It’s been one year since I did the HSC yet it honestly doesn’t feel like it.

My parents say it feels like yesterday when I was anxiously waiting for my UAI and marks in general but honestly, it feels like a very long time since I did the HSC. I look at the news on the HSC students and I don’t actually remember doing the HSC, only bits and pieces of it. I don’t remember how I felt when I got the marks or how I felt when I did the exams. I don’t think I can actually associate with HSC students anymore; it really does seem distant. All I remember is that it was simultaneously the longest and shortest year of my life and that I never want to go through it again. Maybe it’s my minds way of repressing The Moment.

All in all though, I’m a little annoyed at myself for not being able to essentially move beyond the HSC Moment in my life. Seriously though, I’m still talking about it and what subjects I did and how I felt and so forth.

Maybe it’s because I’m Asian and as an Asian, the HSC Moment is one of the Definitive Moments Of Our Lives (as opposed to say, Having Your First Kiss or Buying Your First Car) and as such, will probably never leave me. I should hope this is not the case because I do not have pleasant memories of HSC.

But I digress, I think the actual reason why I can’t seem to move beyond this HSC rut is that I’m surrounded by family and family friends who are getting ready for the HSC and thus, need as much advice as they can get. And because I have just finished, I’m the obvious person they ask.

At first, I loved it. It was an incredible boost to my ego because, shit, I was giving advice and people that were older than me were taking me seriously. After a while it became really tedious as it forced me to relieve the HSC Moment (a moment so important, it needs to be capitalised) over and over again.

Seriously, even parents of children not yet old enough to take the HSC will ask me how to study for it!

But I think what annoyed me the most was that some of them weren’t entirely grateful for the advice; in fact, they’d behave as if I hadn’t told them everything and I was deliberately withholding information from them as to ensure that their own child could not ‘beat’ me academically. Like they’d ask me how to study for English, a subject impossibe to give academic advice for unless its something generic like ‘Read a lot’ or ‘Do Practice Essays’, and when I’m unable to give a satisfactory answer, will look at me like I’ve dishonoured them.

But they were in the minority. The majority were awed by my intelligence and overall, very grateful for the advice. One mother even insisted that we swap contact details so her daughter could email me for advice. If that did not inflate my ego to the size of a hot air balloon I don’t know what will.

But then they’d turn to their children (if they were there at the time) and openly criticise their active social life and decision to take ‘useless’ subjects like Ancient History and why can’t they be more like the ‘Good Daughter’ who doesn’t worry the parents etc etc, leading to highly awkward moments where I have to look away as their child fantasizes about a painful death for me.

So I guess these things are a double-edged sword.

EDIT: I forgot to post this a few days ago so here it is.

So I got my Uni results yesterday and were it not for my ridiculously high standards, I’d be demanding a car from my parents.

But I kid – my parents would never, ever buy me a gift as a result of my academic performance because that should be a result of my desire to do well, not my desire to get stuff.

But seriously though, why is it that every year that I am in, I am always in the ’smart year’. You know, the year that has highly ambitious students in it and thus any result I actually get becomes mediocre as opposed totally fucking awesome due to the elevated average.

Furthermore, why must I pick friends that perform well academically. Oh God for once I want to have the envied marks!? Is that so wrong God, to just, for once, let me have credit where I do not deserve it?

And that’s right I have posted two days simultaneously.

And yes, for once, my post are short and will actually end here.

Lately I’ve been having the strangest dreams and I’m hoping like hell its not my subconscious speaking to me.

Fact. Scientists don’t know why we dream. Is it a result of repressed desires or is it simply our brains reorganising our thoughts while we’re resting?

Or maybe, dreams respond to the stresses of our day to day lives? After the HSC was over, I was still dreaming about being stuck in the classroom, revising for my maths exam. I’d then wake up in a panic before remembering that I had already done the exam. That’s me for you.

Anyway, the dreams I’ve been having lately are about zombies. I haven’t been watching any zombie movies so I don’t really know where this is coming from. In my dreams I’m a young white male in his early 20s and I had met up with 5 other people (still men) and formed a rag-tag group on the run from the zombies that were taking over the country. Somehow, one of our member’s had their leg bitten off by a zombie and was slowly being infected and we were all arguing over what to do with him: should we kill him now to spare him the agony of being turned into a zombie or let him live out of human compassion because there was the off chance he may not turn into a zombie (my dream my rules) but risk having an amputated waste of space drag us down?

