Relegation

My reward for slogging through the entire year is relegation. I stared at the paper and the goddamn paper stared at me back and in the end we did not know each other. I answered the first question, scribbled whatever my desperate mind could conjure for the second, wrote a few lines for the third, and copied some paragraphs I found in my course notes for the last. The seat next to my left was empty, and the one to my right was occupied by a bloke who was just as sorry as I was, only that unlike me, he could not really give a rat's ass about the piece of shit in front of him. I flipped through my notes in a kind of feverish delirium only those who have lost all hope could understand. I looked left and right at my fellow course mates, sneaked furtive glances at the clock in the examination hall (more like a torture chamber) every now and then. In the end, I could only bitterly rant and struggle to keep myself from taking out my pain on some unfortunate sod.

To come so far only to suffer a collapse at the final hurdle. Such was the wretchedness of my performance that even The Curve cannot save me this time. It was insane, this accused paper. Two hours to analyze a case study, no time to think and less time to write and articulate your jumbled thoughts on paper. While my peers will celebrate the festive season knowing that they have graduated and that their torture at this detestable paper mill is at an end, I would be cursing and sweating and contemplating what to write in my appeal letter, should I decide to spend over $50 on what would probably amount to a meaningless gesture.

It had been a fatal mistake, working with my friends on preparing my case notes for my capstone module. Too much time was wasted on asserting our opinions and arguing who was right. In terms of understanding the concepts, we were a pathetic bunch. The definitions in the textbook was in plain English and clear enough but even with my repeated explanations, it took a Hell of a time getting my friends to even understand them. We were so concerned about getting our English right in our preparation notes that we spent more time proofreading than analyzing the case. I kept insisting to one fellow that this was a Business examination. We did not have to write in perfect Shakespearean English. As long as they could understand what we were trying to express, it was good enough for them and what was good enough for them would certainly be good enough for us! Sadly, we had to make concessions to two guys whose English is not as good, and to be honest, even our designated typist's command of English is inferior to mine. After writing our script, we further spent another two days to proofread and compile, to make everything perfect, to make our stupid report deserving of our final examination and fit for posterity, something to show our fucking grand children. I still do not see what is so glorifying about the shit we wrote. Seriously, if it were up to me alone, I would never have given a flying fuck about the English in my report. I would have written most of it in point form and if necessary I would just convert them into complete sentences during the examination. Big fucking deal. I could have finished the fucking analysis an entire week before my other two papers, giving me considerably more time and energy to prepare for them. Maybe I might have survived this season instead of writing this and bemoaning my fate. As it stands, I cannot even be sure that I won't end up flunking all three and going through the same shit next season.

For the umpteen time I find myself wondering why I did not take up Arts instead. The course work is light, and the best thing is, since the assignments are done individually, I do not have to waste my precious time and energy poring over other people's patchwork English to try to make sense of their balderdash sufficiently for me to turn it into something coherent. It is not my fault that some people have poor linguistic abilities. I suck at numbers but never have I made anyone suffer for my weakness so why should I be made to suffer for the inadequacies of others? Why can't they pay instead?! I have had enough of this bullshit. Since my supplementary paper is six months away, in the meantime I can only use my lousy and useless diploma to seek employment and getting shite pay and this is provided that by some miracle I do manage to land a job!

This is it. I better stop ranting. I might just burst an artery and bleed to death. Not a bad thing in itself perhaps, but I do not deserve to die in this shithole. I am simply too good for it. I deserve better!