Somebody… help me…!!!

In my previous blogpost I mentioned that I’d gone online between getting home and doing laundry.

Well, I finally received a reply from Rebecca in the form of an email containing the application form for the Business Conference Interpreting training course at Caulfield that I’ve been interested in. The form is easy enough to fill out, but… the catch is… I’ll have to attend classes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday night, from 6-9pm, at Caulfield. IF I overload… and IF I maintain the C&S’s that I have been involved in… how wise would that be?

….

I really want to do this course this year, because it’s relatively new, started up only last year, and has no guarantees as to whether next year will see a repeat session (it’s based on response towards it I think). Also, for the past year I have been considering translating as a path that I can take in the future, assuming that I keep my language skills polished and maintain a degree of interest in the nuances of this job.

That said, will it kill me, though, to do so?

If I take it, it’d be: 5 subjects (which don’t seem like such a beautiful combination with hindsight; Macro-E, Management, Marketing, Intro to Finance, EIL?) of perhaps 3 contact hours each with their accompanying tute tests/assignments/midsems (which require self-studies of at least 4 hours each), plus our packed planned timetable for MCAC which includes fortnightly big events (that I’ll be overseeing) if the Go2 team gets its way, plus 9 contact hours per week at Caulfield (which means around one hour of travelling to and fro between campuses, multiplied by three, and getting back very late at night), and one-hour MUISS meetings in the evening once every week….

In total, that means that days-wise…

-On Monday I have a 10am class, which means that my uni day will be 10am-9pm.

-On Tuesday, I have a total of 5 lecture sessions from 9am-4pm. (Holy shit! That’s like my Thursdays this sem!)

-On Wednesday I’ll probably have my first tute at 10:30am since the other slot will be allocated to MCAC lunch and screenings; an Economics tute directly after, and then I have a 4-5pm lecture and Caulfield until 9pm.

-On Thursday it will be another 10am tute with EIL as its topic, with MCAC extended lunch if the timetable follows this semester’s, and probably more tutes peppering the day until I get to the MUISS GenComm meeting which might end around 7pm.

-Friday is a ‘free day’ that I’ve fought tooth and nail for, but 6-9pm would still be ‘uni time’ under the proposed course.

And let’s not forget the recommended self-studies and preparation for tuteworks and tutetests that come part-and-parcel of uni life. All that, on top of longer-than-even-working-day-hours sessions at uni.

…Would I even have the time to go home or sleep?

And I can’t help wondering; would I even have energy to do anything by Saturday or Sunday?

…

Yet I really want to do this course. How much regret would there be if the course were discontinued and I were unable to experience its confines? I want to determine my course in life soon and before deciding wastes too much time; would I be losing out on my dream job if I just can’t find the time to trial it through?

Somebody… tell me what to do? Or at least, drop a line and give an opinion?

Please… release me from this cage of uncertainty and unrest…

3 down, 1 to go! Semester 1/2007 ending soon!

Actually mananged to wake up -and STAY up- at 5:30am today with the trilling of my alarm clock, to my great surprise. The apprehension or looking-forwardness to the AFC paper? I wonder.

Was done with the shower and changing by 6:10am-ish, then started flipping through my textbook for definitions and such. Amanda was in the shower soon after that; guess the two of us were both hyped up enough, huh? Adilah was last to get up and she went, “omg you two damned semangat lah…” lol.

Study continued. Very harmonious atmosphere as we were all doing our own thing, as opposed to what’s been happening at uni lately. I found that immensely calming.

After a light breakfast, we unanimously agreed that being there way too early was better than worrying that we’d be late, so the whole flat left together for Caulfield on the 7:30am shuttle, arriving at our destination 10 minutes before the library opened. Crashed at the kitchen doing more revision until 9am, and then dropped by Building K to get Amanda some coffee before leaving for the racecourse.

AFC was one damned crazy paper XD What’s depressing is that at least two people around me actually finished early and left before the ‘curfew’. OMG-ness. Made me feel like I should have studied more for it. Which, I technically, should have. Ah well, water under the bridge now.

Following that, a group of us went down to Hawthorne for lunch at Grill’d. Burgers, anyone? Saw some really nice flowers in a stall along the street as we walked… ages… to the outlet. Didn’t buy any, though—where would I put them, for one? And I’m going home anyway. Keeping flowers for at least five days is what I prefer to do. Felt a bit down throughout the outing, though. No idea why >.<

Couldn’t meet up with Pei, Jasmine and the others as I originally planned because they had just finished their exams and were either up at the city, or at home by now. Aiiikes. So after some discussion and tossing around of options with Serene and Stan, and some pushing from a lethargic and headache-imminent brain, I decided to head home and take a breather.

