Project X: An Untitled Story

Part I

What would I give for another shot at destiny? Would my world change if I chose  another path over the one I have been forced into? 

I always looked into the vast expanse that my sight could cover and stare into it  endlessly, numb and hollow. I have always wondered what could have been, what might  have been if I listened to what my heart was saying from day one. 

I am lost. The tide of people carry me as I walk the narrow hall on the third floor  of the College of Business building of Cornell University carrying what feels like a sack  of potatoes on my back. I take a step towards the now-occupied classroom and opened  the door. Inside, my classmates are talking. Unfortunately, I mastered the art of letting  things pass from one ear out to the other and act as though I hear nothing. I set my bag  on my usual seat, settled, as I wait for my teacher to come. Normal for someone like  me--an invisible person stuck in the wrong universe.  

Days in my world are boring and slow?damaging to the young, creative spirit of  a handcuffed teenager. Here, I am nobody but a girl wearing a red and black-framed  glasses with the white and green ensemble that I chose to wear today. Ironic.  

Laughable. It?s weird how a school and its norms can make a person lose her identity in  just a short span of time. I hate to admit it, but it is true, because I have been corrupted.  I have been turned into someone I?m not. I have been turned into one of my school's  robot. 

It has been four years since I began walking this unlikely road to my soon-to-be  career. Pictures in my head about the not-so-distant future began to form. They are  interesting but they had no appeal to me. The people I see are all in monochrome, I see myself working in a dreary, claustrophobic office from eight to five without even a tinge  of excitement or glee. Being in an office is confining. It feels as if you have been marked to work until you can work no more. Ledgers, broadsheets, journals and reports, Ugh! I  think I?m going to be sick. I am so hating that picture in my head. 

CPA-- the title that's waiting for me at the end of this journey. Quite an honor  actually but I can barely be the example of a bona fide BS Accountancy student, what  more if I become a professional. 

The real world comes back to me as I hear the warning bell for the first period  sound. I tell myself, 'Okay. Pay attention' as my professor comes in and starts talking  about investments. I knew that it was going to be one of the many last days in my  personal hell. Midterms was over, but I was sitting in a classroom for a special lecture. 

You see, what I've learned in my alternate universe is that you just can?t rely on  working. You work, at the least estimate, to your 'hardest' and get a failing mark at the  end of the term. You sulk, and in the end you accept the inevitable fate that in this  territory, everything is different. I had to learn this the hard way, so I had to make sure  I'm armed. I take out my weapons: my mechanical pencil, exam-grade eraser, my 'notebook' (the columnar book), and my ?best friend?, my calculator. I get pretty serious  when it's lecture time. I take notes and I listen very well so that I wouldn't be caught off  guard when it's time to test what we got. Yes, the notes are helpful, but I have been  trained to expect the unexpected every time I receive an intimidating set of papers with  gibberish written all over them. As always, an out of this world question comes out and  drives us all mad. 

I am almost there. When I come to think of it, I just have to suffer for three  semesters more than my friends and then we?ll all be even. I will march, in a toga, to the  boring old graduation hymn and receive that all-important diploma. That's all that  matters, and after that take the licensure exam and get my face plastered on a plastic  card so I can use that most coveted suffix at the end of my name. Ha! Freaky.