Anna Karenina

In span of the last two and a half months of commuting to and from school on the bus I have managed to read the great Russian novel, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, in its entirety.

How is that Anna Karenina became my “bus” book?  Well at the beginning of the January I discovered the Kindle App for my iPhone.  I ended up downloading a bunch of the “classics” that Amazon was offering for free and Anna Karenina was one of them.  I had heard of mention of the book but to be honest I didn’t know much about the plot line.

Believe it or not Anna Karenina was the perfect “bus” book.  The story has no real climax or peaks.  This made it great to read on the bus because you could easily start and stop reading without feeling like you were yearning to find out what happens next and without really needing to have what already happened fresh in your mind.  Another thing is that it carries on for 1170 pages in more or less the same tone and pace.  This is why most people find it difficult to finish because they get bored.  So the fact that I would read it half hour snippets twice a day made it manageable.

I don’t really want to do a full summary of the book.  This isn’t a school book report.  Instead I’m just going to make a few comments.

Never have I been glad when one of the main characters in a novel commits suicide.  That is never, until I read this one.  Anna, for whom the book is named, kills herself near the end.  I am slightly ashamed to admit it but I was overwhelmingly relieved when she died.  She was annoying me to no end.  After leaving her husband for her lover Vronsky she totally changed.  She gradually became completely insecure, bitter, and mean.  Her insecurity got to the point where she started to cause fights because she doubted Vronsky’s love for her.  It was ridiculous because it was so obvious that he loved her more than anything.  He gave up everything to be with her.  He even shot himself once when she had broken it off with him earlier in the book because he was so in love that he didn’t want to live without her.

One of the things I liked about this book was that it followed the lives of many characters.  I really enjoy books where the lives of many characters are intertwined and the story is told from various points of view. My favourite couple in this book was Levin and Kitty.  I was rooting for them from the beginning.

I think that is all I have to say about Anna Karenina.  I’m glad I read it.  Now I have to find a new “bus” book.

Time

Time is such an interesting concept.  60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year…  It goes on and on.

I find it particularly fascinating different peoples’ views of time.  Our views of time have been distorted by common phrases that have crept into our daily speech like “Yeah sure I got a minute” or “Oh just wait two seconds.”  When we say things like that we don’t meant that we literally have only one minute and two seconds is nearly the amount of time it takes to say wait two seconds.

I believe that if a person deems something important enough then they will find the time to do that thing. 

Taking two students in the same program in University as example.  Theoretically they have the same amount of work to complete.  Yet student #1 is able to do their course work, hold a part time job, play on an intramural soccer team and participate in two volunteer clubs, while student #2 only does their course work.

Why is that one student is able to participate in so many activities while the other only has time to do their course work? Well it all comes down to the mindset.  Student #1 believes they can do their work and all the extra stuff so they do.  Student #2 is stunted by not believing in their ability to manage doing more than their course work.

So really if you think about it time is kind of relative.

Now to get personal... This semester, I was looking forward to “easy” semester as I only have three real courses – the other two consist of a mini-internship (8 hours/week at the NAFTA Office of Mexico in Canada) and a French proficiency course that consists of a written and an oral final exam. 

During January and February this idea held up.  I had next to no work to do for my three classes and I filled my “extra” time with reading books, watching movies, and taking fun trips.

*Side note: I still need to post about my Reading Break travels.  I will hopefully do that within the next week or two.

When March arrived I felt like I was bitch-slapped back to reality.  “Hey you, you’re in University! University is no cake-walk!”  In the last three weeks I feel like I haven’t stopped having work to do and deadlines to meet.  It was just one thing after the other and to top it all off in the middle of those three weeks I got sick for about a week.

Part of what has made March so difficult was that my time-management skills got a little rusty over the previous months.  Since I had had a plethora of time it didn’t when I did this or that or how long it took.  Now it feels like I have no time to do anything.  Oh you finished that assignment, ok now it’s time to prepare a presentation.  Oh your presentation is done, ok now you have to write your part of that group project and studying for that quiz/midterm.

Man it is stressing me out just thinking about it.

Stress + Me = Bad news.  I have never handled stress very well.  Some of you may find this surprising.  I’m do fine in stressful/high-pressure situations but if the stress causing thing last longer than a few hours or days I freak out.  My capacity to think coherently goes out the window.  Talk about an extremely annoying side-effect to stress when the stressor is an essay or report, which requires you to be able to process your thoughts and transfer them efficiently to paper.  Also when I can’t think coherently I usually resort to shut off my brain by doing something mindless, thus procrastinating, wasting time and stressing myself out further.  Like I said, bad news.

When it comes to academic writing I wish I possessed the skill of “bull-shitting.”  It would reduce my stress ten-fold since I would be able to complete my writing assignments in a fraction of the time.   As it is I spend way too much time trying to completely understand every aspect of every thing to do with what I have to write about.  This usually results me getting locked up inside my own head.  I may be able to figure it out in my head but I struggle to then transfer my thoughts from my head to the paper or computer.

I think I’m going to stop my rant there because I don’t really have time to continue.  I have to get back to my work.  I have 20 hours to prepare for my midterm/quiz in International Marketing and write my part of a group project on RIM vs Apple.

I just wanted to get these thoughts out of my head so I would have less to distract me.  Plus I’ve been feeling guilty for not finding the time post an update in the last three weeks.  Well now I’ve updated I can feel guilt free and get back to my work.  You’ll be hearing from me again soon... Probably.

My Future is Bright-on!

Today I received some excellent news... I will be completing the final semester of my undergrad at the University of Brighton!!!  England was my first choice so I am super excited!

I have opted to take the Fall semester of 2012 off school to work and save up before going on exchange so I won't be going to England until 2013.  That is what I did before my exchange to Sweden and it worked out splendidly.  The only downside is that I won't officially graduate until October 2013.

An interesting fact about the semester in Brighton is that it runs from February until June, which means I will be able to experience three seasons while I am there - end of Winter, Spring and the beginning of Summer.  Another cool thing is I get a 3 week break in the middle of the semester.  Talk about the perfect time to travel!

This afternoon I was unable to concentrate on my current schoolwork despite my best efforts.  Ok actually I didn't try very hard.  Anyways, I set to work searching the internet for videos and pictures of Brighton to gather a sense of what my next exchange is going to be like.  I found a really cool artistic video and another youtube video that I posted below.  Watch them and join in my excitement!

So far I've had about ten people already tell me they want to come visit me in Brighton, including my mom, my two older sisters, Barb and Kathryn, and my older brother, Will, with his girlfriend Darby.  Family holiday in England?  Sure sounds good to me!  I have a feeling after the rest of you watch the videos more than a few of you will want to visit as well.  Part of me still can't believe I get to go.  How lucky am I!?