Majority of our childhood years until early adult life (for some) are dedicated to school or academe. I know they always say that the real world is outside the four walls of the school. I mean they aren’t lying.
However for some reason I don’t know why I feel that my academic struggles were the same as my love life struggles. I had a fair share of setbacks in my academic life while my love life is probably in elementary or even high school level at the moment where graduating from college is tantamount to getting married or you finally had your first relationship.
So it’s like what are you going through in real-life now, you would remember “oh, this is similar to what happened to me before when I was studying.” Well, what do you expect from someone who has limited to no experience right?
You might be wondering why such a title? Is it painful or something negative? Well probably yes and no.
Yes, because those pain and struggles you have encountered are the weapons or ammunition you need to use in order for you to get up and face yet another tougher challenge on the road. Like in real life, perhaps you could see some patterns from your academic challenges before. Such instance was there was this once subject of mine (Principles of Management) where everybody said it’s an easy A but I got a C just because I got sick two weeks before the finals week and when the Dean learned that I have a dengue, she immediately told my mom and sent a letter to my profs indicating that I am permitted not to attend my last classes.
Maybe one thing I was so overconfident in that subject. I knew my midterm grade was already at A or A- (with A being the highest). I think I was so overconfident that in the middle of pre-finals (the lessons after midterms) I said I don’t even need to take the final exam and will still pass the subject (something like that). Maybe you can charge it to my math crunching obsession of mine to see the unimportant probabilities. In the end, I really didn’t need to pass the final exam, I passed the class, but my grade is C where I knew most of the class probably got an A or A-, which is so devastating on my part. If there was something that you might forever over explain how the heck you got a low grade in such an easy subject? You might wonder if the requirements were easy, don’t be late (even if it’s 7:30 in the morning and you would be going on the other end of the building from the main gate), then the quizzes are so easy (I remember I was enjoying studying that subject and I really memorized them by heart), then the reports or projects are easy too. Then it doesn’t help when I can’t even contest my grade to my professor because he was on a vacation and it’s during semester break when that happened. I was so upset that I would like to avoid him at all cost on every part of the school corridors most especially when I needed to go to the faculty of the School of Commerce because now everytime you see him, the pangs of the painful memories would come back to you knowing that you could have done better than a C if only you didn’t get sick. I don’t know how long it took me to recover, but what I was sure of was I had a hard time getting over this situation over my two major subjects that caused me to delay for 1 year.
Well the difference was my two Psychology professors would also give me a C or a barely passing grade if I chose not to drop it, but I guess one can say that that’s what happens when you were given an option to choose or in a relationship… a closure or understanding of why or based on the situation presented, what would you like to do? So I chose to drop those two subjects and start over without me getting pressured to do well to beat the department’s quota - even if there’s a mark showing you had attempted but “gave up” somewhere along the way. However in this subject, it’s like you were only the best from the start but flunked in the end. Relationship wise: that’s tantamount to saying you are trying to be the best version of yourself at the start of a relationship and a tragic incident that showed the worst version of yourself was the one that defined who you are in that relationship - painful right?
Going back to my Principles of Management professor, somehow in the middle of the succeeding term after that incident, I accidentally crossed paths with him as I left the faculty room and he was about to get up in the same faculty room. I greeted out of respect like how you are supposed to greet any teachers right? The good thing was he asked me how I was and I think the usual ennui mode one would say, you’re okay and he then responded that it’s good to know. Then I think I was okay with seeing him in person whenever I passed by him along the school corridors after that.
I guess if I would associate real-life pouring of love into a person in relation to academics was this: while in my other major subjects I was not only given an explanation, but these professors gave me a chance to choose on the path I’ll take (whether to drop the subject and repeat it again without department probation or get a low grade and go under department probation) even if the professors thought I chose a very dumb path in the end (see blog here). In dating or relationships, you could say that it gave me a chance to start over with the same person even if it meant that there’s an initial strain between the two of you. Meanwhile in my Principles of Management subject, it’s like you know that I was giving you the best version of myself to you, but because of some unfortunate circumstance that was literally out of your control, you are deemed a failure such as all your efforts went down into the drain and that instance would forever mark you as the one who made the mistake why your relationship or getting to know stage didn’t pan out.
Now if I say no, it’s not negative because as I previously said, if pain allows you to grow and get better as you go along, then I guess it means that I now would have a better marker on how things would go from then on. Maybe that subject defined a part of me - but it doesn’t define me totally as a person. I mean it’s just one subject out of the bunch of subjects you took during college.
Maybe… just maybe if I use this as my next marker in terms of relationship/dating, I think I am not going to be alright - but even better. You know why? Because 2.5 years after that fiasco, I got to be a Dean’s Lister. Not only the barely average of B+ but I was above an A- and top 5 of the School of Liberal Arts for that semester which I think is more impressive and it didn’t define me as a whole. Of course let’s not forget that the setback allowed me to be someone I didn’t expect to be - in a positive way. Perhaps what I’m trying to say is maybe I’ll have better results. Would it take less than 2.5 years or not? Who knows, but if we base it on my academic life, it could be.
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