the standard freshman rant

okay, it may only be my first weekend here at an Ivy League university, but i already feel like i am trapped in some horribly claustrophobic pressure cooker together with the entire class of 2013 with someone's sadistic hand on the heat dial making it go up and up and up.

the pressure to perform is like none i have ever experienced. it's weird because even when there isn't a paper to be written or a bunch of sums to be worked out, you feel like you have to perform. for example, my Lit Hum assignment (a random question about the Iliad that i will have to post a couple of paragraphs in response to) will only be given to me tomorrow (a Sunday), but it already feels like there's some kind of horrible clock ticking down the minutes till that question is up for the tackling. there is also the niggling guilt in the back of my head that i should be contributing something to my class' Wikispace, since people have already started (putting up games to help you remember the Greek kings or the gods or even analyses of the Judgement of Paris) and class participation makes up a whopping 25% of our grade. and of course let it not be forgotten that class itself basically consists of pop quizzes and a group of people all trying very hard to say something that sounds remotely intelligent about a text no one can yet comprehend because the key to succeeding at Lit Hum apparently lies in seeming smarter than you really are. hmmm.

this weekend i also have 62 pages of reading for biological anthropology (a class about the human species and evolution which i am taking for partial fulfillment of my science requirement), two articles to close-read + a summary and conjuring of "fruitful questions" for each (for my University Writing class), two academic papers on abortion to read for my philosophy class on Contemporary Moral Problems, and of course two hours of Japanese homework which is pretty standard, seeing as i have Japanese class every day from Monday to Thursday (with a quiz in class and two hours of homework EVERY SINGLE DAY).

so altogether i am taking 18 credits and have roughly fifteen contact hours in a 4-day week. excluding the many, many painful hours spent outside of the classroom attempting to keep up with my classes, of course. i'm pretty sure i never read this much my entire five months in Sydney. cramming an in-depth study of the Iliad into four meagre lessons (which is luxurious, really, seeing as Odyssey gets two and Gilgamesh only gets one) is a lot more fucked up than you can possibly imagine.

i am probably just a n00b freshman though and in a year's time i will probably be finding this a relatively light workload (and possibly even taking the maximum 22 credits - actually, no, i will never take the maximum 22 credits.) class wouldn't be so painful if everyone wasn't so kiasu but unfortunately, they are. :'(

or maybe i've just been lazing around out of school for too long.

(and on the bright side, the stuff i'm learning is generally totally awesome and absorbing and exercises my neurons to their fullest capacity and i mean biological anthropology, how cool is that. i take your Lamarckian acquired characteristics and raise you a Darwinian adaptive radiation. also on the bright side, i pwned all my Japanese quizzes and homework and my teacher drew smiley faces all over my work. he is just the coolest guy ever. ..and my lit hum preceptor looks like a Hollywood celebrity which makes early Tuesday and Thursday mornings a lot, lot more pleasant)


k.

need to go read about God vs science now.

baibai.