How To Fail University
How to fail university
First of all, attend a university, which you are most certainly not fond of. Work really hard but not as much as you see fit, instead push as hard as expectations require, and burn out. Once you're incapable of doing anything further, it won't be hard to fail enough tests to fail several subjects. I know you're smart enough to get to the exams, even if you were a total mess when you had tests. Once you're miraculously facing a couple of exams (it's wondrous because you haven't yet failed by merely the tests), make sure you're extremely busy with unrelated business and when it comes to the very week of the exams, procrastinate! More than ever in your life! More than altogether in your life! Then, when you've done enough procrastination and that voice in your head is shouting, that you should study, do some studying but pay attention to do it very skin-deeply. Okay, you're at the exam and you've completed an utterly half-ass process of learning, a.k.a no learning at all, you can be at ease, for there's a fair chance, that you'll fail. Every single subject. One by one.
There you have it, my secret recipe for failing uni.
This is an ironic approach of telling my story at how I've performed so far. OK, maybe the end was just a predection, but a very realistic one. My point is not to gain some of yourvaluablepity, and definetely not to set up an example. Well it is in fact an example but not one to follow.
What I'm trying to say with this excessive and rather sarcastic post is hidden in the very first sentence. Do not EVER give in to reasons, that lack the consideration of YOU. Every single person is unique and has a life, that has the potential to be full. However, this diversity naturally implies the pointlessness of schemes. We can't live by the guidance of movie-themes or advices of people we look up to (or sometimes ones, that we don't even look up to). We have to find our own way. And the path, that we'll follow, will eventually determine, whether we arrive at our destination or not.
Our primary aspects of considering careers are its profitability and the likelihood of being employed. But these won't make our lives worth living. Either we accept it, or not, the truth is, that we spend a major part of our days in the little boxes we call workplaces. And it matters enermously if it's right for us. And not in a sense of us being able to provide our family with everything. Our profession has to make us happy. As St. Augustine said "Love and do what you will.".
My conclusion will be hard for some of you to swallow but please bear with me. The Bible says, that we shouldn't worry about our needs for they will be fulfilled be the Divine Providence of God. And this is what makes me calm while I rerender my plan for the future. My faith gives me confidence to say all this. This is why I'm not afraid to say, that there's a certain destination I aim for. This is why I'm on the side, that says you can bravely follow your dreams. Because when you're convinced, that your dreams are justified by the Great Maker, you fear not what is yet to be faced.
More Posts from Bernatk and Others
I read Bram Stoker's Dracula right after changing the course of my studies. From a fine university I went to another brilliant one. Everything around me seemed to take new shape and I had to learn new customs. In this phase, when my brain was forced to let fresh things pass, I found myself absorbed in this piece of literature, which I had been meaning to read for quite some time then. And so it was, I read it and found it interesting and original. On the contrary, I felt it wasn't a perfect match for me, since it was set in and meant to be understood in another era.
Time passed and I concealed my Dracula experience in the back of my head. This period, however, came to an end, when, yesterday night, I stumbled upon Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992), and I couldn't resist, so I watched it.
The cast is near perfect, Keanu Reeves being probably the only odd one out, since he looked way too young and inexperienced to take on the role of Jonathan Harker. But all in all, Gary Oldman (Dracula), Winona Ryder (Mina Harker) and Anthony Hopkins (van Helsing), acted so stupendously, that left me breathless at certain points of the film. The directing was also terrific--of course, what else could we anticipate seeing Coppola's name on the credit roll.
Before saying anything I must remark, that I'm a huge supporter of book adaptations, so I had a very positive attitude towards the movie beforehand. At the very end of the film, it sadly turned into bitter disappointment. But remember, I write this, having established, that it was almost perfectly made.
