Wednesday, January 30, 2013

the light at the end of the tunnel

After seeing 'The Hobbit' over the last few months (which I haven't reviewed! oh god my movie reviews have been lacking...guess I'll go queue up a post after this), and watching 'Return of the King' recently as well, I almost want to title my graduation post 'there and back again'...but something tells me that'll be reserved for 'The Hobbit'.

Anyway, graduating. Honestly, no one reads my blog, so it almost serves as a sort of journal of sorts, which is kind of cool, I guess, for me. I don't get to do a lot of creative writing, or more specifically, writing that has not been tied down to a certain subject. Indeed, over the past 4.5 (soon to be 5) years of university, I find that this blog (along with the various internet forums I post on, is one of my few solaces. I kind of wanted to chronicle my university career in this post, only because I always find myself remembering things that I did, or participated in, and I find myself astonished at the things I have done. I'm a talkative person, and I like doing new things, but even I couldn't have guessed that over the course of 5 years, I would have done all these things.

In first year (08-09), I was the VOCA first year rep...and that was it, really. After that, though, one thing led to another, and I found myself in an avalanche of things. In second year (09-10), I was the VUSAC Finance Chair, again part of VOCA, and in the summer of 2010, I was on the Orientation Executive 2010. In third year (10-11), I was a VUSAC Member-At-Large, the VCDS Finance Chair, on VOCA again, and I hosted (with a friend of mine) the Battle of the Bands as well as the Environmental Week Fashion Show. During the summer of 2011, I was on the Orientation Executive 2011, and also a part of UofT's Festival of Dance, something crazy and incredible, and performed a dance with three friends to the tunes of Michael Jackson's 'Smooth Criminal'. In fourth year (11-12), I was again on VUSAC as the Vice President External (something which I spoke about a LOT on this very blog back then), and was one of the Student Life Ambassadors for the Office of Student Life at UofT. In the summer of 2012, I was one of two Orientation Student Co-Chairs, and was also a co-host of 'Beyond the Classroom', a show about extracurricular involvement for UofT's radio station, CIUT.fm. In fifth year (12-13), which is now, I am the President of VUSAC (a long road here), I work for the Office of Student Life (the Leadership Development Office, to be more specific) as a work-study student, and I also work for the Division of Engineering Science as a Student Experience Assistant. Being the President also means being a part of the Victoria University Senate, the Victoria College Council, and the Board of Regents, all of which are pretty large responsibilities.

Again, because no one reads this blog, this isn't me preening to my imagined audience...no, it's more of a reflection over my undergraduate career. I also don't know why I'm writing it as if someone other than me is reading it, but there you go, neuroses for you.

I think the Festival of Dance was the thing I was most uncomfortable with, and even to this day, I have not rewatched that dance. I am incredibly proud of myself and of the other three people I did that with, all of whom I consider friends, but I just get super self-conscious when I see that video, and so I've never watched it ever. That's probably for the best.

In some weird way, I can't even believe that first year was way back in 2008. It's now 2013! That was five years ago. A lot has happened in five years, and not just the stuff I was going on about earlier in this post. I definitely branched out a lot, from just student government, to a whole host of things, including the drama society, dancing in front of huge audiences, hosting large events, becoming a radio host, and using Twitter for a job. Despite the fact that every single one of those things probably caused me a bit of stress at any given point, I would not change a single thing. All of those experiences have shaped me as I am right now, and have helped me figure about things about myself that I view as more important.

I don't have a 4.0 GPA, no, but then again, that was never a priority of mine. Grad school was something I worked towards in first and second year, and then it just became something far more abstract, once I realized that further academics were not something I particularly cared for. Maybe it was the level of pretentious-ness in my classes? Maybe it was the mere fact that a lot of the readings and case studies I did for English and Political Science were just too dense for me to care? Maybe I simply didn't care what Margaret Atwood was inferring when she wrote about the river in the book 'Surfacing' (personally, I don't think she was inferring anything, I think it was just over-zealous professors, scholars, and students reading too much into it), but dayum, school quickly became secondary to all these other wonderful things that I saw and did.

That's not to say I will never go to grad school. The London School of Economics has a method of getting a law degree that I find appealing at the moment, and I have always wanted to write the LSAT. Perhaps after further research into LSE as well as the LSAT then I will make my decision.

But, graduation. It's more or less the end of January now, I'm 23, and there is approximately two months of class left. Then, I am done my undergrad FOREVER. Can't say I'll miss the essays, exams, tests and endless hours of lectures...but I'll definitely miss all the other stuff. One good thing about graduating is that I made a whole ton of friends. I didn't touch on that now because it's a huge topic, and not one that can be given justice tacked on at the end of a post. But, thankfully, a lot of those people will be my friends forever (along with my Scarborough friends), and I'm excited to see what lies beyond, with them (and Savannah, who is awesome. She's another post, but again, not going to do her justice at the end, so that's for later).