SUMMER!

Yes, seems like it's almost upon us. Oh, the plans, the dreams, the smell of hot leaves and burnt grass.

I've got a lot of work to do and as it always happens, this time of the year keeps me staring out the window. Very counterproductive, i must say.

During the past months i've been going through a learning process and it seems like the more i know the less i know. There's so much i don't know, so much i've just blasted my way through during these years and now it just seems like it was a big waste, not getting to learn each thing at its time.

If someone were to ask me, i'd say people shouldn't be [u]allowed[/u] to enter vocational learning facilities until they've gathered a few years' worth of life experience under their belts. Take this for example: when i was 18 i'd just finished year 12 of school and was preparing to enter UNATC - which is a film and theatre television university here in Romania. There were just 12 spots funded by the state, and 2 tax-paying spots.

The competition was not extremely high but it was there nonetheless and a thought kept popping up in my head. Would i rise up to the requirements of the exam, and worst, would i rise up to my own expectations? Sure, the expectations the exam contained were one thing, but were i to fail, would i fail at least with some dignity and be able to walk out of there with some self esteem? I mean, it was all i wanted, i never even considered applying to any other university. Other people my age were applying to 2-3 universities just to be sure they got in somewhere.

In any case, to make a long story short - i nailed it and ranked third in a year when very few girls were being admitted into the Image section from my university. Now things have changed but back then it was regarded differently.

There were all kinds of people taking the exam, and among them, as i would later find out, there was one who had already taken that exam 3 times. For what reason he had not been accepted before, i do not know. But later during the university years i grew to envy him. Throughout those three years he had been rejected, he had had time. Time enough to mature and grow to understand the world around him. He also grew to be very smug and rude and overall a person i would try to avoid talking to if at all possible. But i envied him - i wanted his extra three years because while i was schooled in what education was involved, socializing and understanding the wickedness and good in people was completely foreign to me. The only reference i had was my family, classmates who had so far been either neutral or nice toward me, and myself. Most of all i compared everyone i met with myself and thought that i behaved around them, how i would've wanted them to act towards me, everything would be good.

That was my conclusion from a personal, and call it if you will, social point of view. Going back to where this started from, just so i drop the emo mushiness, there is also the aspect of learning. In school you might be assaulted by information thrown at you, just in case you might need it. After weeks, months and years of that bombardment it might be difficult to discern just exactly how much you are actually going to be using. To study something because you are told, and to study something because you know you are going to use it, are two very different things. And yes, i agree that education is possible even if you don't enrol in an institution. But to study everything and be extremely good in all the subjects offered to you on a silver platter at school is maddeningly impossible.

That's why i wanted the guy's three years. I could've realized what direction my life was going towards, just so i would've known how to focus and to be more selective with what i let into my head. I let too much in, and by too much i mean trying desperately to be good in something i [u]thought[/u] i wanted to acheive, and also the disappointment that followed. But it was not my own disappointment. It was my shame at disappointing others. My own personal wishes and desires had been pushed so far back i had not even realized it and by the time i was out of university i was miserable and not understanding why i felt so empty. Was i a failure? Did i do something wrong? For one year i was depressed. So depressed i could barely motivate myself to do anything. When you try to institutionalize a passion and make it wear harnesses and propellers and call it "professional", that is going to happen. But this can be avoided through taking a reasonable amount of time to get to know what the world actually means and most importantly, what you yourself want and need.

I think this is among the healthiest piece of advice someone could receive, and i also wished i somehow knew about it. Writing this felt somehow liberating. Burdening yourself with something you think you want (because it is adjacent to your goals) will only add years to your inner self, in the sense of making you feel older and tired (instead of wiser and more knowledgeable).

But to end this rant - i'm learning new things each day, it feels good and it has proven to be more fruitful (in every way) than i've ever imagined. Which is what i also wish you, reader.

Cheers!