Dracula's original story operates with stereotypical characters and countless elements brought in from superstition--not strictly, just in comparison with contemporary ways. The story has its twists and mysteries but those aren't as shocking and sudden as it would be expected from a current book. It begins with a solicitor, Harker's visit at castle Dracula and an encounter with the monster, Dracula. From here the count goes to London, seeking new lands to hunt humans. Harker's fiance, Mina is staying at her friend's place, at the same time. This friend, Lucy, has a habit of sleepwalking. When Dracula arrives to England, she, conveniently, happens to be the easiest target. The count feeds on her regularly, killing her little by little, until it gets too suspicious and Lucy's noble admirers, joined by professor Abraham van Helsing, unite to discover what torments the woman. They come to a right conclusion eventually but then it's too late and Lucy's transformed into a hellish creature, so they are forced to kill her, in order to grant her eternal rest and avoidance of godly condemnation. The fellowship decides to hunt the original vampire down and through Mina they get acquinted with Harker, who just returned, having scarcely survived his stay at the count's castle but is now resolute to bring down destruction upon the demonic creature. Dracula, moving on from Lucy, also turns Mina into a vampire, or comes really close to it, and then the men (and Mina) enter into a tight chase him and kill him.
In Stoker's novel, Dracula is a very instinct-driven killer. He only seeks base things and is not a bit a human. We don't get to see his backstory’s smaller details, only that he used to be an important and extraordinary man, then, at some point, he attended the Scholomance and has been like this ever since, only growing greater in his abilities. The only thing he engages in, apart from killing and turning people into vampires, is experimenting with ways to become more efficient at his other pursuit. Stoker wrote him as someone, who is led by evil and nothing else.
Dracula has one equal: van Helsing, who is almost identical to him, with the crucial difference of being motivated by good--by christian ideas in this story, mixed with superstition.
The movie tried to remain true to the source material in regards of the plot and interfered where intellectually a renovation seemed due. For example Coppola kept the means, by which the mourners of Lucy hunted the count but fundamentally changed the motives of Dracula. He tried to give sense to the character and so came up with the idea, that it would be of bigger service to the plot if the count was led by romantic feelings. It is supposed to give depth and seriousness to the drama. However, it works only if we fail to understand Stoker's original intents or if we are reluctant.
In the movie the count is fueled by grief and longing, after his dead wife, tragically killed hundreds of years ago. This event is where the movie’s Dracula experiences his extreme disappointment in the church and turns to other sources. The director takes it even further: Mina is somehow the reincarnation of Dracula's dead wife--this is very explicit, since she has actual memories from her past life. They both recognize each other and are gravitated to each other, even so, love each other honestly.
The movie has another important aspect: All of the good characters are humanized. The screenwriter threw away the naive figures and applied contemporary materialist tools to repaint them.
Coppola took the good characters and made them as bad as any other man and took the evil one and made him as good as any other. But what are the vampire hunters without a high ground? Dracula, in the other hand, has a morose reason behind all his evil-doings and is thus legitimized, made the victim of the story.
Stoker painted a picture, that was clearly white and black and then came Coppola, saying 'Hey dude, life's more complicated, than that'. Of course life is more complicated, than that but Stoker had an entirely different meaning. In his story: There is a transcendent world, there are transcendent values. In Coppola's vision, what we get is very grounded: we all are the same (not equal but identical!), regardless from the appearances, and the idea that everyone faces something after they're dead is as old as Stoker's vampire, and just as much an entertaining element of folklore but nothing more.
The movie denied the concept of good and bad. It rationalized that if we were Dracula, we'd probably end up doing things that could be deemed wrong, yet we would be as valiant as humans ever were. This is not necessarily killing or whatnot but we wouldn't be perfect if our lives weren't perfect. Dracula was demonic but with a certain justification. He had to be killed, of course, but it was tragic, in contrast with Stoker's ending of the story, where it was a relief.
Originally I liked Dracula's story because everything the characters did, even when they killed the abominations created by the count, or the count himself, served other purposes, than to increase the spectacle of the story. The hunters freed souls and granted them such things, that were impossible for the victims to attain on earth any more but existed nonetheless. Stoker believed in morals that aren't based solely on practicality but on a grand concept, that there exists the metaphysical and good above the world we know--that there exists God.
How have we got here?
A guy sat next to me in Maths class and we discussed how he ended up at studying to be a mechanical engineer. His conclusion was: "This career is chosen by many errant people." He originally planned to be a psychologist just couldn't get into the uni. I didn't even try any other institution apart from this one. We're both a little lost here but only for the moment.
I hope I'll have something closer to my heart to do in the next semester :)
I don’t want you to die. Roy. Don’t kill him. Let him live. Let him live. Don’t kill him. Roy? Promise? And don’t cross your fingers.
I think the original poster is a great piece, very artistic and can't be equaled. All that said, these pictures are beautiful mementos and give back a lot with much grace.
