geeky schmeeky
life has occupied my busy self lately.
after the exams finished the end of last april, i had a quality time for myself, when i can revisit my old abandoned routines, doing things i love but haven't done for quite a while. i still hung out with my aiesec friends of course, almost everytime, and also tried to do some necessary aiesec works, although i pushed them down to minimal.
from last september until well around last may, aiesec has been a huge chunk of my daily life that when april hit and the exams were coming, and finally we all had excuses to abandon aiesec works, i couldn't help but felt relieved. then the NLDC delegates went to montreal, i was half jealous - half excited. because as much as i really want to go to montreal (the city of cool!) and have loads of fun at the conference, i wouldn't want to miss the first few classes for the summer, and i thought a break from aiesec-related events would do good for my mind.
so school started right away, as well as work. this is the geeky part: i enjoy my classes. well, at least my environmental studies 200 class anyway. arguably the most interesting class i've taken so far, no doubt challenging and requires a lot of work in just a month period, but i definitely learn a lot in turn. it's an eye-opener and thought-provoking (yes, yes, the phrase is hackneyed but i'm too lazy to think of a better phrase so who cares), the readings are pretty intimidating, right now i'm trying my best to keep up with it and i truly enjoy reading them. i know, that's how geeky i am lately. but it's the time when i finally realize what's the purpose of me going to the university, to actually learn things from it and challenge my perception of the world, which more often than not i just take for granted.
i'm pretty determined right now that i'll take environmental studies as a minor. i already know which classes i'll take for the next 3 terms ( i spent a whole afternoon at starbucks downtown with the new 2005-2006 uvic calendar), much of them are combinations between economics courses (which i love to hate) and environmental studies courses, and i still have two undecided electives that i can use for any class i want. pretty neat. i'm also highly determined to do good this summer to at least balance my record-breaker embarassingly low GPA last term. i know for my ES 200 class i spend at least 2 to 3 hours every day outside class devoted to study the materials for that class (besides the 2 hour lecture every day). at least. whoa is the right word.
so what do i do for my spare time lately? well, i guess i really am becoming geeky nowadays. i'm still struggling to finish my history of Islam self-taught lesson from karen armstrong's book (which i now read at least at the pace of 12 pages every day) and i also learn and re-learn my general understanding of the religion from wikipedia (yes, i'm talking about the online encyclopedia). why, you ask. why not?
i guess what i'm trying to do is to confirm my beliefs and, essentially, my faith, which i always afraid i might lose if i don't keep stepping on the ground. some of my friends give me are-you-okay looks when i told them that, some others are actually supportive.
other than that i rent DVDs and watch most of them back to back, just like the old days. when time permits or when scott's not home anyway. i rarely spend my time at home lately, 10:30am my class starts, then in the afternoon i either have other class or i have to do readings or taking notes. then in the evening i either work or more class. geeky indeed.
ever since dave and the crew got back from NLDC last week, he's been trying to push me to do more aiesec works, to which my respond is just a mere 'yeah' and nothing else. life outside aiesec is just great and i guess i was in a period where i'm just tired of it and need a change.
then this afternoon dave and nadia had a post-NLDC presentation to the rest of us who stays here, and a lot of it reminds me of why i joined aiesec in the first place. why i used to be so crazy and all over the organization (and still is). later in the evening i received this email from aiesec UI's VP OGX who just got elected and asking me for a possibility of a bycorp. she also added me as a friend at friendster. i couldn't help but smiling all the time. these people have given me my aiesec spirit back - at least a good part of it, if not all yet. they just made me realize of why i stay with aiesec at the end. aiesec is about people. we all join aiesec for different reasons, but all stay for a same reason, the people. no matter where in the world, if there's an aiesec chapter, then you'd expect a similar thing with the aisec that you know.
and that means a lot to me. my LC basically relies on me when it comes to ICX. if i don't do the work, no one would. sure it's tiring, time-consuming and whatnot, but i figure it's all worth it at the end. it's okay to have a break from aiesec and moves on with your life, but sooner or later you'll realize how valuable everything is, and you wouldn't want to change it, because it's part of yourself.
and i have to say, now, despite crazy school work, i'm ready to get that part of my life back in track.