Mind over matter, mind over matter

I knew this guy in university who told me that university studies is making him more stupid. Sometimes, I feel the same way.

It isn't so much that they have been secretly sucking out my brain cells with straws, although it does feel that way. One of the contradictions in life, for university education in the arts at least, is that you choose a course because of your passion for it and end up hating it because of the way it is making your student life miserable. It's a sad sad situation, I tell you, but that's exactly how it is.

I'm speaking of this situation as an English Literature student.

I blame it on the system. Cramming too much information within three months in preparation of an examination does kill all the passion, no matter whether you have them in spades, buckets, or tanks. You just won't like reading as much during the school term, and what usually takes a few days to read suddenly takes years. Figuratively speaking, of course. You don't have the luxury of taking years to read a book when you are expected to finish 24 (sometimes 30, depending on how many major modules you are taking) books within a semester of about three months. You just don't.

When I took my first literature course in university, I had 6 books to do in 3 months. It sounds perfectly reasonable actually, with an average of 2 books per month to read. Only things weren't that simple. Literature requires the in-depth, thorough dissecting of a literary work, which invariably takes a lot of time. Back in the JC days, we took 2 years for the in-depth studies of 6 books. Now I only have 3 months, in addition to dealing with the other commitments I have -- other modules outside of my major, work, cca, friends, family, and personal projects. I scarcely have time to rest, let alone find time to meditate on the beauty of iambic pentameters or the cleverness of symbolism by Virginia Woolf.

Meditation is very very important when you are pursuing scholarly interest. At least, that is what I have led myself to believe. Meditation is also impossible when you are rushing from classes to classes like a mad woman, weeping on the laptop with blood bleeding from your forehead while you try to squeeze out coherent thoughts for your term paper. Then there's also the mid-term tests to study for.

I found myself in a constant state of madness to finish my books before class. I barely managed in my first term. After that, I simply gave up. I read summaries, commentaries, to make up for my lack of speed at reading the actual work. It helps that I have the uncanny ability to extrapolate theories from points made during lectures, even without having finished reading the books, and I have the sheer luck to always spot the questions for exams. In other words, I am plain lucky and blessed with the formidable ability to bullshit. Oh yes, just look at the length of my entries here. I do so can bullshit my way out of anything anyday.

This helps me get through the oh-so-important exams, but it doesn't help me in furthering my interests in any meaningful ways that I have previously hoped for. Meaningful discussions in class are rare. Granted, there are student presentations, there are interactions in form of questions asked and answers given, but you always get the feeling that everyone is dying to get out of class because they (1) haven't finished the book, and is thus catching no ball in class, (2) have finished the book, and is still catching no ball in class due to lack of time for effective information digestion, or (3) they are brain dead from sleepless nights of plowing through the books in time for class, such that during class, they are actually in no good form to gain any literary enlightenment.

This is how we are becoming more and more stupid. University life stifles the thinking mind and its imagination by inducing heavy doses of exhaustion and unrealistic expectations.

***

I ended up doing the real reading only after the exams. I remember for my first class, I only read 2 out of the 6 books I was supposed to read when I sat for the exams. The rest of the books, I'd decided at that time, were the bane of my life. They are horribly written, totally lacking in literary values, and is a complete waste of my time. This is, of course, thoughts made under the collective influence of stress, stress, and more stress, and are in no way objective nor representative of what should have been the situation.

So you shouldn't be surprised if I tell you that, when I picked up the same books again during the holidays, I started to appreciate and enjoy them immensely! Kafka suddenly took on a different rainbow light. It wasn't madness, or confusing rubbish anymore. It was beautiful Surrealism. A masterpiece of social satires, commentary of social despotism, brainchild of postmodern existentialism! The same happened for Ted Hughes' Birthday Letters. His poems were no longer incomprehensible strings of words, but strangely moving (and also dubious) records of his dysfunctional relationship with his poet wife, Sylvia Plath (of gas oven fame). This situation repeats itself every holidays.

