In all of my life, I don't think I've ever worked this hard. I don't recall a period of time where I spent everyday sleeping at 2am or later, and waking up at 7. I don't recall in a period of time in my life where there is a constant deadline for numerous assignments, quizzes and what have you hanging over my head like I have now, reminding me every waking moment that the end is near. However morbid that sounds. What kind of insane existence is this? Who the hell told me uni was fun? Is your idea of fun having no life? Like when was the last time you went shopping? Or did anything you wanted to do?
Its so bad I'm beginning to look at army as being slightly better because I did not have to use my brain and it was a stress free existence. I didn't have to think of what to wear everyday, or even think for that matter, and you basically ate the free slop they threw in your plate everyday. In NTU, you pay for the slop. Mmm I lived like a pig, but a skinny one that could not be fattened up.
However, I suddenly remember how there were no girls, and I banish all thoughts of army being better.
Has anyone realised that its only been 2 months since we started uni? I have no idea why but it feels like half a year has gone by. The days in uni seem to stretch and merge into one another, becoming one long neverending ordeal of work, work and more work. Maybe its getting to me but doesn't it feel like that to everyone? And what's frightening is how fast the weeks seem to fly past. Before you know it, another week has gone past and suddenly you're staring right at the deadline for that term paper you've barely begun. And who could forget that all the work that you're behind on piling up on your study table.
This is when... ordinary students become heroes. This is when... they just do it. They do the IMPOSSIBLE. I salute all the brave souls who have gone this way before me, simply because its seriously shit.
You have a term paper due next week and you haven't started? Holy crap. There's no time! And thus, the student transforms into a superhuman creature who needs no sleep, who can work for hours on end, grinding away at the most mundane of tasks, poring over thousands of words and eventually, the term paper ends up on the lecturer's table. Who knew the sweat and sacrifice that went into it? Who knew how many hellish nights the student endured struggling to come up with something coherent? Who knew how many days the student woke up with an imprint of a keyboard on his or her head?
And you never realise how much you can cram into your brain till the night before a test. The fear of failure drives people to do amazing things. Everyone suddenly becomes a professor on the subject topic. If you were to visit the school on the day of the test, you'd be astonished at how many little professors there are ready to recite definitions and explain abstract concepts to you. Come back a week later, and everyone becomes normal again. Apparently PhD (permanent head damage) only lasts a week. Unless you get the cert and you're certified. That is permanent.
The student. How innocuous looking, yet how inspiring. (Can you tell I'm trying to inspire myself? Oh nevermind. Back to work.)