Sunday July 5, 2009
That pretty little spot
BY NATASHA HAQIM
EVER since I arrived in Nottingham, Britain, three years ago, there was one thing I had always wanted to do, but never did: I’d never lain down on green grass and leaned back against a tree overlooking the lake on the university campus to read a (Haruki) Murakami favourite.
There’s this one spot to do that which is really, really pretty. It’s a bit secluded, but really serene, and if it weren’t for the guy I saw doing exactly what I’d just described, I wouldn’t have known about this pretty little spot.
So on my very last day in Nottingham, I had to fulfil this silly “dream” of mine. Call it a symbolic gesture, a way of saying goodbye to this beautiful campus which I’d called home for awhile.
What can I say about varsity life? What are the things I wish I’d known before I enrolled as a freshman?
Well, I wish I’d known just how mundane and dull most days could be. Perhaps it was just me – I didn’t take up positions in clubs and societies, like some of the more active social beings.
However, despite how predictable and insanely routine my life was, I wouldn’t say my years at university were a total waste of time. Someday, when I look back at my time in Nottingham, I will recall fondly the friends I made, and appreciate all the more the lessons I learned from living independently abroad.
If I were to talk about the lessons learned, I’d be on my way to writing a 300-page self-help guide to varsity life. There’s no denying that the experience has changed me. I can, however, share the final lessons I picked up during my last few weeks at university.
Despite examination pressures, those weeks were most meaningful. It was like I was at the end of a mystery novel, and everything was finally coming together. And, on hindsight, it makes sense to me now why certain things had to happen, and why I had to meet certain people.
The most important thing for any twentysomething, I think, is to learn to accept who you are. But before self-acceptance, there’s self-knowledge.
To know oneself is the hardest task, and this is the time to try things just to see where you fit best. It’s simple, really: if you think you might like something, do it. If it works out, it probably means you’re on the right track. But if you suck at it, then it just means “No entry”. You can quit wondering “What if?”
I know now that I suck at a bunch of things – finance, sports and fitness classes, any kind of class that requires commitment (which means all of them), debating and acting.
Knowing my weaknesses was quite a blow to my self-esteem, but all that “trial-and-error” certainly took me to places I never would have gone if I hadn’t pushed myself. I met some really great people, and had experiences, fun and otherwise. The least I can say is, “I know what that was like. But it’s not for me.”
The other thing is, if you’ve ever felt like you’re stuck-in-the-middle, you’re absolutely not alone. I have felt that way my whole life, like I’m this one piece of puzzle that doesn’t fit any of the empty spaces. Or that I’m somehow “not here, nor there”.
I watch with envy people who seem to know which “box” they belong to, and within that box, they exist happily with others who are very similar to them in terms of interest, values and even style.
I used to think that I needed to choose. Am I liberal or conservative? Am I religious or not? Am I a social butterfly or reserved in nature? The thing is I couldn’t really decide.
I did try to choose. But putting myself in a box in which I didn’t truly fit me made me feel hypocritical and very unhappy. I guess that’s why, in the end, I realised how much I enjoy my own company. Flying solo, I didn’t have to choose. I was just ... me.
There is a perk to not fitting into a particular box – I learned how to mix with diverse types of people, whether they were wealthy, white, six-feet-tall, or hip, accented chicks from some metropolis. They don’t intimidate me any more.
On my last day at campus, I spent half an hour reading at that pretty little spot before I realised that I was bored (and feeling kind of itchy, too). So I reminisced about my days as a young girl instead. I remembered that at the age of seven, I’d planned out my whole life in a black leather-bound journal. I was so ambitious, so materialistic and so determined.
Actually, I still am, and probably will always be. So far, I’ve checked off every box in that plan of mine. But I think it’s now time for a new plan – the no-plan plan. It’s time I listen more to the Universe, let the Higher Power guide me through life via the clues and hints I get along the way. You know, go with the flow.
I’d chosen to study at Nottingham because I thought it would be a pretty place to spend three years of my life. For some students, the novelty wears off after Freshers’ Week. But it never did for me; I always thought it was so beautiful.
Turning up the volume of my CD player as Sixpence None the Richer’s Don’t Dream It’s Over came on, I leaned back against the tree, stretched out my legs, and thought to myself, “So I never found my box. But in this pretty little spot, I fit in just perfectly.”
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