Monday, September 30, 2013

Surpassing that #200 Milestone

So I've published over 200 posts on this blog now. Impressive? Not really. I've had since 2008 to do that. I managed 100 by 2010 and then kinda slowed down. So... what has happened since 2010? Well that was my first year of University and now I am nearing the end... the final semester is now nearly complete. I'm writing my bigger assignments and things are starting to heat up.

It's ending. It's ending.

But what about the past? I learned so much... This is weird because I'm trying to engage in some nostalgia, look forward to future, and also I woke up with an annoying cold so I'm all "ooh, ahhh, uuugh" all at once.

Looking back I don't think I accomplished much. Was I meant to? As a rule I should not compare myself to others as that creates a selective bias that only really reflects my self esteem not reality (if I think lowly of myself I'll more actively think of things that support this and the opposite if I think I'm superior). Other people are not the measure of a person.

Back in 2010 and I was just studying Film with a minor in Photography and a minor in Journalism I believe. I enrolled in that minor without actually having done any journalism units but was going to do intro to journalism anyway so figured why the heck not? Well the heck not was because I hate journalism and I am terrible at it. I ended up failing the last assignment so hard I was told to resubmit it. (To be fair I had completely got the assignment criteria mixed around in my head with an assignment for a different class so it was one part me being a bad journalist one part complete misunderstanding of what I was meant to be doing.) I ended up quitting it and leaving a note to the tutor that said "so long and thanks for all the fish" on the back of my resubmitted final assignment (her response was "?"). I then went on to enrol in a minor in Creative Writing instead. I liked that a lot more but then decided I didn't want a minor in it. I wanted a major in it. As I had to drop the minor to pick up the major of the same-ish name (English and Creative Writing with a minor in Creative Writing is, not surprisingly, not allowed) I decided to change that minor to Scriptwriting. I'm not studying a Ba Film, Ba English and Creative Writing, minor in Photography, minor in Scriptwriting. I plan on having a very fancy piece of paper by the end of it all.

Oh, also my 100th post was when I voted for the first time. My 200th was a few posts ago and happened a few days before the election. So yeah... 100 posts chronicling what I did and thought between one election and another. Since that 2010 election I have become a more political person, formed stronger opinions on matters, and have learned more about different ideologies and perspectives. This has led to greater acceptance and understanding... or alternatively weeping at the thought that some people out there honestly are just that illogical and bizarre. Politics! Where everyone can agree on one thing: the other person is an idiot and if they're in power they'll destroy (insert thing of interest here)!

In late 2010 I got a tumblr. It gradually consumed more and more of my time until it became a problem. I don't recommend it to people. Get. Run. Flee! You don't need that in your life... unless you're a big fan of shipping characters, homoeroticism, social justice, feminism, occasionally over zealous activists who are a bit self-righteous but avoidable, gifs, cat gifs, puppy gifs, arguments about the pronounciation of gif, beating memes into the ground until they're no longer funny, and the main tumblr fandoms of Supernatural, Harry Potter, Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Merlin.

Though if you like ALL of those things and don't mind that it'll STEAL YOUR SOUL then BAM! GET ONE NOW! I personally found that somehow, without trying, you'll make friends on there. I did. My best gosh darn friend ever comes from Tumblr. What she doesn't know isn't because it's a secret but because it hasn't come up in conversation yet. So that was a bonus out of the productivity-sapping website...

They've been a great help these past couple of years as I went through the ups and downs. The horrors of assignments, the late nights in editing labs, the times I spent 30+ hours awake and nearly died driving home... and I mean literally nearly died (multiple times) due to exhaustion. Yeah. How many people can say that their degrees nearly killed them? The more I study art the more I realise just how completely and utterly wrong the stereotype that arts majors are lazy are. We're so hard working... and yet no one wants to pay us. We're so under valued.

So that's what the past 3 years has helped give me. Perspective. Perspective, a tumblr addiction that I had to break through cold turkey, a better political mindset, and a bunch of HECS debt that will slowly be payed off in the future...

But oh the fun I had earning that debt and oh the fun I'll have paying it back in a career that I love.

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