Dear John, 2:29 AM

Why do you have a compulsive need to be better than others? Why do you constantly have to feel like you are academically, intellectually and noticeably superior to the next person?

Is it so wrong if someone upstaged you? Is it so bad if she exceeded you by two marks? Is it so bad that you lost out by four? Are you so petty? Are you so shallow? Is your world so, so small?

Didn't I work hard enough? What did I do wrong? What did she do right? Why did she do better even though I KNOW I spent more time on it than she did? Is the world so unfair?

Why am I judging her? Why am I even comparing myself? Why SHOULD I compare myself? Why is my world so small?

Is your work everything to you? Does nothing else matter? Why can't you live life for today, appreciate the things you have and strive to achieve that which you do not have? Why do you have to be perfect all the time?

I want to find the thing that completes me. I want to be whole. I don't want to have to feel bad for not doing as well as the next person.

Perhaps someday I'll grow out of this. Perhaps someday I'll be mature enough to see the error of my ways. Perhaps one day I won't need my work and my career to feel good about myself. Perhaps one day I will be truly, wholesomely happy, and maybe then I will have found the thing that completes me.

I look forward to that day :-)

If I Could Turn Back Time 2:33 AM

I am now officially exam-free, hence the new blog post.

And now that the PR exam is over, let me grouch about it. First off, thanks Leeyi for the lovely wishes yesterday, but as much as I crave a HD, I don't think its quite possible. I studied hard, made sure I read everything, memorized case studies, yet I wasn't able to put it all on paper. The lecturer kept reminding us that we have to write as much as possible, to fill out page after page because apparently, that shows how 'knowledgeable' you are.

I think that's a bunch of crap. Just because you can fill an exam booklet to the brim doesn't prove anything, other than your speed-writing abilities. Its such a frustratingly stupid criteria to grade exams by, not that exams are a good measure in the first place.

So there I was struggling to meet the criteria (7 pages for Section A, 3 pages for each question in Section B) and failing. That's one of my epic weaknesses when it comes to exams - I am somehow unable to write lengthy expositions (it doesn't help that I write slowly). Then again, I probably spent too much time thinking and not writing.

As I headed home on the bus however, a thought struck me. My entire happiness seemed to depend on doing well in an exam; my whole life revolved around my grades. I was positively possessed by it, by the number of A's I can get on my transcript. Its hard to explain why this is so important to me. Getting good grades hardly makes you a better person - you are neither more beautiful nor more fulfilled, and the pressure to get the next A is more a curse than a blessing.

Its out of my hands now, but as the saying goes, "do your best and leave the rest to God". So I will. I just wish this wasn't so important to me. It consumes me and makes me a wreck.