In Continuum.

Terminal Velocity

A third of the final term examinations is done, two more papers to go before the end. The first of the series of grueling paper - ECO182 - left me a little demoralized. I missed the kind of confidence I usually have after walking out from an exam venue, feeling optimistic and proud. That used to be the case usually, bursting through the doors of the hall and then checking answers with the others. In that scenario, I used to be the center of such discussions, always bringing up the questions and always the first cheering in joy if my answer matches someone else's. That used to be the case, but not nearly so on this strange Monday afternoon.

To say today is a Blue Monday would be strange, because everything outside the window is in a strange shade of red and orange. Either way, the colors must have worked against me today, messing with the clarity of my mind. You can already tell how pathetic I must seem, blaming everything on the weather but not myself. But seriously, I am certain that I am not the cause of today's failure. I was prepared, I was hopeful, and there I was minutes before the paper started, giving myself an invisible pat on the shoulder, telling myself that everything was going to be OK. Whatever happened to that optimism, whatever happened to that wistfulness. Like everything else, I missed those two aspects of me as well, lost in the summer heat and the great weight above my shoulders, weighing down.

It has been a while since I took any form of examination, or at least an examination that has 'final' tagged to it's name. A levels was probably the last major examination that I took part in, and also the last major examination that I screwed up in. Though that happened in the early days of November, the early days of August these days somehow resembled its November counterparts. It was stifling today, almost to a point of suffocation. Traveling in the bus down to school today, I went through the notes that I studied today, mentally going through the pages and making notes along the way. Confidence was still rather high then, undaunted by the fact thatthe last paper has the highest percentage. Perhaps I was a little too nonchalant, a little too care-free. Yeah, blame it on those perhaps, at least it'd make more sense than the weather.

It wasn't even so bad during the paper itself. The questions were tricky, and it wasn't difficult to spot the smirk on Baban's face on the far end of the hall. He must have been happy with himself, glad that he managed to come up with a paper that was enough to slaughter a lot of students. Teachers - in general - seem to have this fetish for blood on their hands. Though not literally, they do like to be responsible for papers that cause high failing rates. That is not to say that I am going to fail this paper, but the problem is that we are in a different ball game now, or a different game altogether. The problem is a self-imposed one, in a completely different context than before.

In Junior College, I was the kind of student that asked for no more than a pass. A pass to me was enough to have me run around the school naked with tears of joy streaming down my face. That was two or three years ago, still in that ugly brown uniform and trapped in the dreadful education system. Back then, it wasn't exactly about how well you did, but how close you got to a pass. Nobody did extremely well in the first year, and everybody were dismayed. So in class after every paper, people would gather around not to see who had more wrong answers, but who had more correct ones. It was easy to count them, since they were usually in the minority - correct answers, that is. But in an university's context, everything is just different now.

It is no longer about passing, but getting good grades. That might not be the case for most students out there, but at least for me that is what I strive for nowadays. After all the grades that I have been getting, I seem to have this upper limit set for myself, a limit that is so high that it is almost unattainable. It is strange how in retrospect, I was a person who didn't ask for too much, while I am the person who IS asking for way too much of myself. Parents are always telling you just how much potential you have, how much more you can achieve if you just put your mind to it. But I HAVE put my mind on this university life, and this is as good as it gets for me. Despite that, I seem to want more all the time, always wanting to be better than myself. To be honest, if I hadn't realized that about myself any sooner than the moment I started this entry, I'd go crazy sooner or later.

It's like a body that is falling from a plane, common physics that we've learned in high school. There is a terminal velocity for every object, a limit to how fast the object can fall due to the force of gravity. For me, there is an upward terminal velocity, a limit as to how far I can get before I start falling back down to the ground. Trying to aim even higher than that would be folly, because that is as far as you can humanly go, and no more. It's this over-achieving desire inside of me that is bugging me these days, the part of me that can never be satisfied with who I am and what I have achieved. At least in the past, I was able to tell myself," It could have been worse". Nowadays, it is about how things could have been better, if only I did this or didn't do that.

While I was on the throne a few days ago, I grabbed a copy of Reader's Digest and started flipping through the pages. A quote by George Will caught my attention. It says," The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised". It seems OK to be a pessimist all of a sudden, all the gloom on the bus ride home with Sean and Kean - no they are not brothers - are making a tad bit more sense. It was a comforting thought in a way, but in a way I'm not sure if I want to be proven right at all. I'd much prefer Sean to come up to me and say," What did I tell you?", after all the consoling he poured on me throughout the trip - thanks, by the way. To be honest, there are times when I'd rather be pessimistic in an optimistic way. At least in that way, there'd always be a light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark or bleak you may think you are.

A little picture next to the quote, is another one by Will Smith. He says," You'll never achieve 100 percent if 99 percent is OK". I wasn't too sure what he meant, but I guess in a way, he was trying to speak to me right now. Perhaps 99 percent is good enough, I really need somebody to slap me in the face with a giant 'Stop' sign. It's like hitting on nineteen when you are in a game of black jack. Greed really takes over people, doesn't it? Not just for money in a casino but grades in school as well. I need a break, a long break from school to loosen the tension in my head. To fall back to earth and into a soft pillow of grass is what I really need now. I've been at my terminal velocity for too long, and I need to slow down.

Two more days, and two more papers.

I'll see you on the other side.