As I mentioned previously, I will be starting university in two days.
Of course I hope there will be work-life balance. Common sense tells me that as long as I manage my time decently, I should have time to pursue interests other than studies. After all, many students work part-time, participate in extracurricular activities, maintain boy-girl relationships (before I get lynched, let me amend that: "maintain romantic relationships regardless of whether it be between members of the same or opposite gender, or individuals of nonspecific gender, or any other human being not covered by the above categories"), and still graduate with Honours.
But the online horror stories are difficult to ignore. I worry about staying up till the wee hours every day, struggling to keep up with the myriad of readings, tutorials, assignments, and test preparation, skipping meals and surviving on stale air and my own tears. Am I just overthinking and being dramatic?
One thing is for certain: this first semester will be an uphill battle. Before writing this post, I read a 24-page chapter from Cruz-Ferreira and Abraham (2011) which is the required reading for Week 1 of the module EL1101E: The Nature of Language. To be honest, it was an easy read compared to some of the psychology readings I have done in the past, but I felt like poking my eyes out with a fork.
The problem is that I have been away from the full-time academic life for about a year now. Last September, I went on a full-time internship, after which I did my Major Project before graduating in May this year. The last time I did five or six modules in an academic semester was in the April 2016 polytechnic semester, which was a lifetime ago.
So frankly my skills for coping with academic readings and other tasks have gone a little rusty. They will return but it will take a while, during which I will probably struggle.
With this in mind, I have prepared a series of blog posts in advance which are now sitting in the system awaiting automatic publishing. I will not let this blog go dark. Even if I have no time to write new content, the ones in storage should be able to last until my next holiday in December at a posting frequency of about once or twice a month.
To the handful of followers I do have, thanks for supporting and reading my stuff, and this announcement is mainly for you. The next few posts you see here, in the months of August, September, October, and November, are scheduled posts UNLESS they are preceded by a statement to the contrary. Nevertheless, they are written exactly the same way and I hope you will continue to enjoy them.
See you on the other side.
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