It’s school again, and I officially joined my coursemates in getting into the hamster wheel of chasing for assignments, study, etc. Getting into the second year of undergraduate life means I’m no longer a freshie like last year. It’s just like any math or programming contest I have taken: having 3 hours isn’t enough even to solve only 5 problems, just like the apparently abundant time of 4 months is actually too ephemeral to accomplish a lot. More often than not, I will need to sprint through the process, yet not being able to achieve everything when the race is over.
Indeed, the pace acceleration is phenomenal. A week before school, I could cozily take my time to improve my website and make it responsive, explore simple recipes with Jay to feed ourselves, and take a short run around my Airbnb residence as necessary. A week after, the to-do list in the language of academic commitment is stacking up. Once again I’m taking an extra course on top of the normal 5-course workload, and honestly speaking things are going fairly well at this point (hopefully it won’t turn for a worse like March 2017). It’s just a self-reminder to keep up with the academic pace and stop being too obsessed with the prospect of having leisure time like my past summer term, and realize that the changes in obligations is a cycle of life.
It’s school days, and this symbolizes the need for a focus. I vividly remembered the possibility of joining events without thinking twice (like employer info sessions and some residence parties of friends) in the last summer term; the intensity of the study term now signifies the need for being selective on the things I do, even for beneficial ones like hackathons (I do enjoy the RBC Hackathon held two weeks ago though: shout out to my teammates for the spirit to do well!) Ideally, I still want to explore my passion in different areas, like how I explored my webpage development last summer before determining that web development isn’t really for me. But now I simply have to accept that I’m meant to be in mathematics, and that should be most of the things I do.
It’s also noteworthy that while most peers in my batch opt for an internship term next term, I chose not to (for various reasons). Intuitively this should leave me a peace of mind of not having need to slog through the internship application process right now; in reality there’s no room for sloth -> I have to face it one day. Looking at a positive side, though, I now have time to explore the career expectation of each company and get ready for that (unlike last year where I virtually gave no effort in Fall term and literally bled through the Winter term. Hope that this doesn’t happen anymore 😉 ). Understanding what does it take to make myself a great fit to my dream company really, really takes time.
It’s Fall term, and it’s Thanksgiving break again. Why not relax ourselves for a moment and savour the beauty around us before getting ready for the intense routine again? (It’s past the autumn equinox, so let’s keep an eye on the morning skies at 7:30am and night sky at 7pm for sunrise and sunset, respectively. Thanks to a friend for teaching me how to appreciate these scenes, and the nature in general.)
anzoteh96 