EPTSo yeah, I have been awarded something that can only be described as in-fucking-credible: B.A Hons degree (after idling for four years). Holding the priceless certificate (actually it costs around 20k pound for tuition and living and shit like that, which had evaporated almost all my parents' savings), the feeling of being 'honoured' caressing me - I can almost feel the aura all around me, this is the most important moment in my life so far, a milestone I just walked pass, I may add. Why would I refer it as a milestone? Well, there was a life-threatening story behind this.
Rewind the clock back a couple of months ago, when I was requesting a letter from the college (which I needed to apply for my visa extension) confirming that I have completed my course, was the time I have been informed that I didn't manage to meet the criteria in one of my assignments - 10,000 words Research Project - which counts 40 percent of the total credit of the degree; this further means, if I didn't pass it, I couldn't graduate (and you basically get the recipe for panic, which I did). I skimmed through the full screen of listed students who had to resit for failed subjects, either dissertation or exams, I found my ID with a crimson mark beneath the course name: 24/40.
I was in chaos there, anger-depression combo raised up in me, humming sound around my ears, eye sight started to shrink and everything got darkened and blurry.
I sat there silently, could think of anything else.
That night, I couldn't sleep, watched again Fight Club and tried so hard to steel myself for the coming encounter: resubmitting deadline - 28th August (in a month). It cracked my fragile mind, swamped with the thick, fetid feel of sickness that drove me physically to my knees. (had I slept? or is this just a mere nightmare I had like others?) Despite of myself, I cried out.
The next day, I started to schedule my plan for this shit, (I still kept all the reference, drafts, outlines and all the feedback from supervisors in a folder called diss shit) I had to drag my ass to the nearest university (since I was not in the city where I studied at that time) 3hrs everyday and buried myself in the library from morning till late afternoon. That was the darkest life I've ever had, frustrated and forced to work on something totally useless (although I wouldn't consider that as useless now), lucky enough I was just too clumsy to commit a suicide, though I indeed thought so, otherwise this blog that you are reading wouldn't even exist.
After a full month's hopeless torturing, I have finally received a good news from the college. With a sincerely thankful heart (for those who supported me in all means), I still couldn't leap for joy because compare to what I lost, (either time or all the career opportunities I missed) it in fact fuelled my hate for the college life in general.
![[image loading]](http://www4.speedyshare.com/data/447572451/18689143/40773378/94a8415e73e33a35068dbb57917ea7a41.gif)
Thanks college!
"You didn't fail the dissertation" my boyfriend kept telling me, "you just wrote less 2,000 words as they required."
On a second thought, he was actually right (he always right). He has been through this as well, (although he passed it at the first time) but he knew that those teachers will never go through every paragraph or chapter, what the teachers wanted to see is that you have wrote 50 or 60 pages of crap, preferably with lots of quotation and diagrams showing you have done enough research. In his dissertation, half of his 83-page work (which was finished within 4 days) were screen-shots and quotation from various gaming and esports websites, and of course his analysis. BUT, Had those teachers ever understood half of what he tried to say? Virtually impossible! my boyfriend was a professional starcraft player, and has been a senior SC journalist for years, from this point only, I could guarantee that the markers (regardless the quality of the actual work because he is too awesome to be judged) were just petrified by the amount of pages they had to deal with.
On all, this incident I believe, was one of the million episodes I might face in my life, I will take it as lesson. The milestone is passed, (although I didn't have the chance to attend the ceremony in the ICC congregation, dressed in robe and toss the mortar... nvm) I should focus on my next brand-new adventure, let alone the memory of student life reside in its past.
