So, the new semester's officially started, and it almost feels bittersweet. I'm back in the grind and I'm anticipating the sweat and tears ahead that await me for the last two semesters I have, inshaAllah.
I can't believe I spent a full 4 months of not doing anything academic or career-related in Canada (not that I've ever had anything career-related in the past summers). It feels surreal because just last summer I was telling myself that I'm halfway through, now I'm almost done.
First two months was basically the Vancouver trip which I've put off blogging about, Bruce Peninsula trip, last minute bonding with the graduating seniors, and recuperating from a brutal third year which I really did stretch myself to my limit. I'm about to do that again for the capstone and this weekend I basically have to start crunching my mental cogwheels and come up with a plan and a direction, not to mention reviewing all the math I left behind for 4 months as it looks like 4th year will be full speed ahead with no more first few weeks of review, and all the labs will be turned up a notch too because it's project-based and not on a "follow instructions and sketch what you see in the oscilloscope" basis anymore. 4th year will be the real test, as my third year labs has still been of the "follow instructions and sketch what you see in the oscilloscope" kind.
On top of all that, I have to keep up with datelines, which I really hate. And the inevitability of facing the future, after the cycle of coaxing myself that I have to go through all this suffering and early mental preparation for the sake of a better future, and putting off making any decisions thinking that I'd still have time. No one is holding my hand this time, and I'm being thrust into the unknown.
To emphasize the solitary-ness of this path I now walk, I came onto campus grounds, most of my friends has gone to internship, with little to no familiar faces, and again I'm thrust into the unknown.
Though, to be honest, I'm torn being wanting to where I really want to be, and desperately wanting to survive what reality demands of me.
I hope that God give me strength that I could stay on top of it all, and get through this.
I can't believe I spent a full 4 months of not doing anything academic or career-related in Canada (not that I've ever had anything career-related in the past summers). It feels surreal because just last summer I was telling myself that I'm halfway through, now I'm almost done.
First two months was basically the Vancouver trip which I've put off blogging about, Bruce Peninsula trip, last minute bonding with the graduating seniors, and recuperating from a brutal third year which I really did stretch myself to my limit. I'm about to do that again for the capstone and this weekend I basically have to start crunching my mental cogwheels and come up with a plan and a direction, not to mention reviewing all the math I left behind for 4 months as it looks like 4th year will be full speed ahead with no more first few weeks of review, and all the labs will be turned up a notch too because it's project-based and not on a "follow instructions and sketch what you see in the oscilloscope" basis anymore. 4th year will be the real test, as my third year labs has still been of the "follow instructions and sketch what you see in the oscilloscope" kind.
On top of all that, I have to keep up with datelines, which I really hate. And the inevitability of facing the future, after the cycle of coaxing myself that I have to go through all this suffering and early mental preparation for the sake of a better future, and putting off making any decisions thinking that I'd still have time. No one is holding my hand this time, and I'm being thrust into the unknown.
To emphasize the solitary-ness of this path I now walk, I came onto campus grounds, most of my friends has gone to internship, with little to no familiar faces, and again I'm thrust into the unknown.
Though, to be honest, I'm torn being wanting to where I really want to be, and desperately wanting to survive what reality demands of me.
I hope that God give me strength that I could stay on top of it all, and get through this.
Second two months of summer was basically fasting, staying home, playing games, and the last two weeks was purely hanging out and revisiting the places I'd been way back in my first summer in Canada, though in retrospect, this is only my third summer. So, it's not that many summers. However, my memories of the seasons usually bleed into each other and whatever I did in any seasons almost seem indistinguishable, and interchangeable.
I've always aimed to work hard in all my time that I had here I formed a tunnel vision, and only after the end of this summer I realized how many people I've taken for granted, thinking I still have many seasons to go, and several whom I realized I haven't spoken to for a whole year, and I panic thinking I'd only have a year left, and it's the year I'm supposed to be in even more of a tunnel vision as I make the last sprint to the finish line. This is where I have to put everything on the line, and give it my all, I don't have time for anything else. Youth is for working hard so you'd have a good life when you're old.
I have to find where my heart is. Am I taking it too seriously ? It is the time to take things seriously ain't it ? Have I not been taking it seriously all this while ?
Summer has ended and I'm left feeling a little uneasy as compared to my other summers. Did I just let it slip away ? Did I spend it well ?
Had I always been living here, summers just come and go, you miss this summer, the next one's always coming, but no, I am not given that luxury. I am counting seasons and I am in uncertainty, as I personally hadn't been able to clearly visualize myself being part of the grind back home, not that I'm saying that I deserve better and that crunching away in a foreign country is better, because "better" is relative.
Have my three years of thinking and musing and planning and working away going to be for naught because I falter at the finish line ?
I've always been alone all these years, but this is the most alone so far that I've ever felt, and once I step out of the university bubble, it's every man for himself, and I wonder if I'm ever ready for it.
I know what I have to do, but I can feel my knees shaking thinking to myself I don't want to be the one who does not know what I'm doing.
Here's to a new semester, Mac.
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