Dear one-week Sarah

Source: http://www.hdwallpapersinn.com 

  Congratulations! You made it. Yes, this is university, that paragon of excellence which society has always told you to strive for, and that you thought you would never achieve due to your different education. But that doesn’t matter any more. You are here! And you’re going to be awesome. At least, you think so.

  Truth is, I am a little sorry for you right now. You really don’t know what is coming up in the next three months and it’s going to be a completely different experience for you. Learning in a University environment is going to be almost as far removed from your previous educational experience as it could be, but after a week or so you are going to find it strangely comfortable. It really won’t take you long to feel at home and safe amongst the like-minded individuals surrounding you. But of course that first week will be slightly terrifying, as you navigate a completely new world that includes a large campus, numerous bus trips, and that bewildering sense of simply have no idea of where to go.

  You will learn so much in your quest for knowledge and shared wisdom, but at the same time you will learn plenty that you never needed to know in the first place. You’ll learn that just because someone has a few degrees up their sleeve doesn’t mean that they know how to successfully teach, and that those whom society might pass over for lack of education are actually extremely intelligent and caring. The average level of humanity’s intelligence will unpleasantly surprise you, and you’ll feel slightly betrayed by the amount of those who simply give up after the first couple of weeks. Most painfully, unlike your world of vibrant ideas that still has solid absolutes, you will learn that the masses of humanity around you, for the most part, float in a sea of fluid reality.

  But there’s going to be so much that you will learn practically! Your writing will undergo a major over-hall. You’re going to find out that the colourful, descriptive style you have favoured all your life is not academically suitable, and that will initially make you feel robbed, before you learn to rejoice in the sharing of researched opinions. You’ve always been a highly organized person, but that will have to rise to a whole new level as you enter university life and consequently juggle the demands of family, work and social life. Your understanding of time management will become invaluable as you learn to fit in university study by all kinds of creative means, such as studying in the slow periods at your work, or reviewing literature on the bus. Uni will give you a variety of useful skills that transpose into your everyday life, for example the use of critical thinking. You have always been a judgemental person who likes to weigh every option, but a certain lecture will open your eyes to the underlying currents around you. You’ll learn how to pick apart arguments and chose academic sources to give an informed opinion. I promise you, you will be in your element.

  You’ll never forget the feeling you had when you received your first assignment back. That poor, precious assignment of yours that you stayed up late the night before submission desperately adding finishing touches to, terrified that it wouldn’t be good enough and that you’d be branded a failure. You will never forget the smile in your tutor’s eyes as it passed between you. And when your shaking hands will have calmed enough to text your family the good news of how you have passed – indeed, done far better then simply passing – you will know, for the first time, a deep security and faith in your own ability.

  If I could say one thing to you, it would be to remember that feeling. Realize that yes, you can do it! University is going to feel so right for you. Your initial worries will soon be eased, and the depth of information you will have access to will make every experience worth it. This is a crazy carnival ride of words, opinions and literature, but hang in there. You will enjoy the ride.

 A summary/personal letter I was required to write in the final weeks of the semester. By the way, I made it. :) Ready for the next semester - after I have some time off.

Study

  

Source: http://badassbookreviews.com

  I'm sitting tucked away in the University library. If you were to walk around the three rows of morbid philosophy that separate me from the the rest of the world, then you could probably find me on my laptop, guiltily eating a packet of peanuts. It's a sunny warm nook and perhaps the only armchair on this floor, so I'm guarding it fiercely. My claim has been well staked.

  If I look out in front of me, I can gaze over the city and the river flowing through like a ribbon round a cake, the tiny boats adding subdued character to an otherwise silver gleam. Autumn is painting the trees around us all shades of the sunset, while on the horizon a church tower juts out majestically from the low-dwelling appearance of mere humanity that surrounds it. If I could only move the hideous pipe towers and 1960's brick of the faculty on front that interfere with my contemplation of the scenery, then I would be guaranteed to complete no study. But then I'm sure they serve their purpose, somehow. It's just that man's infrastructure, even be it to instruct in nature, is always an eyesore compared to God's handiwork.

  The shelves around me form a comforting barrier of aged words. To my right lie books of advice to young men and women, essays on the polite world, and appropriate etiquette over the years. By contrast, on my left are row upon row of dismal philosophy as everyday human try their best to navigate this roaring sea of a world without even bothering to work a basic moral compass. The titles themselves are grey enough. Interested, I pick up and flip through a 1954 work that attracts my eye simply due to it's relatively diminutive size and apparent age. It's called "Morals without Religion", and it makes me giggle laugh silently, for I know that there is no such thing. Nobody is born good. Then the sadness creeps over, that someone could feel so little of the magic that I see around me every day, know so little of the wonder that makes a young soul wise through no deed of it's own. Some of my peers are paying thousands in dollars and precious years in their lives to be told this is all they are, a blob of senseless matter in a Humanistic world, that they must fight against the basic principles of Christianity, such as the divinity of Christ. It's more than painful, it's heartbreaking.

  As the light streams in and floods my chilled winter-weary bones with warmth, the ring on my left hand shines like a brilliant beacon. The new year came in like a flood, filled with promise and tantalising adventures. December brought the man in the white ute knocking on my door, and April brought him to his knees in front of a glowing sunset and my eager heart. Now we plan our life together and delight in our shared wanderlust that will carry us all over the world, yet always return us to the paradise we will call home.

  Life is good. People are flawed, home is not always a peaceful place, and true knowledge is ignored, but as I sit here trying to study, I know my role in the story of this life is something I would never trade. I'm all up for the plot twists that God will bring.