Another milestone

Now that I've reached the end, I couldn't help but return to the beginning and reflect on the whole journey, the entire process, again. As they say, the destination is not of importance, the journey is. This charts my reflections to attaining my degree through the part-time education route (warning: long read). 

I began this journey in 2009, when I was in my mid-20s. I will not lie to myself that time passes so quickly that I didn’t realise that I had reached the end. No. It has been a long arduous journey, one that took too long. I am keenly aware of every single lesson, every single term, every single semester, and every single year. I don’t regret a minute spent on it. It is definitely not a waste of time. The qualification I received at the end did help (increase in income!) and I know that the education I received has made me one-step closer to my dream.

I know that further education is probably not necessary in my aims of being a writer. However, it strengthened my conviction to write. The exposure to the classics, the Western canon, the beautiful works too numerous to count, the infinite amount of ways that words could be manipulated and structured, all these spurred me on to write, to create, all in the hopes that my creation could relate, touch, motivate, alter perceptions, and ultimately inspire. If I could achieve all those, affect one single person, my aim is fulfilled and my dream partially complete.

When I first started my journey, I had left tertiary education two years ago; therefore embarking on a new one was slightly daunting. But I remember being more excited than daunted. I was interested to learn, to explore, and ready to know more. However, that excitement lasted all of two semesters (one year), before the strain of attending night classes after work and the looming assignment deadlines drowned me in weariness. Fortunately, my interest (passion?) kept me motivated and afloat. Nevertheless, it couldn’t keep my grades up. After my first year, my grades fell to an all-time low and I struggled to get it back to where it was (I never managed to recover the lost grades). This is the part where I rant.

The CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) is a sucky system. I have no idea or no wish to find out why it is used in the education system. I know there must be a reason for it, but I don’t want to know. It may the fairest or most effective way to calculate how you did across all modules and across all terms and across all semesters and across all years, but seriously, it is a bane in my transcript. It is a convoluted system – after five years I still have no idea how it is calculated and believe me, I have tried – that gives you shitty results after you did badly in one or two modules! Come on! Give me a break! The system really disproves the notion that consistency is the best policy (yah, I’m sure this policy exists). I have been consistent with my results, but one or two bad modules pulled me down so horribly that I had such a difficult time recouping the loss. It is close to impossible to climb back up after. I find that terribly unfair! It’s not like I slacked off for those modules, but you can’t expect me to ace everything can you? No one can ace every single module! Okaayyyyy, I stand corrected. Recently I read newspaper reports on polytechnic students who got the perfect GPA of 4. OMG! How is that possible (Congratulations btw, good job!)?!?! I still believe there is something not right about this CGPA system. It sucks. And… I suck as well because I don’t have an alternative system or any constructive opinions to offer. I’m whining here. 

Anyhow, this journey has been a stress- and worried-filled one, with new highs and new lows. I have sacrificed much for it. I put my education first, my family second and my social life in third or fourth (a close fight with sleep). My social life (and sleep as well) suffered. I managed to maintain contact with my close circle of friends, but have left out making new ones. I missed outings. I missed friends' birthday celebrations. I have missed countless sitcoms, movies and concerts. I miss reading for leisure. I miss just lazing around doing nothing and not having to worry about wasting time. I miss the freedom to while away my time without assignments or exams at the back of my mind. However, these compromises are what I willingly make for the journey. Sacrifices are unavoidable. I developed a sort of long-term patience, and an understanding that I can give certain things or certain pleasures in life a miss, while those that I cannot miss, I will wait in anticipation for them. I appreciate the fact that one has to go through some sort of discomfort, a sort of suffering if you will, to grow, to mature. No one sails through life smoothly. In fact, sailing is an overstatement. One goes through life pushed and pulled, stretched in all possible directions, torn and put together again, kicked around and nurtured, hated and loved. NO ONE SAILS THROUGH LIFE. For your passion, you understand that it is all or nothing.

