Failure

Chapter 7: My Sacrifice

24 August 2020. Finally. I have finally made it. 578 days ago, I embarked on my journey as a college student. I experienced challenging times, times when I wanted to give up, and other feelings. This was my first official day of Mass Communication.

Well, my first official day might have been online, but thanks to the Covid cases in the country being at a relatively low number, we had some face-to-face classes now again. Meeting my lecturers who I know personally before enrolling, I knew them personally. Especially one of my favourite lecturers, Mr A. He was teaching a theory subject which was related to communication. Followed by marketing, public speaking, advertising, and English.

Mr Bawang. He knew that I was a musician. I was performing at a college event, and he asked my friend, Mohnish, about me. Mohnish was organising an event and he wanted me to perform. That was sort of the first point of contact. I remember my first point of contact with him. He remembers that I was the guy who performed at college that day. Ever since then, we've he's been a good guy who's helped me out in and out of college. If you ever meet him, he's the type of guy who is always very happy and is always high on life. Anyways for his subject, it was a rather interesting subject. It's unique in learning how different levels of communication can be achieved. Whether it is through social media, face-to-face, phone calls, etc.

Public speaking. In this subject I knew that I can't fail. Even me and Mohnish had high standards for this subject.

He said, "we might not be the smartest people out there. But for this subject, we can only aim for A- and above".

I knew that I can get a high grade in this subject. I have that experience of talking to people. I have experience in presenting myself as a personal trainer. I knew this would be a piece of cake.

Advertising and marketing. Well, I sort of knew I wouldn't be doing these two subjects full-time. But I knew I can gain something out of this subject is how important it is to have advertising as a skill. Whether I'm doing work on the side, it's just an important skill to have. Being able to stand out to others is quite important.

English. I hate English. Might be half English, but I just hate it. When I was in school last time, I just never liked it. It was that fucked up, it required you to give non-living things feelings. I remember all of my teachers for English were good. But I think they're good teachers teaching the wrong subject. I just never understood it. I remember failing it. I still remember studying for donkey hours a day, and I still failed. But that was a while ago. 

Back to college, I knew I just wanted to pass. What I remember from this, we were given coursework for this subject, and I scored 27% out of a possible 60%. First reaction, holy shit. I knew that I needed like 60 marks out of 100 on the test to pass. I think I fucked up on one of my tests. I don't remember exactly how much I got, but let's just say it was shit. I knew that I needed to score marks on my other pieces of work. I knew that it was going to be tough, but I just told myself anything is possible. Having to do it in college again really made me motivated to just pass it, despite me not liking the subject as a whole.

When I was studying English for my IGCSEs, my teacher was awesome. Her name is Ms T. She's been my tuition teacher since last time. She and Mr Hong were my favourite teachers from the centre. I just liked their teaching methods. I remember Ms T. Every time I did a piece of work, I was rewarded with something. She even took me to Korean BBQ last time. Sometimes I was rewarded with sweets, being able to watch some videos, and treated to lunch. I just liked it. It was safe to say that she made me enjoy english, becuase of how she rewarded me after studying. Still to this day I wonder why I failed English. For English Literature, I remember that during the exam, I needed to use the toilet. I asked the examiner if I can use to the toilet. It was 20-minutes into the exam, and I had to endure another 2 hours 40 minutes. The examiner said I can't use it. Ended up pissing myself in the exam. Maybe that's the reason I failed.

So, where can I start with Mr Hong? He's the only reason why I enjoyed maths. First of all, he manages to make it simple for me to understand. His teaching method makes it easy for me to participate in his classes. Whether I made a mistake or not, he doesn't care. He just wanted me to learn no matter what. Secondly, he can cater to everyone needs. He makes learning easier for people to understand. I and Mohnish were shit at maths. But he couldn't give a shit that we're shit at maths. Lastly, he wasn't pissed when I failed maths. He knew that maths was not for me, but still to his day, we still stay in touch with each other. We sometimes go for a meal together. I'm just glad that we can still be friends outside of class.

How did I join that Tuition centre? Well, my sister was taking classes over there. I knew that my exams are coming up. So I thought that was by not I go there. I'm just glad that I went there because I managed to meet Mohnish. And also, having good teachers in Mr Hong and Ms T.

Coming towards the end of the term, I had to endure exams. The only difference from school is that everything was handled online. It felt really weird doing it online. But I just treated it as a proper exam. Some were 24-hour papers. And we're allowed to use our notes for some of the 24 hours paper. I manage to get a pass. Got my first ever A in my life. And that was for public speaking.

How do I feel after my first term? Well, first of all, I'm just glad that I enjoy what I'm doing. The subjects which I took were not too bad. I knew that somehow, some way I'll be using these subjects in the future. Minus the English subject, the other subjects were good. This is the first time that I enjoy studying. It just makes a difference if you can choose what course you want to study. I'm just grateful that my parents were open to me doing whatever I wanted. I knew that some families from day one, control the destiny of their child. At the end of the day, it's the child's decision to determine what they wanna do. You can force them to do things they don't like. Imagine forcing your child to become a doctor.