Took a random bus back to uni with Eddie, ending up… I have no bejeezes idea where! XD Ummm near the CSIRO place, I think? Anyway, it was this totally new part of uni that I had never been to. No compass or map, so I couldn’t even find my way out if my life depended on it. Thankfully Eddie who knew approximately where we were (wow!) walked me back before heading off to campus centre. Thankies!!

The others were doing some laundry as I got back. For my part, I couldn’t feel the inclination to wash clothes or -sleep- after all that brisk air, so I opted to go to the lounge for some revision, and then came back again at 8+pm after hanging out with Ronald, Kawa, Noriko, Ronny, Stan, and Alex. Barely got any work done, but it was worth it to destress.

Was surprised at Amanda’s perceptiveness when I got back and she asked me straight out whether I’d had biscuits for dinner. Whoa!!! What does she have; sixth sense or something? Meekly argued that I’d had mushroom soup as well, and she gave me that ‘Are You An Idiot?’ look that makes me feel guilty. Very caring ^^ I feel lucky =P

Went online after that… read the next blogpost for info on some stuff I found there… MSN’ed, forum’d, emailed people, updated maybe 4 days’ worth of blogs (lolzes), did some random YouTube searches… ended up sleeping at midnight, when I’d professed to be tired around 3pm in the afternoon. Ah well.

Need to study tomorrow… 3 down, 1 to go… but that is a very important ‘ONE’ as well!!! Can’t start slacking off… yikes… T.T

Pickled Thoughts for Tea, IV

Hi guys~

Remember my previous post, Pickled Thoughts for Tea III? Well, here’s part two of the demotivation pix and my thoughts on it ^^

Again… be prepared to be bored out of your mind!Poster “Two” on the list: Tagline, Mistakes

“It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.”

Hmmm… again, this seems to be a very demotivating sentence indeed. But then I look at the picture, and something about that sinking ship tickles the memory.

After all, what more-remembered sinking icon is there but the Titanic, which has become immortal because of the 1997 history-into-film love story about that doomed ship?

Titanic the ship is indeed a very good example of the words on this poster.

Have any of you read the most recent findings on it?

Please too refer to the following link for more info:

http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/discus/messages/5919/90876.html?1095986315

So. Makes you wince, doesn’t it?

But anyway. If that IS the case, then the purpose of the Titanic’s existance was indeed to serve as a warning to others. After all, its sister the Brittanic did not have the same flaws, as was discussed in The Age. Obviously, SOME learning was brought about by the results of that… event.

My deepest sympathies lie with the victims and survivors of that tragedy. After all, none of them were meant to suffer through all that!

But… to tell the truth, the Titanic was a mistake. If you scroll down this page by Ken Walters, you’d see the comment: “What really sank the Titanic? Bad engineering? Poor seamanship? Overconfidence? A number of factors actually. There are a number of great pages on the web that illustrate the building of the ship, it’s passengers, the disaster, and the aftermath, but none that really explain the reason that she sank.” Which means that it probably is a combination of all factors… right?

If the Titanic was doomed right from the beginning… if there was no other bright spot to be seen from its creation, other than a show of the good side of some people… then… as in the words of the ‘demotivation’ poster, “It could be that the purpose of [its] life [was] only to serve as a warning to others.”

With the prior example of the flawed design, planning and construction of this ‘unsinkable’ ship, a better version of it was engineered—its sister ships. And the floating vehicles after that were all improved upon and based on ‘what works’, fixing faults from ‘failed products’, and aiming overall to actually succeed in their operations.

Sucessful journey = no accidents = no lives lost = good. Right?

So… if you think that you are a mistake and that your only purpose is to be the flashing warning sign to others, sure, feel free to do so. And don’t take it too hard. Remember that by existing and if your existance would serve as an example to others, you at least will contribute to the welfare of so many more people; remember that there were many more before you with the same fate that we can thank and appreciate because they took the plunge and instructed us through their examples of what should not be done, so that those after them would not make the same mistakes.

I know that this seems kind of callous or cold hearted to say, but there is no success without failures. You can’t just do something without the example of previous people to base your actions upon. And it’s hard to know that you did something right without looking at what others did wrong.

So… what is this poster but another statement of the facts as can be concluded by some of the actions of others?

Feel free to comment ^^ I know I’m not making much sense… but hey. At least I sparked some thought in you, hey?

If it was a mistake to write all this junk, then at least let it serve as a warning to you… don’t write about something that you’re not passionate about, or don’t know anything about, or when you’re not thinking or focusing properly.

It turns readers off.

^^ There ^^ At least the existance of this blogpost has some redeeming virtue to it…