Too Sexy For My Books

For the first time in 13 years I am not spending the week immediately following Easter frantically reading and trying to pull together a semi-decent assignment. For the first time in 13 years I am not enrolled in some form of study. For the majority I feel relieved and have an odd sense of freedom, yet a small part of me feels uneasy and not at all comfortable. I’m not studying, I’m not engaged in some kind of formal learning activity - I feel as though a small part of my identity is missing. Over the past decade or so I have dipped into a seemingly inexplicable hodgepodge of this-and-that. From Medievalism to ethics; education to information retrieval; music to mechanics of flight; Romantic poetry to programming, Soviet studies to strategic studies. I’ve studied Italian, French, Russian and Danish to varying levels of success. For me it is not so much the end result, the bit of paper that is important, rather it is all about the learning and discovery of new things.

I have made no secret that I have found my recent educational experiences to be disappointing. This is not so much a slur on the school but is rather due to my learning needs being at a different level than what was offered by the course. This particular course did not offer me anything new, it did not offer me anything I had not previously come across. In that regards, for me at least, it was disappointing and has left me somewhat frustrated with the academic sector.

I think I will always study at some level but not with the goal of advancing or furthering my career, nor will I necessarily continue to study in a purely formal and academic environment. I already have a professional qualification, I’ve worked in my profession for a number of years now and that is significantly more important in terms of progression, I will only continue to study in LIS and IR because I want to. Gaining another masters or a PhD in this field will not achieve anything in terms of landing a ‘better’ job. Having said that, I have already organised to enroll again at QUT next semester picking up a couple of extra subjects in the IR field (would still like to do that dissertation on (Probabilistic) Latent Semantic Indexing and Anaphoric Resolution … maybe one day). After that, who knows?

Part of me has been kicking around the idea of doing an MBA, another part of me would love to do some real research into leadership and yet another part wants to focus on languages. The romantic part of me wants to get back into the realms of literature (would love to explore the approaches to storytelling in the Norse and Old High Germanic sagas, or investigate the sense of wonder and innocence found in Edwardian and post-war English children’s literature) and history, or even music, or, dream of dreams, finally learn to fly. I blame this ongoing quest for knowledge and experience on my family (curse you mum and dad for encouraging us to read!) and my undergraduate experience.

I undertook my undergraduate study at a very small, very intense, very competitive and highly unique institution and have therefore had a very, very different university experience to most. I don’t look at my time at the Academy as just ‘gaining a degree’, or even in the trite terms of ‘life experience’ that so many Arts and Social Science degree students trot out (the ‘life-experience’ is gained not so much from your classes but rather how you spent your time, what other activities did you engage in). The educational approach given at the Academy was more inline with the Edwardian school of thought as to what an ‘education’ should deliver (or at least if you were upper class and male). I now see that ADFA aimed to deliver an education that allowed for well-rounded graduates not only across a variety of academic disciplines but also in terms of our approach towards life. I also must add that this Edwardian ideal also resulted in a somewhat closed and destructive culture reminiscent of the public schools of that era - when it was good it was very, very good; when it was bad it was horrid.

As part of our degree requirements all Arts students had to take a minimum credit load from Science subjects (and vice versa), I chose Oceanography and loved it. It wasn’t just because of the week long field trips to Jervis Bay, spending all our time on private beaches or out on the water, swimming with wild dolphins but the learning of something new and previously unexplored. It allowed for an almost childlike sense of wonder and amazement. Its a feeling you can only get when you stumble across a world to which you have not had any previous exposure. We were encouraged and challenged not only to explore unknown areas of accas but to investigate and experience everything we came across (within reason, remember this was still the military - ‘Hanrahan! Stop asking so many questions - we do it this way because I say so!’ In some ways my high heels and I never really fitted in …).

We formally studied leadership; law; communications; military history, theory and policy; tactics and strategies. Informally we gained invaluable social and general life skills (yes, we were even taught how to correctly pass the port and tie a bow tie). Looking back the pressures and pace of life was insane but to us it was normal. During my 2nd year I effectively undertook the equivalent of a triple work load, with a total of 36 hrs of class contact time (English Lit was a double work load - we had English Core and then our 2 electives, add onto that honours extension classes and we were up to 16hrs contact time, yet it still only counted as ‘one’ subject. Believe me, English Lit was not the easy option). That 36hr contact load is including academic, military and civilian classes (I studied Russian for the fun of it through ANU) - it does not include sport (swimming for me) and, in my case, music (concert and jazz bands, Academy and show choirs and musicals through the Academy and two squadron rock bands for the sheer gigging fun of it) nor the other extra bits and pieces and personal pursuits we threw ourselves into.

As you can see I like studying. I really enjoy learning and exploring and doing things, yet when I am studying I loathe it and I put all my time and effort into my work. Now that I am not studying I feel that something is missing and I’m casting around for other things to do with my time. Trying to find new and interesting things in which to become involved. Maybe I need a hobby rather than study - such as hang gliding, or horse riding, or extreme cheese making …

“No Surrender”, Bruce Springsteen