I shouldn't need to point out how warped this situation is. My true understanding and love for the books I was supposed to be studying only kickstarts after the exams had ended. It really should have been the other way around.

***

There is something wrong with the way we were tested for our ability.

As far as I'm concerned, examinations only seem to test two things effectively: (1) how elephant-sized your brain is, and (2) how fast your hand can move. Other than those, I don't think examinations for higher education serve to prove anything whatsoever.

Although one do get the thrill of being pressed to think on the spot (or maybe it's just me, the perverse one), it is hardly fair to conclude that a person who can write a good essay in 45 minutes is more intelligent than a person who cannot write in 45 minutes, but can possibly research a good paper for you given sufficient time. Afterall, Einstein didn't come up with the theory of relativity overnight.

We all take different amount of time to comprehend things. For some, muses come at the speed of light. For others, it take a longer time. Doesn't make the latter less clever than the former. There's also no guarantee that the faster muse is better than the muse came late. Hence, giving the former an A, and the latter a B, just based on examinations alone (okay, there's the participation points and the term paper, but they add up to peanuts) is hardly an accurate reflection of an individual's capability.

It makes more sense for ability to be judged from properly researched, well thought out piece of work. Why read a piece of rushed work written in 45 minutes when you can have the joy of appreciating something done with effort and that would definitely sound more coherent?

Do away with the close book examinations. I'd rather do more coursework to stimulate my brain cells over a period of time than have my brain cells stimulated only in that 2 hours examinations. It's not fair to my braincells. They've got more to prove.

***

"Deal with it" is often the simple solution to an entry of rambling grievance. Life is as such, it sucks, university is as such, so grow up and deal with it. It's all mind over matter, mind over matter. Prioritise, practise better time management, and you wouldn't be complaining about all this now.

Well, there's some truth in that. But it still doesn't justify the love-hate relationship I have with my area of studies. For one thing, learning shouldn't be painful, and learning shouldn't have the effect of stopping your brain cells production.

Learning should be fun, and learning should be enjoyed. And it can be so, if only people realise that information overload is only going to be counter-effective.

I don't see the point in reading as many books as possible in the shortest amount of time. But I do see the point in reading carefully-selected titles aimed at stimulating a specific set of discussions. More often than not, this is lacking in my courses. Discussions are all over the place, and everyone is getting nowhere, and at best, getting only half-way there. Too little time to discuss things, too much time wasted in trying to cram redundant information into our little heads for the exams.

One very obvious way to solve the 'no time to read' problem is to let us have the reading list early, damn it. Course information for this semester only came out like, what, less than a month ago? And all these time I've been reading and reading and reading, and didn't have my usual shit luck of reading something that's actually on my course? Imagine how useful my holidays could have been, if only I knew what was on the reading list.

Or maybe, a longer school term would be nice. Now, before everyone starts throwing tomatoes at me, think about it carefully. Longer school term, more time to do work, more time to read, more time to think, and more time to clarify doubts with mentors = more learning, less madness. Perhaps, a longer school term with longer reading weeks? I'd like that, really. I don't know what the super long holidays are for, except to go on long vacations in Bali, Hongkong, and Tibet, or get busy earning money when you have a lifetime ahead of you to do that.

Or perhaps, they should just reduce the number of courses that we are required to take each semester, so that we have more time to have more classes. More classes means more discussions and less confusion, and I would like that very much too. 2 weeks on one book is really too much. If you think a student can thoroughly grasp a literary work in 2 weeks and move on to another, you must be crazy.

Or maybe, I should just take a leaf out of Lao Zi's book, give up on university and move away from the city into some quiet mountain with my books in tow. Then I can truly and quietly meditate on the patterns of words, the beauty of silence, the aesthetics of punctuation, and of course, a life free from the madness that is university.

That would be so niceeeee. So niceeee indeed.