I had this huge wave of nostalgia today, which came with this need to write. The exact thought was something like this: “If I am not writing about this, I might as well be done with this thing.” So here we go.
I have an exam in a couple of days. This might not come up as a big deal to many of you, but you must consider that fact that I haven’t written a proper exam in like the last 4 years Barring the three entrances, and two MCQ papers, I haven’t written an assessment in class, with an invigilator walking around the room after my last boards. I almost had one in undergrad, but the faculty saw 20 lost students looking back at him and their empty blue books and decided to make it a take-home assessment.
I have an ethics paper in a couple of days, and the professor was doing this last-minute revision of all the topics that we would be tested on. As he closed up the class with one last run through of the syllabus, it reminded me of the times when we used to prepare for boards.
I am not a fan of how my schools were, or how many teachers carried on with their business of teaching. The more I learnt in college, I have grown to have stronger disagreements with how they taught their subject in class back then. Nevertheless, when I look back, there is a certain fondness with which I reminisce the last classes in school.
Giving boards meant a big deal back then. Even the most stoic, hardest-to-please teacher would show some kind of fondness in class. There would be some warmth in that one last lecture, at least towards the last 10 minutes or so. I guess those are the times when we knew which teachers wanted to teach, and who came in to get a paycheck. I guess I am lucky enough to have more than a couple of the good ones.
I’ve never seen any of the teachers who taught me the last two years of school ever again, save for the class teacher when I went to get my grade card. I most probably will never go back there again, which is true for most of my classmates. I guess they knew that as well. Hence the unexpected warmth. Also, graduating from school meant something back then. We were slightly moving up the ladder; we were starting to take responsibility. We were getting ready to face the harder battles of careers, relationships and 9 to 5s.
Baring this wave of nostalgia, it’s been some time since I’ve had the space to sit down and write. Trying to become disciplined has killed some creativity. Stricter bedtimes, rehab schedules strain the little creativity you can express, but I guess for the greater good, some of it has to die.
I recently marked the third year of re-learning how to stand, and to walk by walking to the gym for full full-blown leg session. I’ve mentally given up the hope of playing football again. Primarily, I am not very good at it. Additionally, if three years of rehab can’t get me to at least the baseline, I should learn something from it, which is to quit and do something else, like a new sport, or so, just to stay active. I willfully climbed back the six stories to my room after the gym, just to prove a point, which brings me again to the fact that I am back in college.
If you ask me if it is an attempt to delay the inevitable work schedules, I must confess that a part of it is. But I’ve actually been enjoying all of my classes. I am reading significantly more (even though all of it is coursework), and my attention span has gone up drastically. I’ve met some good people, without whom I’ve been able to have some sort of rather intellectually mature conversations, I’ve been unable to have for the year I spent making content.
People ask me why is it that I have come back to the same college despite spending an extra year. I’ve thought about it a lot myself as well. I’ve spent writing sessions trying to articulate why I am here, walking through the same classrooms & corridors, navigating the same systems. There are a lot of answers that come to mind. I wish I could placemy hand on my heart and say that it was purely academic. Or that it was exposed concrete walls, the open doors of faculty cabins, or the little conversations that were waiting to be had. It could perhaps be the simple fact that I had grown to like this place. Deep inside, I know that it is a compromise, one which I hope will pay off sometime down the line. I came here because it was easy. It was closer to home, and it gave some relief to a thinning wallet.
I’ve been trying to consciously consume content these days. I still fish out my phone when I am waiting in queues or when I am having food alone. However, I am reading long-form content or playing a crossword, which I believe is better than doomscrolling. Something that has helped this pursuit of conscious content consumption is that my social media handles were compromised. This gave me a reason to delete Instagram after I got back access. I haven’t started a new account yet, and I am doubtful that I will start something anytime soon.
Something I’ve always wanted to try out is to write about academics. Not how hard they are, or how easy they are, but about the concepts being discussed, and how I make sense of them. Also, about the books I read and the films I watch. Largely because I want to have some discussions that the class didn’t have the bandwidth to have. One reason I’ve not been able to get down to doing that is some kind of insecurity I have about myself. Such content can go wrong, I could make a terrible mess of understanding some concepts, and I don’t actually want my failures to be out there is your mailboxes. But recently, the urge to write something like that has been more pressing, even though I haven’t been able to sit down to write something. So hopefully sometime soon you will get to read something on that line.
Otherwise, it’s been good times. I am living one reading to the other right now, but hopefully I’ll figure out some rudimentary form of a schedule. I’ve got a field immersion coming up, for which I’ve been asked to coordinate my group. That is hard work, especially if you know me. The hope is that I will develop some patience and maturity out of this endeavour. That's about this for now. I just wanted to write something, and this seems a good time to stop and get back to Foucault and Weber and everyone waiting to share their ideas.
Until Next Time.