So I finished my last two exams, MA1101R Linear Algebra and GEK1001 Geography(name too long to remember). And this is the end of the semester.
As usual, the feeling of emptiness. It feels like my life is driven by the constant need to learn and apply what I learn to solve problems. During the term time, I can always find some materials and start learning, be it lecture notes or reading materials, and I know all the efforts will be be vain as they are useful in the exams. It is funny that when I studies those things, I keep telling myself that I am not studying for the sake of exam but in the believe that the knowledge itself is useful in my future life. This has been the justification that I gave before the exam. However, after exam, the same justification does not hold any more and I find no reason to study those things at all. And this is even true for modules that I really enjoyed learning, Geography and CS1101S. After the exam, I just don’t feel like touching them anymore. I kept the notes, and organised them nicely as a proof that I took that module and put in efforts, but that’s all that I am doing. It seems that my studies are exam-oriented after all.
The natural question for me now is what to do next. Of course there are camps and administrative things that I have to attend, but what I mean is really something that I want to do, during my holiday, genuinely by myself, not something forced onto me.
It may be a good idea to explore my long lost social life. I have not really been actively socially in this term. Most of the time I am either in my room studying, or doing some projects for CCAs, or attending meetings that are tangential to my life. And by tangential I mean I don’t see how they are significant for me in any way. The last few weeks were better, as least I found a group of people that I can interact with and study together. But that is also coming to an end when the exam is over. Most international students would go back home and for me and a few others, our lives will be pretty lonely.
I can see that I am in an awkward position that I am not close enough to neither the local students nor other international students as I tried too hard to interact with both groups at the same time. So I ended up like somewhere in between, knowing a lot of people but not many who are close or even normal friends. But I guess I will not give up trying, and even if everything fails, I am still okay with the status quo. One key issue with me in social life is that I focus too much on the value of the conversation, I don’t like to talk nonsense and trivial things, I only want to have conversations that have obvious significance or value inside so that after the conversation, everyone learns something or gets influenced positively. However, this seems to be contradicting the rules of socialising and the conversations actually cannot be totally useless even if the content is trivial. It is these trivial conversations that build up relationships and connections bits by bits. And by rejecting this kind of conversation, I am certainly not going to get a good social life. I guess it’s about the balance between serious talks and casual talks which I am just slowly picking up.
Okay, enough for the reflection and let me welcome my first day of holidays. Plans? No plan may be a good one.
