Failure

Chapter 8: Still Alive

Just happy that I got over my last term. I even manage to pass English. Just got a C. I'll take that. Manage to get my first-ever pass in English. Just passing English felt the weight off my shoulder. So far, all is good. Manage to pass everything thus far. 

So we enter 2021. Where we all thought 2021 could be better. Ironically, 2020 was a better year. I did a lot more shit compared to 2021. This was due to Covid cases reaching a high number every day. It felt like lockdown after lockdown all over again. At least in 2020 we only had one major lockdown which turn out to be the last lockdown of the year before some of the economies reopened again.  I felt like when we reached a low number of cases in the country, things will slowly go back to normal. But out of nowhere, the country experienced another wave of cases. As we entered 2021, we were back in lockdown. Here we go again. But weirdly, I already know what's going to happen compared to the first time. I guess it's one of the things where you have to know what it feels like before doing it again. So this time, I'm well prepped. 

Bring on the new school term. I had one new face and my favourite lecturer, Mr A. My new lecturer's name is Mr Mugam. At first, I heard a lot of good things about him. In my opinion, his teaching method is like prepping you for the real world. I feel like I like this teaching method because of how the real world will treat you. I enjoyed the class which I had with him. I had three subjects this term. Two of them were Public relations and Intro to Journalism. Both with Mr Mugam. Followed by my favourite lecturer Mr Bawang. He taught me Human Communications. This subject was like psychology. Learning about the human mind and stuff. 

Intro to Journalism. Well, first of all, writing wasn't my strong point, but I came in with an open mind. Wanting to learn something new. Who knows, this subject will benefit me in the future. At first, it was a bit rough. Made some mistakes with it. But that's fine. Making mistakes is nothing new to me. I just took it as a lesson and moved on pretty much. Learning from mistakes is the reason why I'm here today. Especially with me studying for 2-years straight. It's pretty much insane that I studied for that long. I had some highlights for this subject. I manage to get my lecturer to like one of the pieces of news that I wrote. It made me feel good in a way. 

Public relations strategy (PR). PR in any company is one of the most important departments in my opinion. They handle the brand image of the company and pretty much take care of the brand like it's their baby. At first, I didn't expect that much for PR. I knew that I wouldn't be branching off into this field. But in a way, it's important to learn the fundamentals of it. Especially whether you're going into a job which requires you to talk to people. Nevertheless, the work seems to be challenging at first. However, thanks to the help of some people, I manage to pull through. I still remember one of the assignments I did, which involved me interviewing a PR officer. The advantage being a person who I knew personally. I still remember my assignment getting rejected at first. Well, it's nothing new. Rejection is like becoming a new norm for me. But manage to get it right on the second attempt. 

Humans Comms. Well, I enjoyed this subject, because I knew somehow and some way I can do this assignment. I was a personal trainer last time, and I could somewhat tell a person's behaviour based on how they look and how they express themselves. Sometimes I was not right, but most of the time I was. I enjoyed the subject just tells you how you can tell a human's reaction without any words. The assignments for these subjects were really fun. The assignment included me watching a film titled "Bad Genius", which was a really good film. I recommend every to watch that. Followed by an assignment which involved doing a catfish experiment. I think it was using a dating platform and using a random person's face to catch a person. 

It's weird to believe that I'm still standing after 2-years of studying. It's a huge milestone for me. Especially carrying the momentum of me not failing. Which I will take pride in saying that. Let me take it back to about 4-years-ago. I was walking to work. It was like a normal morning. Sun was shining, got up early, had some breakfast, and just walked to work. It was like a 20-minute walk to work. I usually walk to work because it gave me an excuse to do some early morning cardio. As I was walking, something random just came into my head. I just had a random thought about studying. What struck me, was what I wanted to gain out of studying. I knew I had one goal in mind, which was to be able to have some educational certs in my CV. I didn't think that companies would look at your educational background to determine whether you're going to be hired or not. Unless you are wanting to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, etc, that's a different story. But I knew I was going to work on the creative side. Firstly, I wanted to go back because I wanted to prove that school failed me. I knew that school was not made for me. I knew that if I did something I liked, I would enjoy it. Secondly, I wanted to prove that I'm not a lazy arsehole. Well, I manage to get through the first chapter of my college life which was that cert, and now I'm moving towards my diploma. Lastly, just proved to those people who didn't believe me in school that I can study and to those who doubted me. I just really like proving people wrong. 

As I got to work, was something on my mind. At the time, I was almost a year into my job and had a re-test for my exam to get my training cert. I thought that maybe I do this job and eventually resign. I was not ready to resign yet. I had one goal in mind, which was to be a personal trainer no matter what. But I still remember at the end of the day, I told both of my parents. They were pleased in a way to hear that I wanted to study again. They knew that studying was not my strong point. But I told them I wanted to give it another crack. 

So as the term came to an end, I manage to get 1C, followed by 2B's. I thought to be honest with you, I thought that intro to Journalism will be my strong point, but it was the subject PR in which I scored my B—followed by human comms. I knew I couldn't let Mr Bawang down. Moving on, to the following term, I hope that there will be some face-to-face classes happening again. Don't get me wrong, I like learning from home, but it's a bit refreshing seeing some human faces again. Well, 2 terms down, 4 more to do. Let's keep the momentum rolling.