Dare you to move
"Everybody waits for you now. What happens next? Yeah, what happens next? I dare you to move ... Like today never happened before." sings Jon Foreman. Dare you to move was and probably still is a great hit but there's more to it, than just radically high sales.
There are neccesarily times, when we're on the floor, or just struggling to find our way. This is how we live. Searching for the right thing to do. But what do we do in these times? I believe there's nothing we could possibly achieve on our own, we need someone to dare us to move. That first step, with which every journey begins, is the one, that we are incapable of making.
I've been all about surviving lately. I worked hard, so that I wouldn't fail on tests, I never went out with friends, so that I could save time, I relaxed only on one day of the week, I've even neglected my meals. My one and only goal was to last until the big romantic turn, which I've been waiting for for ages now, would come.
Turns out, this was a very futile attitude because now, after months of merely enduring, I'm left with no success. I was hoping to get a literary agent, or an editor, or something to get published. Actually, I was quite confident about it. I know my novel is good, and I believe it's the best I could do, or even beyond that. But it just didn't happen. Those, who replied, were sadly giving negative answers. I've kept my hope, saying I have like four more answers to come, one of those will surely be a contract offer. But it's been a long time now and yet, the mails have stopped to come.
What do I do now? This is what I kept asking myself in the past couple of days. My studies are at the lowest level, which suffices for staying in. My book most seemingly is not very good at selling itself. There is no miraculous benefactor, who would support my career as anything.
I've been thinking, maybe I should really concentrate on my current studies and get a diploma as an engineer - it pays well. But then, I want to be more than that. Free. Of course I'm not getting a degree in philosophy, or arts but still... Something else. I'd love to keep working on my book and write new ones. I want to travel, make acquintances, act memorably, and always remain myself. I just have absolutely no idea how to do all these without making sacrifices I wouldn't wanna. Naturally, I'm ready to give up things but I was referring to relationships I'm not willing to damage.
And suddenly, just now, I see clearly, that there's so much potential. So many things I used to believe in just a couple months ago. Why is my faith in them fading? I'm at the contradiction line. If I make one more step in the direction of this surviving-lifestyle, I'm done, I'm going against everything I am and want to be. Here's the trick: I have the motivation. There's someone, who says: I dare you to move. He picks me up, He's doing it even right now. Despite how I see my present state, I know there'll be deliverance, so I aim for that. If I'm true to my beliefs, to my past decisions, there's always redemption and restoration. I can't wait for tomorrow to begin :)
Man has not a single right which is the product of anything but might. Not a single right is indestructible: a new might can at any time abolish it, hence, man possesses not a single permanent right.
Mark Twain
Diving Head First
What I want this post to be is a reminder for later times.
"6 Be determined and confident, for you will be the leader of these people as they occupy this land which I promised their ancestors. 7 Just be determined, be confident; and make sure that you obey the whole Law that my servant Moses gave you. Do not neglect any part of it and you will succeed wherever you go. 8 Be sure that the book of the Law is always read in your worship. Study it day and night, and make sure that you obey everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Remember that I have commanded you to be determined and confident! Do not be afraid or discouraged, for I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go."" Joshua 1:6-9 GNT
I am standing up now and doing what my tasks are. I will keep on writing but with determination and confidence. I will also study and think as well as I can. I will run as fast as I can, do as many things as possible.
I do realize that the quoted scripture is not a promise given to me. It teaches the right mindset: when I see my mission, I have to be determined and confident. (I also realize that a mission can only be something through which I glorify the Lord and something that's focus is Jesus. Although it is not limited to the explicit forms of worship; it may take the form of art, for example (see also: Switchfoot))
It is highlighted even in the scripture above but it's also said beautifully as follows:
" 8 Physical exercise has some value, but spiritual exercise is valuable in every way, because it promises life both for the present and for the future. 9 This is a true saying, to be completely accepted and believed. 10 We struggle and work hard, because we have placed our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all and especially of those who believe." 1 Timothy 4:8-10 GNT
It is the spiritual ground, where I must be standing firm before anything else and only from there can I move out to do anything.
So let this day be remembered and may purity, love and humility toward God be the things marking the way.
I mostly write. Read at your leisure but remember that my posts are usually produced half-asleep and if you confront me for anything that came from me I will be surprisingly fierce and unforeseeably collected. Although I hope we will agree and you will have a good time.
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