Good grades, bad grades, ugly grades: all have arrived already and the job is to press onward, retain as much as possible, and really learn, ensuring that I get a B average in the process so that I may graduate. The stated objective of the program is to take the student out of existing comfort zones and it has accomplished that in many ways; there's so much to take in with the new city and the learning that it's hard to turn off the switch. Even surfing the Internet only packs more information into the Tokyo subway of the mind - I can look outside at the time and temperature on the Manulife Financial building just a few blocks north, which seems to be the closest I'll get to meditating anytime in the near future.
I'm off in a flash to finally get the box for the amplifier that John purchased ten days ago, and perhaps visit an appliance store in the event that I can't obtain a free box. Then, I study macro- and micro-economics for the mid-term exam, complexity science, and organizational behavior. Then, tomorrow morning, I team up with another student to do the written analysis for a quantitative-methods assignment that's worth 45% of our grade. All of the huge numbers aren't really a stressor; knowning that there aren't many chances to shine through and affect a grade is where that comes in. At least it's not law school, where one test at the end of a semester is the only shot a person has.
And it's amazing how much the Internet has changed formal education. Half of my textbooks have "exclusive" online reference, half of the textbooks themselves are functionally useless in that they don't match up well with the covered material, and in times of difficulty, people ask one another their opinions rather than strugging in a vacuum. It's not far off base from the world of work, I suppose.
Any romantic notions about self-betterment have largely been dispelled, but one person notably described my effort as "heroic", which continues to be inspiring. As I try to bottle that feeling and all of the other emotions and thoughts that swirl around this effort, I give thanks for my fiancee, with whom I've been exploring this new place (we went on a "haunted Toronto" walk around the city this past Thursday, which was a great treat) and who has done wonders to help me adjust to the new hat that I wear as a graduate student.
And hey, if I ever feel too hemmed in, I can always look up Illuminati conspiracies online, or something - some things are simply guaranteed to restore harmony to my view and remind me that yes, I am paying attention to and focusing on the right things.
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