See, a couple of things about this scenrio freaks me out. Why does my brain insist on giving me ethical dilemnas while I’m asleep but more importantly, why must it be so morbid as to involved the life of another human being? Furthermore why must it involve zombies when I don’t even like horror movies in the first place? Mind you, it could involved the much scarier option of sparkly vampires. And lastly, why am I male? Is it a response to my somewhat tomboyish personality or something more… stranger? I’m hoping it’s the first option.

Poor Kiribati. For those who’ve been keeping up with world news, you’d know that Kiribati is an island just off the coast of Australia and is a prime example of a country that’s feeling the effects of Climate Change and Global Warming.

You know those movies where the world is going up in smoke due to a variety of reasons (‘2012′, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’ etc) and during the movie there’s always some pretty kick-ass special effects involving water? Yeah, that’s whats going to happen to Kiribati in 50 years time. Except there will be noone to document the real life drama of it because there will be no island left. Also, there will not be a struggling but somewhat suave scientist ready to save the day with his beautiful young family in tow. Cause that stuff only occurs in Hollywood dumbass.

Mind you, if Kiribati was located on top of an Oilfield equivalent to that of the Middle East, negotiations at Copenhagen would suddenly swing in their favour as the mere mention of OPEC and 70s is enough to send shivers down any self-respecting Western Countries’ spine; “What was that America? You enjoyed having hiked up oil prices? Well that seems a bit weird ’cause it caused your whole country to freeze and I didn’t think you needed any other economic problems with what the sub-prime market and all but if you say so…”

And hands up to all those who got THOSE references…

Cue the obligatory ’sorry for not blogging’ nonsense and let’s skip straight to the actual content. At some point I’ll blog about my uni experience (because I do want to do that) but right now I want to get this off my chest.

My father and I are reasonably similar in personalities and in looks and I’ve been told this my whole life. Ever since I was a kid every family relation has pointed out I’m the female version of my father. I just never realised that this applied to my personality as well.

You see, my father and I have a tendency to be fascinated by subjects in which we won’t actually get money from. We both love politics and history and look forward to discussing current events about anything over the dinner table while my mother attempts to break her record for ‘the most no. of eyerolls in one sitting’. We have a ridiculously wide general knowledge that is useful, purely and only for trivia. We read the newspaper on the internet, in our spare time, for fun, which simultaneously makes us the most interesting and dull people you’ll ever meet.

But we can’t earn money from this. What job actually needs someone who can recite, from memory, the first 36 digits of pi? What boss values the Key Worker Skill of Being Able to Discuss China-Taiwan Relations? Can the Worker Attribute of knowing your nation’s history be accurately valued on the Balance Sheet?

Obviously, there are people who have been able to make money out of this. They’re called Political Analysts. They’re called Journalists. They’re called Curators. They’re called Professors. But you have to be one of the best to make a living from it. And that’s like a handful from the thousand’s of wide-eyed Art Students who believe that they can fashion a career from the highly useful Philosophy Major.

So in retrospect, the Art Student is no different from the Jock in your High School who’s convinced he’s the next David Beckham; no matter how many goals he scores for the school team, there will always be somebody better at the State and National Selections.

That’s way to risky for my father and I. That’s why my father stays in the electronics industry and I go rushing into the arms of my Beloved Rebound, Commerce Degree.

Don’t get me wrong though, it’s not as if we’re resentfully stuck in careers that we hate as The Man sucked away our souls; it’s just that we’ve had to compromise a bit. My father loves technology. He spends countless weekends in JB-Hi-Fi looking at items he’ll never purchase and looks up reviews of new technology even if we’re not buying it. He’ll pay good money for time up-to-date items while our 15 year old sofa is falling apart.

The same can be said of me. I signed up for an Accounting Major because the one thing they kept emphasising at Career Seminars was one’s own analytical ability, which I like to think I am highly adept at as I actually enjoy inserting my own commentary into most things.

