About a month ago I "decided" I'd try to do nothing but study; I uninstalled the few videogames I was playing, closed my facebook account and promised myself not to "waste" time here. I also started going to college earlier and leaving a couple hours after I was done with classes. All this just to study and read what I wanted with whatever free time I had. The first two weeks were kinda cool, I enjoy studying what I study, so reading and writing about it was entertaining; even the class I don't like that much, phonetics, went smoother because I was spending a decent amount of time studying. I also read a couple books during those two weeks. I was happy about my decision, there were enough things for me to do, to keep myself entertained.
But then, it changed... kinda. Since I was spending more time to read my homework and work with it (something apparently no one else does) classwork got boring: teachers would tell me that my questions, or that my participation in general, even though valid, wasn't "appropriated" for the class. Meaning that hardly anyone, other than teacher, would follow* and the idea is that classes make stuff clear for everyone, not the opposite. So classes like general linguistic or epistemology were a review of what I had carefully and repeatedly read already...
Of course it's cool to feel like I truly understand something, but my grades can't get better*, I don't have anyone to discuss my thoughts on whatever I'm reading, be it homework or otherwise, and I just have this feeling my effort is rather...pointless? I don't know. I enjoy studying, it's fun to find out "interesting" facts about people, education or language; so it isn't pointless. But I'm feeling stuck, classes won't help me get what I want from studying, education, college, life...
I thought the research group, that I joined last semester, would be a nice place to work, so I insisted in having more meetings and stuff, even if the topic wasn't exactly related to what I'm interested it would've been nice. As it turns out the group is dead because no one has more time for it: 1 meeting a month to discuss the exact same thing over and over, since I joined, seems to be enough for them. Even if I started my own study/research group no one would join because people aren't interested in extra work...
And I still had books. They're a wonderful way to spend time... and my wallet. Books here are stupidly overpriced; if I wanted to get a book for a fair price I'd have to waste a day going downtown, finding the book I'm looking for, in a decent edition and in decent condition. I made a thread about this months ago, iirc, and it still pisses me off. I tried searching in public libraries but nope, I'd have to spend even more time going to a library that's near the other end of the city for some of the books I want to read. pineapple it, I said, I'm buying a kindle. By the end of this month I'll finally have it and I'll be happy, I'll never be bothered with high price- no availability nonsense again.
Anyway, I don't have much to do. I'm still spending more time than I should studying, but I still have a lot free time. So I opened facebook again, I'm meeting some friends tomorrow, I also started playing D3 and now I'll take some time to read and write here every now and then :). If I ever feel like I'm wasting time I'll just think "I'm here to practice English".
*Note: I don't mean it like I know it all, teachers and students sometimes share stuff I missed or that I misinterpreted on any given subject, but that doesn't happen often. Also, it's not like I have some superior understanding of things or anything like that: I just like and fixate on stuff that, it looks like, no one else does. For example: words, most of the time no one cares why a writer used a certain word for a certain something, but understanding its' meaning and the reason behind its use can make the whole subject much more clearer. But that's just a silly example.
Also, I didn't mean that I have perfect grades. They're great and getting some better seems to be impossible with most, if not all, teachers. My grades did went up a couple of decimals, but in the end it won't make much of a difference.
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