1. How to write when you have nothing to say
No, really. Half the time, in the exam my pen's just scratching its way across the paper, desperately trying to string together words and sound coherent and meaningful when all I really feel is that I don't know shit. And I'm still putting together crap phrases that sound fittingly formal like 'and thus it can be concluded that...' or 'one can define intermedial narrative
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| Just like this dog. Yeah, this is my life now. |
2. How to absorb from 300+ pages in less than an hour
...or, how I survived 11 exams on 11 days of preparation. Usually my English exams are right after my regular semester ends, so after doing exactly zero prep during the whole entire year, when I was supposed to be doing a 22-week syllabus, I end up trying to cram everything in a couple of days(and nights, because let's face it, nobody sleeps when their fear of eternal damnation failing an exam is at hand). And it sucks because it's all really interesting to me, but I just can't seem to study unless my pants are on fire.
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| Stop, drop and roll! |
3. How to sound intelligent
It's taught me phrases and words like poststructuralism, and, honestly, the true meaning of words people keep throwing around, like 'metaphor', 'irony' and 'analepsis'.
This way people think I sound smart when I open my mouth, even if it's only because they have no clue/no interest in what I have to say. And when I hang out with people who read a book a year, I become the intelligent one. (I'm crying inside, really)
4. The humanities are one giant slanging match
Everyone uses the fact that they were here first/last/sometime in the middle to justify how everyone else was wrong and how they are most definitely right. Dictionary writers believe that the older the definition, the better, even though no one uses the word 'housewife' for a sewing pocket; heck, no one uses 'housewife' for a person who stays at home to take care of the children, either, because it's so-20th-century.
The structuralists believed the realists were trash, the post-structuralists believed the structuralists had their heads screwed on wrong: and everyone talks politely but depreciatingly about how people of other movements were 'products of their times', forgetting that they themselves are products of their times too.
5. A lot of different things are worth studying, for a lot of different reasons
And it's true, too. In order to satisfy my curiosity, I read widely, when you consider I've read Modern Quantum Chemistry and Image, Music, Text in the same school year. Both books afforded me real enjoyment and taught me real, valuable things. Yeah, I half-assed it, choosing to spend my time not wisely, but too well; with friends, writing and creating things, learning languages, travelling and seeing the world. Those things taught me a lot too, but without a formal curriculum and without those pesky tests.
It's weird, and I still consider myself mostly a failure, but I'm content with what learning English and Chemistry has taught me over these last five years.
It's taught me phrases and words like poststructuralism, and, honestly, the true meaning of words people keep throwing around, like 'metaphor', 'irony' and 'analepsis'.
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| I am fun at parties, actually. Thanks! :D |
This way people think I sound smart when I open my mouth, even if it's only because they have no clue/no interest in what I have to say. And when I hang out with people who read a book a year, I become the intelligent one. (I'm crying inside, really)
4. The humanities are one giant slanging match
Everyone uses the fact that they were here first/last/sometime in the middle to justify how everyone else was wrong and how they are most definitely right. Dictionary writers believe that the older the definition, the better, even though no one uses the word 'housewife' for a sewing pocket; heck, no one uses 'housewife' for a person who stays at home to take care of the children, either, because it's so-20th-century.
The structuralists believed the realists were trash, the post-structuralists believed the structuralists had their heads screwed on wrong: and everyone talks politely but depreciatingly about how people of other movements were 'products of their times', forgetting that they themselves are products of their times too.
 |
| Well, you know what I'm doing. |
5. A lot of different things are worth studying, for a lot of different reasons
And it's true, too. In order to satisfy my curiosity, I read widely, when you consider I've read Modern Quantum Chemistry and Image, Music, Text in the same school year. Both books afforded me real enjoyment and taught me real, valuable things. Yeah, I half-assed it, choosing to spend my time not wisely, but too well; with friends, writing and creating things, learning languages, travelling and seeing the world. Those things taught me a lot too, but without a formal curriculum and without those pesky tests.
It's weird, and I still consider myself mostly a failure, but I'm content with what learning English and Chemistry has taught me over these last five years.
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