Oh Shut Up Already! September 23, 2008

I don’t lose my temper very easily. In public, I try to act kindly and behave accordingly. I don’t show if I’m irritated by someone, but rather try to deal with it quietly inside my head. But there’s this woman (in her mid 40s, I’d say) in my seminar, who’s absolutely and totally driving me nuts. And it’s not just me, there’s a little “hater-club” in our seminar group formed against her… very grown-up, indeed.

But you cannot act like she does. She comes into a seminar session with such aggression and arrogance that it makes my little boat tip over in a few minutes. When we’re supposed to give each other useful criticism and feedback, she starts lecturing on everything that’s missing or wrong with someone else’s work. And it’s not even that, of course one can say one’s opinion and bring out fresh ideas. But it’s the way she does it. She tries to cut in whenever she can, starting every sentence with “Do you see where I’m going with this…” as if trying to convince everyone, including the writer of the gradu, that she knows more about the subject than anyone else. She even tries to teach the teacher, and I think her behaviour is just annoying and rude. We’re all grown-ups here, but come one, just losen up will ya!

I swear when next week comes and it’s my time to present my gradu-outline, I will have a tough time with this woman. But I’ve decided I’m just going to nod my head at her remarks and if need be, get back at her some way -no way I’m going to let an arrogant, I-know-it-all 40-year-old student sabotage my presentation.

Sometimes I just wonder where these people come from and why they act the way they do. Let me know if you happen to know.

How did I end up here? September 2, 2008

The fifth and hopefully the last year of Uni started today. I hadn’t much thought about it, but walking into the Pro Gradu (or MA thesis) seminar session really got me thinking, or rather, panicking. The whole gradu-issue has been a dream-like thing, looming over me for a long time, but not really part of my life. But as from today, it’s really the most important part of my university life, and that scares the heck out of me. For years the instructors of the courses I’ve attended have just been talking of the gradu, or mentioning it in the lines of something like “you don’t really have to worry about this before you start writing your gradu” or “that’s something you need to take into consideration only in your gradu, not now”. When my seminar instructor handed out an outline of everyone ’s topics, mine included, it became inevident that I have to start working on this big thing that I’ve only talked about before. It’s certainly stressfull to think that all of the studies I’ve done before have been just baby steps in contrast with this, or that all of the courses I’ve taken have only been there so that I’d be able to write this gradu in the end of my studies.

Am I ready for this, and how on earth did I end up here? Four years have gone somewhere and the knowledge I’ve supposedly built should now be used as precisely and ambitiously as possible. Although all of this feels really scary, it’s also kind of a relief: I’m finally close to finishing my studies and when I do, I am free of this “study-burden” and can do whatever I will with the rest of my life.