| Rant : Basically, I Conclude ... Quite often, although chiefly in the past three months, I have been plagued by a recurring nightmare. I wake up in cold sweat (accompanied by fits when the moon is full). I rub my eyes. The nightmare seems so real. I pinch myself. It hurts. I think about it. It is real. I am a finalist. The truth is that I�m just not ready to consider myself a finalist, much less take my finals. I not only lack a firm (or even flimsy) grasp of the stuff I�m supposed to know, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I�m worse off now than when I first started. In the brain sweepstakes, if you know what I mean. Which leads me to naturally question what a university education is all about. Sure, I went through more bottles of alcohol than I did books in my first year. And (this is true) I actually asked my tutorial mate where the library was at the precise moment when we were both walking outside it. I spent more days travelling than attending lectures in my second year. And now, in my third year, I�m asleep more often than I�m awake. They say alcohol makes one sleepy. They also say travelling is tiring. It must be payback time then. The thing is, in a university whose calendar year allocates more time for vacations than it does for academic learning, all of the previous paragraph is irrelevant. My sloth can be suitably excused. In fact, it probably makes me worthy of being a member of this supposedly esteemed institution. The point, really, is that I have gotten away with knowing quite little and somehow pretending I know a lot, to the extent that I�m questioning if it�s indeed the most important skill one should have in the �real� world. You know, the one that sucks. Yeah, that one. Take for example the time in second year when I was marvelling at the grandeur of a glacier as hoards of tourists around me snapped pictures while �ooh�-ing and �aah�-ing (�Man, this is so cool. Dude, ain�t this phat?� � An American tourist with a booming voice). The following happened, although in the interest of the reader, I shall wildly exaggerate the details of my account. Pretty Girl : So why is this glacier retreating more slowly than that other one [someplace far away]? Me : Huh? I don�t really know. Pretty Girl : Uh, aren�t you a geography student? Me : Yeah. But it�s complicated, you know. There are many factors involved. Very tricky stuff. Pretty Girl : Wow. Sounds like a difficult subject. Me : It is. I�ll figure out the whole thing eventually. Hey, if you give me your e-mail address I�ll answer your question when I�ve learnt about it. Pretty Girl : Sure thing, that�d be great! See how important a skill it is in the real world? Another thing about being a finalist is that this is the time when everything is supposed to come together. By everything, I mean whatever useless topics that are being examined on as published in the exam decrees and regulations, which was probably last updated in 1926. During the three hours of the week (a generous estimation that one) that I spend in the library, I irritatingly click my ballpoint pen waiting for everything to somehow click into place. This has not happened. It is unlikely to happen even if I somehow live to see the next millennium. I checked with Ladbrokes, and this is how the odds on my life currently stack up. 1-4 : Have a nightmare about finals this very night 5-1 : Become an engineer 10-1 : Date a librarian 25-1 : Get married tomorrow - in Vegas 50-1 : Bump into Elvis at the local supermarket 100-1 : Grow four inches taller 1000-1 : Find the cure for cancer at age 12 1-billion-to-1 : Everything comes together/clicks into place/Eureka blah blah Lay your bets, y�all. And in the end, what exactly have I learnt? What have I gleaned from my three years here? Sep 11 may have changed a lot of things, but the following non-marketable abilities continue to doggedly characterise my current academic achievement. 1. Being an expert on glass elevators and their effect on postmodern architecture 2. Finding value in pointless exercises like measuring biodiversity 3. Discussing Foucault and the pain he caused future generations by not dying of consumption at age 10 4. Talking about the weather and pretending to know what El Nino is all about 5. Using words like �epistemology�, �humanistic�, �systemic� and �dialectical� 6. Replacing �however� with �on the other hand� so as to boost essay word count 7. Beginning sentences with �basically� when sentence in question contains a lame attempt to conclude a point Basically, these are what I have learnt as an undergraduate. Now as I stare out into the distance, the dark cloud of finals are looming ever closer. The nightmare has only just begun. Happy New Year. |