Once again, I have no idea as to how to end this. I’ve actually been sitting here for the past 15min thinking of a witty way of ending it but seriously nothing’s come up. Well some stuff has but it’s been horribly cheesy and I don’t want to be associated with stuff like that. So here’s an amusing XKCD comic that’s somewhat relevant to this post.

Yes I’m well aware that it has been a while but give me a break. The semester times at UNSW is strange and I’m still adjusting to a new routine. I’ve only just found some time writing this post (read: procrastination).

So obviously, I too will join the horde of bloggers choosing to post about their uni experience. I hope to make it regular so that I can come and review it later when I’m older with a sense of ‘The Good Old Days’ as opposed to ‘Regret that I didn’t Record it Down because I now have some kind of Mental Illness that stops me from remembering the Good Old Days’. (Hopefully, I will not return to old posts with a sense of embarressment as one does when one reviews old journals.)

Anyway, it’s kind of clear that uni was a huge step away from High School and because I mentally prepared for this, I didn’t have the the same adjustment issues like some of my peers, for example, those who were unaware where their rooms were and the kind of workloads expected at uni. I’m also feeling mildly smug at having prepared for the extra workload because now I get to watch other people scrambling to explain to annoyed bosses why they can’t do that extra Sunday shift.

I also got a pretty good deal in terms of my lecturers and tutors, although I have copious amounts of my classmates complain that some were boring. Admittedly, I have a high tolerance for boring activities and so, am not quite used to examining boredom at a realistic level but seriously, it could be worse; you could have a boring AND crap lecturer/ tutor. Furthermore, it is not the lecturer’s or tutor’s reponsibilty to teach you, most don’t have those kinds of qualifications so of course they’re going to be sub par in comparison to our High School teachers.

In order to deal with this boredom, I recommend finding amusement in the little things. For example, in my Accounting lecture, I enjoy listening for the obnoxious mature age entry female student make snobbish comments about how everything is to easy for her and thus embaressing herself. In our first lecture, after successfully answering the lecturer’s question, she proceeded to give a long, unneccessary explanation about why she chose acccounting and how she used to do accounting much to the discomfort of the lecturer who clearly wanted her to shut up.

Additionally, to solve the travel issue that I am forced to endure (as I have to catch the South Line and catch the bus), I like to watch drivers in the morning and afternoon behave recklessly, that is, watching trucks turning left in front of the bus when they are three lanes away from the appropriate exiting lane (and also having passed said appropriate lane). However, I still haven’t gotten over the overall appalling state that cityrail keeps its trains maintained (they’re disgusting and lack airconditioning) and its timetables (if I miss my train DURING PEAK HOUR, I have to wait 20minutes for the next one).

There’s also the issue with the rate of which the material is being taught. Since I have done Eco and Legal at school, I’m having no issues with my Eco and Legal class right now though despite having done reasonably well in Maths Ext 1 in school, I do want to metaphorically stab QMA in the face.

And as my final point, I naturally have to make some kind of comment about the weight of my textbooks as I am an only child who according to my friends (and mother) has recieved the ‘Princess Treatment’ her whole life, although I have quickly gotten used to the weight (BTW, if you’re reading this, thanks Li for always offering to carry my stuff.)

I have a lot of posts that I want to write about and I do have plans to do them at some point. It’s just that I have met my downloading quota and so, going to new sites confuses my internet connection which results in my computer freezing.

Ok, so the post I want to do now is about tutoring and for many, many Asians, this would no doubtedly bring back painful memories of Chinese/Vietnamese classes, pre-selective tutoring and pre-HSC tutoring from Pre-Uni, James An or if you’re from Hurlstone, Dr. Truong.

I have also joined the ranks of being a tutor and like most people, largely for the reason that it is essentially easy money. However, unlike my peers, it’s not private tutoring for HSC students but instead I was hired by my old tutoring centre to teach small children, that is, Yr 1 and Yr2.

That’s right, after years of complaining about tutoring and doing every thing I could to avoid it, I am now inflicting myself onto small children in order to earn some money despite believing that Yr1 and 2 are far too early to actually be tutored and would never do this to my own children. And yes, that is my morals being flushed down the drain.

