Second Week

The second week of university has come to a close a few hours ago - the weekdays at least. The weekend is still ahead, a time for reflection, relaxation and rest. I've gotten more used to the university experience now, so I feel more comfortable with it. Tutorials were interesting and interactive and the psychology lab was short and sweet. A highlight among these was today's English tutorial. We were asked to write for seven minutes without thinking. To spark off this journey into the known unknown, the tutor wrote on the board "It's funny the things we remember..." I started off writing about Commander Keen, the game I used to play in childhood, then went through a discussion which features computer comparisons, a trophy cabinet, a question in French, followed soon by an expressive question about the journey I take during life, having been through so much, yet so little, and heading somewhere, but not knowing the destination. The degree does not matter, for it is nonexistent.

What a question. Following the writing down, some of us were asked/invited to read out a piece or all of what they wrote. People around me intentionally (I think) did not make eye contact with the tutor, but I did not deviate, something he noted. I read out what I wrote, and as I did so, I felt my face warm, partly at the idea that I was sharing something personal, partly at the triumph that I was sharing something that came from behind the 'protective' veil of thoughts and warnings. At one point in the middle I think I got a chuckle, but once I was finished I looked up, I don't remember how many clapped out of the dozen+ people that followed the tutor's example. Victory? Pourquoi pas. But it is not a war, death is not the aim. He commented on my expressiveness and how the discourse came out from within me. He said something like it sounded like a novel. Cool.

About not remembering the applause. This has occurred times before. When I have won an award and I have been congratulated, the procedure that follows is clapping. The most I've gotten was during last year's awarding of the highest academic prize offered by my high school. I remember it very faintly, possibly because I received the majority of it as my name was announced and I moved onto the stage. I think there was whistling too, but I was nervous. Heart was beating, I could feel it, sentimentally visible within my body. Blood was pumping, rushing throughout my body. Maybe then that the memory of the experience was erased partly or adjusted in order to prevent trauma or shock? En tout cas, I enjoyed the moment. Few months on, I think back. What does it mean? That's the question that I asked in my writing. That is the question that I am asking? What is the point?