as too little too late. Alack.

*Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing
**Fuck you, James Reid.

Student Parties

And now we're going to discuss a genuine difference twixt the British and Australian education system (funny side story: my friend Anncy and the girl sitting in front of me right now are convinced the British school system is Hogwarts).

I before E, mudbloods. 

And by the 'British and Australian education system' I mean 'Edinburgh Uni and Melbourne Uni', and by 'Edinburgh Uni and Melbourne Uni' I mean 'the posters I ignore and the fliers I ignore'; the Melbourne Uni student government is run on parties.

And sadly I am not referring to bashes, hootenannies nor shindigs. I am referring to political parties.

The quarter practiced in the park

I find this extremely odd, coming from a system where (I believe) one votes in individuals. It also seems nonsensical, but that could just be because I'm not used to it.

Just how at first it seemed jarring when I posted this every damn where, but now you don't even notice.

It adds a new level of ridicule to an already deeply flawed system. Because now student politics, that of the 'more parties, fewer fees', is now party politics, that of the 'they're evil, I'm not'. I've been told how the other 'tickets' (because calling it a party would be too simple) are linked to this political party, support these atrocities and secretly want to bring down the system from within- no joke, someone actually said that to me.

If you ask me, the system needs taking down a peg.

If this all seems pointless, petty and infantile, that's because it is. People make too big a deal of student politics when it's not related to real politics; adding that dimension just gives people a license to get even crazier about it. It's silly and illogical and I think I have to take part in it, because voting is compulsory in Australia. If I don't, they'll come after me.

They're not exactly short on minions.

Also, interesting fact: liberal means conservative in Australia. This truly is the land where everything is upside down.