Semester One: Finished. BAM!

Ok, so it's been no-post land at The Falling Movement lately (kind of like no-mans land but instead of the absence of people there's absence of quality blogging haha). Its been a crazy last couple of weeks here in the big city. I'd been trying to hammer out a whole pile of study, something I fail at doing at the best of times, while battling the effects of a minor cold brought on by the near-freezing temperatures of our flat.

The start of exam week was the worst. I spent a good portion of Sunday night last week almost having a mini breakdown about the upcoming week and all these things in life which had been just getting to me. I ended up going for a massive skate around Palmy which was good to let off steam but not entirely effective. Then I just sat on the street outside the flat for ages on my board just talking to God. Really talking. And it was pretty raw, but it was good to get it off my chest. I could've sat there out beside the trees with the glow of dim streetlights and nothing but the cold air to keep me awake for ages pretending I had time to sort things out. But then it started to rain, and I went inside.

Yet somehow I made it. I sure had to crank out a fair bit of work (especially for my back to back exams on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning!) and put everything else out of my mind, or at least to the side. But I got there in the end. And when I walked out of my final exam on Friday, which miraculously went better than I expected, I was feeling on top of the world.

<Cue Music>

It suddenly seemed all worth it.
Those four months of learning about five forces models, ideology, and value chains (don't ask). Of adjusting to a new environment and a place where once again I knew absolutely no one. Long days spent trying to figure out how to write again to much higher standards.

And four months spent constantly backtracking my decision.
If you hadn't got the memo yet, I've been having a hard time switching from studying music to studying journalism. Firstly there was the constant annoyance of having to explain to like a GAZILLION people that yes I was studying last year and no I didn't pull out and yes changing from music to journalism is a little bit different. Secondly was when my friend pulled out on Day 1 for much of the reasons I was secretly thinking about: this is different/hard/weird/not as cool as last year. Then on top of that was my incredible ability to doubt myself. I wondered if I'd even made the right decision. I quite like writing (as you can probably tell from my well-worded paragraphs) but I just wasn't sure if this was the right direction, where I wanted to be heading.

Basically studying journalism is nowhere near as FUN as music.

However last Friday after my final exam, I had this incredible feeling of achievement. That I'd tripped and stumbled my way through a semester of massive ups and downs, upheavals and disappointments, but somehow got there in the end. I was actually glad that I'd stuck to my guns and kept at it, despite the fact that reality never made it anywhere near my expectations. Its been a rough semester both personally and with study, but thanks to the incredible grace of God I made it. And for once I can sit here writing this with complete honesty and say I'm that I'm proud of myself.

Semester 1: Consider yourself beaten.