It’s strange to acknowledge that three eighths of my time as an undergraduate university student has come to a close.
Yeah, it doesn’t really have the same ring as the first two times I said it…
If you’ve read A Recap of my First Semester in UCC or A Recap of my Second Semester in UCC, you’ll know that I had a pretty good first year. You’ll also know I am too lazy to create a new format for these posts. I mean, obviously this is just good UX design – repetition and branding and all the sorts… just another example of my mastery of DH…
Very Serious Student btw.
Anyway, I won’t give you too much to read this time around. I know I’ve read way too much this semester. My eyes are in pain. It’s been a long semester, anyone who said second year was much harder was indubitably right and I hate them for that.
Summer was simultaneously frustratingly long and morosely short. I had changed as a person significantly since the last time I was in university, and I wasn’t really stressed. I was coming into second year with a 1.1 to my name and a fire inside to continue that streak. Plus, I had just come back from Morocco and I was working all summer so I really was just happy to get back to the ordinary academia life.
Our lectures were actually quite different from last year, while keeping the general core DH vibe. I was excited for Serious Games, studying and developing games has been a dream of mine since I was fifteen, so even coming close to that is a win in my books. I had to change my philosophy module for both semesters, which was just a treat… Regardless, it was great to see my friends again and laugh at the fact most of us were going to be cooked in about two months.
Time is an illusion that helps things make sense.
Autumn has this strange quality to push new beginnings into the background and let the past become the focus of the present. There is something in those October winds that do nothing but invoke nostalgia, but that’s neither here nor there. I’m not getting paid enough for this to start flexing my surface-level worldviews. Just kidding, I’m just going to be extremely subtle about it!
So subtle.
This time around, no fancy balls to attend, no flowers to give, just the kind of experiences that only a master of their craft could write about and make interesting. Alas, I am but a mediocre writer at best, so I think I’ll just stick to talking about how little there was to do. Being on a society committee is an interesting experience. Working on campus is brilliant. Exams and assignments went pretty well, all things considered. I hope…
This semester has refined my strengths and given me ample opportunity to learn and change, so I am grateful for that. I feel sharper, with the kind of academic confidence that comes from knowing your potential and having the drive to not squander it. I am tired in the best of ways, satisfied with how it’s all unfolded. I leave 2024 better than I came into it in a million ways, and I recognise that 2025 will see the fruits of my labour more than anything.
This is my favourite part of these posts: The Playlist. You know the rules. Five and only five songs describing or carrying the semester.
And just for good measure, here is my quote for semester 3:
One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
– Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
As always, free Palestine, free Sudan, free Congo. Hopefully I remember to post on here before the end of the next semester? Eh, probably not.
