Considering my first post here was near the beginning of my eight month break, I feel that it's entirely appropriate for me to make a post at the end of it.
I don't think there was anything particularly spectacular about my break, honestly. I did get my first job, which was a pretty interesting experience, but a bit more on that later.
One thing I actually am a little bit proud of is the fact that I did a lot more actual reading (if you get what I mean), something which I've been trying to get myself to do for the longest while. Like most people, I used school as an excuse to put it off, so this break was as good as it was ever going to get. I've read a pretty modest number of books since the year started, but then again it's probably still more than I've read in the past four years added together.
Sometimes, though, I find myself struggling through some wordy prose, and it is at that point that I can hear my mom's voice in my head going, "You're going to FASS! There's a lot of reading, and a lot of writing! How do you think you're going to survive like this?"
And I think the worst thing about this is that I don't know how to answer that.
Quite a few people have asked me explicitly (or probably wondered to themselves) why on earth I decided to go to FASS. It's very fortunate that I'm in a position where I am pretty much able to freely choose what I want to study rather than have the options narrowed down for me by virtue of my grades. Even then it didn't really matter that much, since I made up my mind about what I didn't want to do quite a while ago.
On the way to work (which, by the way, was one long ass journey), the bus I took passed through the heart of the financial district. It's a pretty place if you're into modern architecture and randomly placed avant garde art pieces, but part of me was a little intimidated by it. It was as if I was looking straight into the underbelly of the economy. And then prospect of me being a cog in that machine... that felt kind of unsettling.
It's kind of a funny story I guess, since I generally don't like standing out, so it should intuitively follow that I shouldn't mind just getting by like that. For the longest while, that was basically how I did things, just getting along in school and doing all the things I should. It all went by smoothly, but it also left me feeling kind of empty and mostly confused. And I hate that.
I hate that I do have interest in learning things for their own sake, but sometimes that even I myself forget that. Sometimes it has to be a conscious effort, and then I have ask myself, do I really like it or am I just pretending to? And for who?
For now, anyway, my answer is that I do.
Maybe I'm overly idealistic and maybe I'm naive and maybe I'll find that I'm rubbish at it, but I think if I don't at least give it a shot I'll probably regret it anyway.
That's probably why I'm so uneasy about going to school tomorrow. Prior to this, I could still afford to put myself on auto-pilot and not end the year that disastrously. Now, even if, I put in my all, I still don't know if I can pull it off. Because despite all my lofty dreams and unrealistic expectations, I still measure my success by more conventional standards.
Well, the least I can do is try.