In Retrospect

If I had the chance to do it all over again, to turn back the hands of time--back to those days when I was barely eighteen and fresh out of Form 5--would I still have chosen the same path?

Truth is, I do not know. I cannot say much because nothing seemed to have been pre-planned by me or my parents. All I knew at that time was that I detested Math, Add Math, and any numerical and statistical subjects ever existed. My love for the English Language grew in proportion to my extreme dislike for numbers. And for the record, peeps, by the time I was in Form 3, nothing was more certain than the fact that I would never be able to appreciate, what more to love, the happy trio of Biology, Chemistry and Physics; that was why I gleefully avoided enrolling into the Science stream even though I scored straight A's in PMR.

It's a wonder I could scrape through with a 4B for my SPM Add Math and Accounting, considering the highest score I had ever achieved for Add Math throughout my entire Form 4 and Form 5 (prior to SPM) was a 56--yes, a dismal, disgraceful 56%--and that was made possible only after having worked my butt off for the SPM trial examination. I was thankful I did not fail!

Till this day, my greatest regrets are not having the guts to drop Add Math, and not having the courage to take up English Literature for my SPM. Believe it or not, the trauma of having to endure 2 whole years of Add Math still plagued me in the form of recurring nightmares during my first semester in my former university.

Ah. Those were the days--the untold agony, the mounting anxiety over uncharted territories of my future. My undergraduate days in UTM still remain fresh in my memory--because that was the place where I learned to make true friends throughout 5 years. Those were the people that journeyed with me into adulthood, right from our days as bright-eyed-and-bushy-tailed first-year undergrads till our last year as jaded final-year seniors in 2006.

I can hardly believe I'm reaching the end of my journey as a student now. It's even harder to believe that I have been battling bouts of homesickness in a foreign land for exactly 20 months in a row. What is the difference between life as an undergrad and that of a Master's student, you may ask? Having gone through almost seven years of tertiary education, all I can say is this: the trick is to keep moving.

Keep working even though there may be days when you just feel like giving up and burning all your lecture notes and lead a carefree life where all you would have to worry about is what to eat and what to wear and where to party. Keep pressing on even when you feel yourself losing grip and getting disillusioned about whether or not all those late-night crammings and tedious, long hours of research-writing would have any bearing on your new future in the working world (which is a whole new ball game altogether).

It's simple; the keyword here is persistence. Nothing in life comes easy, and life will never be as smooth-sailing as you want it to be. Rather the pain of discipline than the pain of regret--because then when you have reached the end of your journey as a student for real, the fruits of your labor will taste so much sweeter, knowing that you have done your best and given your all.

~Julia