I've always identified myself as a school-lover - I was never really a full-out studier, or one who did nothing but school work, but I LOVED LEARNING. Or thought I did...
This past semester has made me re-evaluate that self-description a lot, because, to be perfectly honest, I haven't felt nearly as inspired by my courses in this institute of higher learning as I had hoped I would.
I'm pretty sure that this is largely due to the facts that university is much harder than I had thought it would be (duh, right?), and that there is no one affirming your "brilliance" every step of the way in these classes filled with hundreds of intelligent students.
This isn't to say that I've had no moments of academic enlightenment, wherein I felt supreme inspiration and excitement for a particular subject, no, it's just that these feelings haven't been quite as frequent as I had rather naïvely assumed they would be. At times, I've felt like quitting; I've been wondering what the point is of my being here at all. Yes, McGill is lovely, Montréal is beautiful, I'm surrounded by amazing friends and am having fantastic experiences, but... I'm here not just for all these wonderful things, but also, and primarily I suppose, to gain an education of some sort. And I just haven't been feeling it.
(Though, I am still in my first semester, so no worries, I know that this meagre amount of experience doesn't exactly provide enough evidence to cause me to jump ship!)
Nonetheless, it's been discouraging.
But here's where the renewal of hope comes in; there's two parts.
Part 1
After talking with my uncle, who's a professor in educational psychology, I've become more and more interested in the fields of educational and social psychology. So today, on the advice of one of my residence dons, I visited a social psych prof because I thought his work sounded interesting, and wanted to speak with him in person. Unfortunately, he had had to end his office hours early for the day, as he was heading to teach a class, so I intercepted him just as he was leaving. Fortunately, on the other hand, this gave me the chance to simply chat with him as he walked down the hill.
He wore a long, rough brown leather overcoat, a hat that looked like it belonged to a lone ranger, and puffed up a storm on his cigarette as we moseyed down the street. He spoke like a lone ranger too - a cross between that and a private detective. There was quite the air of old-school tenacity and intelligence about him; "Come see me next week", he said, and so indeed I shall. I hope he becomes even more interesting the longer we talk...
Part 2
After that delightful encounter, I decided to finally check out the Islamic Studies Library, and is it ever a GEM! Pure intellectual beauty, a marvel! all right here in one innocent-looking building. I'm sitting here right now in fact, albeit in a study carrel reserved for an unknown graduate student.
"We ask that you please be ready to move elsewhere should the student to whom [this study carrel] is assigned need to use it."
I hope the graduate student doesn't show up anytime soon, because this study carrel is an academic inspiration.
Though thank goodness, there are other tables at which to work which are not graduate-student-assigned. So, I will definitely be back.
The woodwork, the tiling, the shelves and shelves of books in languages I don't understand.... Ah. This library is so silent too. One of those places with the perfect mixture of inspiring and thought-provoking gorgeousness and silence that makes one feel they simply must take part in intellectual pursuits. It makes me feel that I should do something important and innovative just because I'm here. Sitting in a graduate student carrel also inspires me to work, because if I were just on Facebook or browsing the internet, then surely someone would walk by, see, point, and cry out, "SHE can't possibly be the graduate student to whom this study carrel is assigned! She's wasting her time on a non-academic pursuits such as Facebook and looking up Harry Potter memes!" (Which is, of course, something a student in grad school would never dream of doing. ...)
Although I suppose all of this is somewhat ironic, considering the fact that I'm currently blogging... But hey, it could be worse. And you should've seen how productive I was JUST being!
Anyhow, these past two experiences, particularly the time spent in this library, have given me a little injection of hope - perhaps learning could be riveting and wonderful once more.
Let's just hope that this renewal of inspiration is enough to get me through final exams.