I also learn that it is essential not to let fear overtake you. Fear leads to panic and panic leads to paralysis. Once you are paralysed with fear, panic, and anxieties, you are done for. I have been there, panicked and worried at being unable to complete my assignments on time, which made me start on them late because I simply could not think or get on with it. It’s a horrible place to be, when you’ve lost control of your fears and you are just sitting there immobile, in a blind panic all the while thinking, “It’s too late, it’s too late”. It’s worse when you’re in the office. You really can do nothing about it. But along the way I’ve learnt to keep my fears in check and to keep panic at bay. It’s there, no doubt, but I refuse to let it in. An example to better illustrate what I mean: feeling nauseous and having the urge to vomit, but forcing it down by sheer will and infinite amounts of swallowing. You just want to keep the puke in. You cannot forget of its existence because you can feel it, but if you focus instead on the work at hand, you can ignore it somewhat. I usually hold it long enough until I have written at least two paragraphs of rubbish, yes, but it helps to quell the panic. By then, the panicky feeling slowly dissipates, simply because you know you have made some headway into the assignment.

I can safely tell you now that the worst experience in my journey is the very last hurdle: the thesis. I was always tense during the period I was writing it. It left me emotionally scarred and mentally exhausted. It also left me with this all-consuming disappointment in myself, that I didn’t do good enough when I could have (it’s true, I really could have). I feel so stupid and useless when it ended (I still do). If I’m being really honest with myself, the paper didn’t bring up my confidence. Instead it razed my esteem to the ground. It’s a traumatic experience and I’m not sure if I want to ever experience writing and presenting another thesis paper. But I learnt loads from it. Firstly, and most importantly (for a writer anyway), it set my grammar straight. It opened my eyes to the grammatical errors that I’ve been making, made me realised the grammatical rules I’ve been ignoring, and made me be aware of grammar in general. I’m not saying that my grammar is perfect now, but it’s been given a once over and I hope I'm better at it. Secondly, I learnt to read and actually digest academic journal articles and research papers. I had a hard time reading them at first, but slowly I got accustomed to the language of academia. Now I can read them faster and digest more before my vision blurs and my head starts to swim. I still got a long way to go before I can fully read academic papers without having a minor headache. Lastly, it sharpened my critical thinking and reasoning. My supervisor (what a kind soul) helped me with that by asking me questions about my paper throughout the whole process. His questions provoked me to think, simply because his questions cannot be answered immediately. Also, sometimes I’m so into my argument that I refused to see the other side of the coin, so to speak, and he will remind me that there are other perspectives that I should consider. All in all, I did not enjoy the experience but I do value the process. I must say that I am somewhat traumatised by it, for now. Whether I’ll embark on my Masters remains to be seen.

I have colleagues who have been working their whole lives, when nearing retirement complains to me that they have no idea what to do when they stop working. I am always puzzled by that. I will take retirement any day! In response, I will shake my head and tell them that there are plenty to do: enjoy life! Go travel! Work on your hobby! Pick up a new hobby! Learn new things! Socialise and meet people! However, now that part of my life has been liberated, I feel lost. I have some pockets of free time on my hands now but no clue what to fill them up with. I searched online for courses that I can join (always wanted to learn Japanese) but it only starts end August. I picked up a book from the dusty stack that has been waiting for me and finished it in one week. Somehow, I have put my life on hold for the whole journey (5 ½ years it took me) and I’m afraid that I have lost my rhythm. Like I said, I feel lost, terribly lost. The anticipation of the end, the waiting with bated breath for the freedom to come, it is all somewhat anti-climatic. I didn't feel ecstatic or even marginally joyful. I just feel, relieved. It’s a terrible ending and I finally understood why some people would rather return to work after retirement. It probably is a better alternative than feeling desperately lost.

Anyhow, I have decided to give myself time to ease back into life, to get my finger on the pulse again. All I probably need is a readjustment. But one thing I do know, I am painfully allergic to academic language.