Sentimental
March rolling into July, and forever more...
Diana finally survives reality with diminished heartbreak, and word vomits *im cry* moments feelings over the last months.
I am back in New Zealand, and after some months in school, and many more travelling, I am still not culturally immersed, environmentally friendly, or tall.
And I'm also still in love with the wonderful people I met overseas. #clingy
I love people, and then they ask me when the next blog post is, or when it I'll send them photos I took of them. Sometimes love can be so difficult...
Since returning to NZ and bringing bad weather with me, many friends and family have asked:
"How was exchange?"
"How was EVERYTHING?"
Automated answer to FAQ: I gained 5kgs in the last two months and everything was great.
It's not your fault for asking polite, earnest, caring, and generously open questions; it is my inability to tell stories in the first place, and a comittment to avoiding repetitions of stories because once was already too much effort. Hence, rather than building personal and intimiate connections with people by recounting my sweet escapades by the fireside, I will hide behind a screen and string together a soppy narrative which you can close whenever you realise that you don't buy any of this "finding yourself on in Southeast Asia" business.
TOO not KOOL enough 4 SKOOL
Despite what exchange is known for, it is still school time and can be miserable regardless of where on the earth the concrete box is.
Thankfully, it wasn't.
Being a fourth year student comes with the relative immaturity of still backpacking to school to barely survive, while your other friends have graduated and/or are juggling real life. It comes with seasoned cynicism acquired through law school scandals and gossip, while inflating the ego until you're effortlessly begging for affirmation. Sometimes you doubt everyone, yourself included, only to roll over tomorrow and convince yourself you'll never find greater people than the ones you know. I'm an inconsistent woman, and three years in Dunners was making me lose sight not only of 17-year-old-Diana's grand illusions of the future, but also of the wonders of this city, and the humbling memories that I've made here... So I went where all priveleged and Eurocentric lost souls go: Southeast Asia.
I really just went home to my rice paddy and let relatives feed me and complain about how dark I was.
To my dismay, I found out from day 1 that I would not be living that sweet Singaporean exchange life making it big at Cé La Vi 4 times a week, or even once a week for that matter. My timetable was looking so normal, which is so abnormal for an exchange student. After barely surviving the summer school and work after a painful finish to 2017, I was on the night bus coming home at 10pm from 3 hour lectures in January. I wasn't dead, no. I was DECEASED. (Katelyn taught me this phrase via fb messenger in class). After a couple of weeks, though I still wasn't making it to the luxuries of Ladies' Night, I began to see the beauty in Climate Change Law. I knew this class would be fun from day 1, but I was not prepared to be so moved by my classmates, who were not only intelligent and well-spoken, but compassionate, funny, and brave. It dawned on me that I was the chief source of my woes. In many ways, had become a person I hated: passive, indifferent, and cowardly. Caring about stuff is so lame blah blah.
What a lamentable thing it is, to only discover that I suck then.
And most auspiciously, to find my suck-y self amongst so many grounded and committed people, so that I can look towards them, rather than mope around feeling sorry for myself.
Ironically, learning about climate change brought me more hope than disappointment. After UN reports, depressing current affairs, a Ghibli film, a feminist theory, profs from other classes roasting a government official about lack of recycling laws, a love poem, a blonde wig and the Trump family roleplay, prof Doug Kysar brings it all home at the end of 3 short weeks with a monologue, sans holding Yorick's skull broodingly.
He talked about his trust in the coming generation, and the leap of faith that we commit to when choosing to care and fight for something. How does one sleep at night, when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, insurmountable because of the very stubborn and selfish nature of us as people? As with all difficult questions, the answer involves either maths or love. In this case, in order to be inclusive and relatable, he obviously chose the love-answer. I paraphrase his words:
To love is to be vulnerable. It is irriationality putting yourself out there to be attacked. But we do it. Becoming a parent is an irrational choice. Your heart is walking out into the world on two feet, and all you can do is to keep loving and giving. That is all that we can do, and so we must.
As an inarticulate millenial, I describe my reception of this emotional prose: shook. How many lecturers have the patience and emotional quota to read out poems and stories in class, and tell their students that the shitty future can be safely trusted to these hooligans? If you're a law student in New Zealand, you probably know exactly who also does this: Mark Henaghan, the man with a crazy laugh and twinkling eyes, and the reason I came down to Dunedin to fall on black ice. Listening to Doug's tender words in the small classroom transported me via deja vu into the ugly Archway complex hosting Family Law. I thought of Mark, who read us The Happy Prince with wet eyes, and told the whole echoing room that we must change things, and that it will be hard, but we must.
Now I know this all sounds terribly like a movie account by an 84-year old narrator in her deathbed, on the turning points of young adulthood, but there is something cinematic in experience about words so sincere that you feel like you're the only other person in the room of dimmed lights. It was surreal.
Tree-huggers of Climate Change Law.
Cross-Border Litigation/the most difficult law class I have ever had the pleasure of suffering in, taught by the charismatic Richard Garnett. Also the class where I became Australian, and where I found my late-night-Starbucks and conspiracy theory gossip buddies.
Time to round up this section before things get melodramatic now. I had the time of my life meeting amazing teachers and friends from all over the world, and though I learnt many new things from them all, the experience also rekindled forgotten feelings of connection and awe. I had never met so many people in the same time span before, and though still introverted, I think I am a little more confident socialising now, because I concluded from my superficial journalism that people everywhere are indeed generous, kind, and keen assss to be m8s. Going on exchange is neither cheap nor necessary for great uni days, but it is definitely one opportunity out of many to learn a little about the world and about yourself. Even though you still are 98% tourist, you have more time and space to peer past the veil of culture shock and get a few glimpses of the different lives around you. I cannot recommend it enough, and if you are poor like me, you will be glad to know that Otago gives you 1k free and going to Asia gives you a good shot at the PMSA scholarship- which may be enough to cover most of an exchange (unless you have plans to visit Japan, in which case you need to watch your wallet and weight).
Learning about compassion from physicists post-nuking the Thermodynamics exam, except not in the cool Civ 5 Gandhi kind of way.
In case anyone is curious how physics went after taking a 2 year hiatus, let's just leave it on a fun note and say that in a class of Ricks and Morty's, I was Jerry Smith.
Dear frens
A true thank you is overdue for all of my friends, old and new, for putting up, for however long and at all. All the advice-giving, ass-saving, pdf-sending, food-sharing, meme-tagging, arm-hugging-allowing moments and more that you have given to me these months and years- I take you for granted way too often. I realise that I'm borderline-OCD and strict, and that I can be unforgiving and overly critical. All the time, I am shocked at how nice people are, and I guess that says something about me. Like all shit people, I conclude with a statement of intent to become better. Thank you for any attention given past, present, and future. If you've made it to this point of the plea for therapy, congratulations, the worst is over, and though you deserve more than a thank you for enduring those paragraphs, that's all you're getting.
Thank you.
Over the next month I'll finally get the travel blogs up and send people photos (disclaimer: no promises). And now, for the only segment that everyone wants. Here are those of you who made it onto this cycle of Asia's Next Top Models:
Day one FOBs
Legally Fun
15 minutes on Chocolate Hills in a 10hr car/boat day involving loss of phone and being stranded at sea. Refreshing.
Down with the lads.
Leaving Singapore with so many letters, chocolate, and beautiful women at my farewell.