However, I have been learning from this job as a tutor and have a much more deepened understanding of education.

From this experience, I am more confident that education really is the only factor that will influence you as a person and that a teacher who pays a little more attention to you can really make a difference.

I have also been overwhelmed with two emotions: a sense of appreciation for my old high school teachers from the sheer amount of work, marking and effort involved in my own education and allowing me to be where I am today; and a sense of arrogance that they, unlike me, were dealing with high-schoolers with attention spans longer than peas who could be controlled with reasoning and threats as opposed to being bribed with food. (This does not include my Legal Studies class in which the teacher essentially brought us food every week).

This arrogance of course, does not extend to my primary school teachers who were in the same position as me and thus, still have my respect. Except for my OC teacher who was an ass and had never had my respect in the first place and from this experience, I have been forced to conclude that he is still, an ass, because he is an incompetent moron who was too blind to realise that Primary school children should not be learning Advanced Algebra but just wanted to suck up to the Principal.

Lastly, I’m a little embaressed at my audacity to consider a career in teaching in the event that my UAI was too low given the fact that I am physically exhausted after a three hour session with the little brats. It is clear that I do not have the capabilites of being a teacher and that I should just stick with easier tasks like completing a Commerce degree.

Holy crap, applying for UNSW was hard. I thought everyone was exagerrating when they said trying to get a timetable was stressful but clearly they weren’t. First of all, I couldn’t log in because the cookies in my system prevented me from doing so but since I was unaware of this, I managed to lock myself out of my account twice (the second time due to unreliable information given to me by the first woman).

Then my internet connection died on me halfway so I had to wait till Tuesday to call Student Central to see if this effected my application (it didn’t thank God). I managed to finish my application and decided to wait until later to enrol (I don’t want to enrol in a subject that had nothign to do with my subject) however, I was warned that many people would take up the popular classes first.

And because this is Vivien, naturally, I have a slightly awkward timetable because ‘Legal Environment in Commerce’ is surprisingly popular. I was unable to get a nice timetable’s like Maggie’s as I had applied for a timetable way too late but it’s still pretty good; I mean, I have no night classes and any night classes would drive my mum to an early grave from worry. But nevertheless it’s pretty decent.

Tim also had multiple problems and even went to BoredofStudies.com to ask for help on the forums. However, he was merely laughed at and mocked, with other members noting that the University Application Process should be a mandatory test to eliminate the stupid, incompetent people.

BTW, my degree is Bachelor of Commerce. I’d like to know what other degrees people got

I actually don’t have a post ready for today so I thought I’d just explain to you how my mind works.

I’ve been told by a lot of people that I’ve got a natural knack for remembering trivia and for being able to socially regurgitate them when required.

When somebody brings up a topic, my brain does this automatic search for topics that I might know about in order of most relevant and most fitting so that I can contribute to the conversation and so I have this tendency to blurt out offensive or irrelevant topics. You know when you google something, it brings back sites that are kind of relevant to your needs and then orders them to how well they fit your descriptions? My brain behaves in a similar manner.

Also, I have a nasty habit of taking things literally, if I’m not concetrating on the conversation. For example, at Morgan’s party, she asked me if the cake her mum had baked was the best I’d ever had. My brain then subconsciously formed a list of all the tasty cakes I’ve ever eaten and mentally placed ‘Morgan’s cake’ at like third. And so, because ‘Morgan’s cake’ was not the ‘best’ I’d ever had, I then replied with a blunt no.

Talk about awkward.

I don’t think I write enough for people to actually care but it has been a while since my last post. Perhaps the TimSun Post Syndrome is more infectious than I thought. However, as today is an important symbolic stepping stone in my life, I felt it warrants a post, albeit a relatively short one.

Today I recieved my HSC Certificate in the mail, certifying that I, Vivien Tran, have officially finished my high school education. It contained an award, a piece of paper detailing the subjects I have completed and more paper for each HSC subject that I completed. Nothing exciting but this is the last documents I will ever recieve that is High-School Related. From now on, it’ll just be University Related documents and as anti-climatic as today is, it’s still an important stepping stone in my life that I have completed.

“You’re growing up now…” said my mum sadly.

“You’re not going to be cute anymore.”