booksOh, what wise, wise words I’ve just devised. Pity I took them to heart far too late. Classes at the Uni of Otago (in true Kiwi fashion, polysyllabic words are abbreviated as much as possible) are largely externally assessed; that means your entire grade is based on your midterm, final, and perhaps one additional project. Not too unusual for many U.S. collegiate students, but then again, they don’t have the country of New Zealand as a distraction. While I spent time drinking in the South Island from Queenstown to the Catlins, these sneaky little midterms crept up on me, and last week, just before break, they sprang upon me with jaws open and aching for my blood.
Thus, my goal of becoming more disciplined in my studies seems to have stumbled out of the starting gate. It appears that, rather than refining my studies, being in such a breathtaking place has only exacerbated my abysmal study habits.
Some of my classes are nice. Cognition & Neuropsychology is right up my alley, as is Māori Society. Comparative Cognition is passable as well, for that matter.
But for the love of delicious jams and jellies, rescue me from New Zealand Literature. Or give me a rusty spoon and avert your eyes. It was my fault, I suppose. Literature has never been my thing, and travelling across an ocean was not going to magically change that fact. However, the Powers that Be decree that 12 credit hours shall be transferred, so I will endure. It’s all just a matter of focusing on what you like, and tossing out the rest. So for me, NZ Lit has now become my self-declared Jon’s Therapy Hour. I wait for the lecturer (can’t call ‘em Professors until they’re actually professors here) to say something interesting, like “Good afternoon,” and then plunge into fifty minutes of writing out my thoughts, stream-of-consciousness style. I feel more productive than skipping the class, and come out of it feeling like a million bucks.
Overall, though, I have a feeling that it is not going to be my classes that I remember when I reminisce fondly of my time here in my lifetime to come. I’ve heard it said that only a small percentage of your tertiary education comes from the classroom, and if I haven’t heard it said, then, well, I’m saying it, and I believe it. For me, the real edification comes in the spray of the Pacific, hitchhiking through small towns, getting stranded, riding in a Kiwi car driven by an American, nearly falling off a mountain, becoming a mentor for someone else, and at the end of the day, being able to look up and (weather-permitting) being able to see an ebony sky dusted with a thousand stars, planets, and galaxies far, far away.
Then again, if there’s one sentence I never expected to come across in my Cognitive Neuroscience book, it’s “Yes, I’ve been dying to get out there and shake my booty” written in a completely serious manner.
“Dunedin” means “Edinburgh” in Celtic, and subsequently, much of the city reflects those Scottish influences, as shown in one of the many old churches around town.
I took a walk my first weekend in Dunedin, and three hours later, I found myself here. You can see a portion of the sprawling suburbs of the city in the background, surrounded by rolling farmland.
