Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Preparing for the new semester...

I've been spending quite a solid amount of time and effort getting ready for the beginning of the 2011 university year. It's been a bit of a rocky start given that my university has decided to close down my degree program. I'll get to finish my degree, but they're already axing staff and units associated with the degree, so I am feeling slightly anxious about this. 

Still, I am mostly done with the core parts of my degree, so I may be able to scrape through my undergraduate without too much hate... we shall see. I will miss my favourite lecturer who returned from well deserved long service leave to an invitation for voluntary redundancy. Classy, yes?

Still, preparation is important and now a week or so out I'm feeling the stirrings of my brain hungering for more information and thinky stuff, to be able to get stuck into a new semester of essays. 

My birthday present in November last year from a couple of my lovely friends were a set of bookshelves, which they installed into my study where things were mostly piled in some vague organised way on the floor. The installation meant everything got moved around and picked up, shoved around. I've been avoiding getting stuck into the decluttering, sorting and putting away, but this week I've managed to complete the bulk of it. I've culled books, magazines, recipe books and filed an awful lot of paper. I can see the floor (it needs a good vacuum) and I can admire my lovely stacks of books in organised piles. My desk is clear and I'm drawn to the room to work in it again! 

Success! It is in this moment that I feel ready to return to the learning again, space that is mine, access to all my books and cool learning stuff. Over the break I've not been academically idle, doing bits of reading and catching up on backlogs of related online reading in the feminist and queer blogosphere. 

I'm still in process of trying to formulate strategies and systems for efficient learning and time management given that this time I expect to be working full time at least for part of the time... which numerous people tell me is a terrible idea. My take on it is that after last year, I am convinced it cannot be worse and  must therefore be better. Plus, there is the added bonus that for 30ish hours of work a week I will be paid - which is a huge difference from last year. 

This semester I'm looking forward to delving further into philosophy, cultural studies of television and audiences and having great conversations with people around me (really whoever will sit still long enough). 

For those of you also returning to study, what are you looking forward to? What ways do you prepare for the upcoming year? What is your best efficient learning tip?