Guide on How To University

When you're in high school, your teachers will be very clear on one thing: if you don't have your future planned from the moment you pick your subjects at the beginning of your last year of high school, you may as well kiss your bright future goodbye. For some reason, it seems to be every school teacher's life's mission to convince you of the fact that your life's destiny will be determined for you based on the decisions you make from the age of 16 onward.

I don't know about you, but at the age of 16, I could barely decide what I wanted to eat, (I have since figured it out -- it's probably pizza) let alone what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Thankfully, I have a family member who spent 30 years of his life doing one thing and then abruptly decided to do pretty much exactly the opposite, so I never whole-heartedly believed in this whole myth. But for those who did prescribe to the belief that the choice of their high school subjects which would lead to a narrowed field of university courses to choose from which would then lead further into a career they would be stuck in for the rest of their lives these decisions must have been truly terrifying.

Me? I have made a number of choices during the course of my university life, all of which have honestly reminded me of the fact that I am terrible at making decisions. Since my life's story makes therefore for great comedy, hell, it'd be a crime of me not to share! So here, have a timeline, starting from my last three years of high school.

How Silbena ended up where she is now

Third last year of high school
Silbena decides on a hodgepodge of subjects for the last two years of high school based on previous experience, picking subjects she likes and has previously been good at. She has no clue about what she wants to do with her life.

Second last year of high school
Silbena drops legal studies because fuck that noise.

An accurate depiction of Silbena's feelings toward legal studies

Third last year of high school
Beginning of the year - Silbena is absolutely convinced that she is going to become a Creative Person when she grows up. She is debating university courses like journalism and creative writing.

I imagine this is what creativity looks like

Halfway through the year - Silbena has an epiphany and decides to study science instead.

I imagine this is what epiphanies look like

Before final exams - After looking into several universities, Silbena decides on Monash University due to the freedom they give to their students to choose their own units without a prescribed core structure of a course. She is so adamant on being accepted to this university she does not even enter other universities into her preferences.

On release of results - Silbena finds out she has done much better than anticipated and hastily changes her mind to do a double degree in science and biomedical sciences, because she feels like she would be "wasting" her good grades otherwise.

First year of university
Beginning of the year - Silbena enrols in her double degree, gleeful and excited. She also gleefully falls into the trap of spending way too much money on textbooks she basically doesn't need anyway. She never buys textbooks again.

Don't buy the textbook until your lecturer starts assigning practice problems from it, and even then wait to see whether you get inundated in mandatory assignments first

Halfway through first semester - Silbena suddenly remembers that the last time she did biology was in year 9 AND she never liked it then either. Why the hell did she choose to do biomedical sciences again?

Nope, biology didn't get any more enjoyable in the time you didn't do it

End of first semester - Silbena switches courses faster than she can switch pants and drops the hell out of biomedical sciences to study simply science instead. She gets excited because now she can actually choose some electives for second semester that she wouldn't have had time for in her double degree. She chooses philosophy, because hey, thinking is fun?

Halfway through second semester - Silbena finds out that philosophy is the worst thing on the planet and begins to suspect that she really shouldn't be allowed to make her own life choices.

End of second semester - Due to her excellent grades, Silbena receives a letter from the science faculty asking her to enrol in a course that will allow her to do honours at the end of her course. Silbena switches courses for a second time.

Second year of university

First semester - Silbena can't take any electives. She is debating on whether she should major in chemistry or in geology. She really likes environmental chemistry and the idea of combining geology and chemistry, which could be done in environmental sciences. She begins to wonder about future careers.

Second semester - Silbena is sick of drawing rocks and gives up on geology, deciding to major in chemistry instead. She is still fascinated by environmental chemistry. She is adamant that she is much better at analytical than synthetic chemistry and is likely to end up in that sort of a field.

Third year of university

First semester - Silbena finds out that environmental chemistry is the worst thing on the planet and decides to focus her energies on synthetic chemistry instead.

And in the second semester -- who knows? There is still plenty of time for me to decide that this whole education thing isn't for me at all, drop out and do knitting for a living instead. I think the moral of the story here is that I'm really great at making decisions: but it's just that when I make decisions, they usually end up being wrong.

Don't stress, pumpkins. We'll find out what we want to do in the end, and we'll just do a whole bunch of terribly boring things in the meanwhile just so we can cross those things off. 

Chasing genres

Well, it's getting to NaNoWriMo season again. For those of you who have mercifully forgotten what that means, it means that sometime during November, I'm going to have a mental breakdown regarding how I cannot possibly write anymore, am absolutely terrible at creative writing and why would anyone want to do this to oneself anyway, perhaps accompanied by a list of reasons as to why I couldn't possibly expected reach the goal of 50,000 words or a huffy declaration of "I QUIT."

In reality, National Novel Writing Month is an absolutely fantastic experience, but it has its ups and downs. Everyone, even seasoned veterans, are often brought down by a bout of "I suck". Additionally, it can be fairly brutal when combined with an exam period which spans half of November. This year, my exam period is going to be much lighter than last year, what with one of my units not having an exam, and another of my units not actually teaching us anything at all and then expecting us to sit an exam on it (in short: either it'll be very easy or we'll all fail, so why worry).

Core units. Gotta love 'em.

As such, I can tentatively say at this point that this is the first year since 2009 when I'm actually going to be trying this out again for real -- for real in that I'm going to be aiming to win.

I have had plans for my novel for about a week now. During this week, they have... well, let's just say that my plans are quite fluid and keep changing. Radically. Let me run you through on the timeline of my past week.

How the idea for Silbena's NaNovel of 2012 has evolved to date

Seven days ago: Silbena decides that she is going to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year. She begins brainstorming for ideas.

Three days ago: Silbena decides that since she hasn't done any substantial creative writing since her failed NaNoWriMo in 2011, she is going to write something relatively light on plot that would just get her writing something down before attempting anything involving more planning and world development.
Two minutes later: Silbena decides to write erotica.

Two days ago: Silbena realises that she wants to write something with a little more plot than erotica. She also admits to herself that she would probably not show her writing to anyone at all, and that she really wants to be able to show her writing to as many willing people as possible. Silbena decides not to write erotica, but to develop something out of the story ideas she has already had.
Fifteen minutes later: Silbena is frustrated by her story ideas and remembers why she decided to write erotica instead. Knowing that it can be basically erotica with some more plot, she decides to write romance.

Yesterday: Silbena has created a romance plot with a definitive beginning that is just advancing toward the middle. She is satisfied with her beginning, and begins thinking about the middle.
Two hours later: Silbena realises that she solved the only conflict she had in her story by the end of the beginning. She has character development and the development of the characters' relationship that will serve to fill the middle, but she realises that because there is no real substance to the middle, there is going to be no clear indication for the end, either.
Twenty seconds later: Silbena begins brainstorming about circumstances that would create additional conflict for the middle of her current plot.
Half an hour later: Silbena realises that the setting that she has created for the book allows for no more plot development. Frustrated, she begins brainstorming about ways to fit more plot around the plot she already has. She posts about this on the NaNoWriMo forums, but doesn't actually heed any of the advice anyone there has (oops).

Today: Silbena has an epiphany and decides to write a steampunky mystery-driven adventure novel which is fitted around the romance she created previously.

In other news: YAY AIRSHIPS