Anyway, I decided that I’m really, really sick of school (oh god, I’ve been in university since 2006 – I’m going into my sixth year, guys, and I’m a bloody undergrad) so I’m like fuck it and I’m just going to finish my chem degree and skedaddle. No more cs classes – I’m just taking my minor (instead of double majoring) and running. It’s not like I want to be a programmer anyway. And I can always go back in a few years and finish off the seven-ish cs courses I need for that degree. Or I could move to Toronto or Vancouver (or win the lottery and move to Savannah) and get a degree in art. Like I should have in the first place.

Seriously, degree in chemistry? Stupidest decision ever. I should have just worked for a few years (cuz teenage!me would never have been able to handle art school – also, she sucked at art) and then applied to Sheridan or something. Oh well – it’s not like my degree is useless or anything. A background in science is probably a good thing for a sci-fi writer to have, right? And, hey, I can try and get a job with the RCMP’s crime lab or something. Solving crime with science! tends to be one of my favourite genres after all.

So, yeah, I have, like, 20 more credits and then I can graduate. I think I’m going to end my four year streak of nothing but science and math (apart from one fine art class) and take some arts courses. Some nice, relaxing history courses will do me good. Or at least prevent me from going even more insane and self destructive.

Anyway, that’s the end of my boring rl post. Fandom posting will continue with greater regularity – I am, after all, completely unemployed and in the mood for drawing fanart and writing fic. Or just rewatching Rizzoli & Isles.

Recently, I received a letter from the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Regina, Dr Vianne Timmons, and I would like to inquire as to the reasoning behind mailing it to my house.  To refresh you memory as to the contents of this letter, I have included a copy of the letter with the relevant section highlighted.

What I wish to know is why so much time, paper and money – the money I spend every semester on tuition – was spent on sending this letter to me, and presumably all 12 000 plus students currently enrolled at the U of R, informing us that we are going to receive an email.  Forgive me if I am mistaken, but is not the purpose of email to eliminate paper mail, as paper mail is an inferior method of communication?  Not only does it take days to arrive, instead of near instantaneously, but the the damage done to the environment is not insubstantial when mailing out such a large amount of letters.  As for the monetary costs, the charge per user for a standard Novell Groupwise license is approximately $1.40 – over $18 000 a year.  While I am aware that, as an academic institution, the University of Regina undoubtedly receives a reasonably large discount, the amount spent per year on email accounts is staggering.  So why, pray tell, are we paying twice for the same message?

This is not the first time I have received paper communications informing me that I will be receiving electronic messages from this institution, but I do hope that it will be the last.

Sincerely,

Nikki L. Wirtz
Fifth Year Chemistry and Computer Science student

Anyhow, classes start up again on Tuesday and that always prompts a bit of melancholy-esque reflections for me.  Yes, I tend to reflect on my life/year right before the fall semester.  Yes, that’s bloody insane, I know.  New Years has no import to me – the beginning of the fall semester is actually the beginning of my new year.  It’s strange, but I have always felt that way.  (My birthday, for those interested, occurred just after the end of the school year up until I started university, which ends before May, and, thus, my birthday now ends up near the middle of the break.)

This year could have been the last year in which I have a proper end and beginning.  While my credit count says that I’m entering my second semester of my third year, I have enrolled in eight semesters – four years.  No, I am not entering my ‘fifth’ year of study – I’m entering my fourth.  No, I didn’t take three or four classes in the fall/winter semesters and picked up the slack in the summer.  I’m a co-op student; when I worked, I was gaining credits.  Well, one credit a work term.  (A completely useless number – the U of R uses the three-credits-per-class system (since there are three lecture hours a week per class) and there are four work terms required.  I’m going to end up graduating with a minimum of one extra credit.)  So, needless to say, if I had just gone off to acquire a standard B.Sc., I would be out in the work world in eight short months.

Cue panic.

I’ve been in school since I was five – sixteen years – and I’ve never been someone who hated school.  On the contrary, I love it.  I love learning things and I doubt that will ever change.  Entering the work world is something I desperately do not wish to do – yes, I’ll be making far more money than I am now and, yes, that is what everyone is supposed to do with their lives.  But, well, I really do not wish to.  Working holds no great appeal to me beyond being a way to acquire money.  And I love money, don’t get me wrong, and I hoard it and protect it and take great lengths to ensure that I’ll never be without it.  Yet, at the same time, I’d be perfectly content to be practically destitute but attending classes and learning.  (In a paradoxical relationship, I could not be a starving artist.  Don’t ask me to explain – I don’t understand it either.)

Leaving school and working terrifies me.  Not because I’m too chickenshit to move out and get on with my life (I have already proved myself capable of doing so what with my third of a year spent working in Winnipeg) but because I’m terrified shitless of starting work and never going back to school to gain the degrees I so desperately want in history, fine art and, yes, even though undergrad English bores me, English lit.

In short, I feel like leaving school is the end of my life, not the beginning.  And that is a ridiculous concept and idea to entertain at 21 years of age.

Ah well.

I still have, at minimum, three more semesters of school left.  And, what with my chasing after two degrees at once, I’m not even sure when I will graduate.

And that, needless to say, pleases me.

Tomorrow?

Tomorrow I buy notebooks and school supplies and relish the fact that this isn’t the last time I do so.