It’s surprising how much we think we know about ourselves, when the truth is we hardly do. And most of the times, it’s not because we are deluding ourselves – deliberate fibbing requires an extreme dosage of consciousness. We first need to know who we truly are and then proceed to convolute it with any fiction we see desirable. Nah, I have a feeling more often than not, we hardly even know the reflection that is starring right back at us because we never really bothered to ask.
We accept precedence at face value and think that it is the gospel truth.
I entered the banquet of tertiary education with a pre-packaged notion on what my life will be for the 4 years here in the States. And those notions that I formed were based on what I generically thought best about myself throughout these years. Hours of pondering led to conclusions drawn on what my strengths were and what fundamentals they were sustained on. After two years of mishap analysis, reality crept in and the writing on the wall became a little too apparent to ignore. The initial snapshot of my graduating moment would be me cladded in silky black robes with a flat mortar board on my head. I would have my family beside me and a fat smile would say it all. I would have aced this university with a triple major, president of a whole hosts of clubs and most probably I would already have had a leg into the top graduate schools of my time. My school years would buzz away, packed to the brim with commitments that would make my peers shudder and smack in awe. More is MORE they say…I would epitomize that saying.
Here comes the reality check:
This is my third year at the University of Michigan and save for leading one high profile event, I haven’t been participating in many clubs, what more leading them. I just decided to shelve one major into the dustbin in exchange for a minor instead, leaving me with just 2 majors in the end. I don’t like slaving for my classes and they are turning into a bore because I neither have the time for them, nor do I have the time to find time – a huge bulk can be attributed to the lack of efficiency as opposed to a gorilla-sized commitment. In the past two weeks, I’ve only slept on my own bed 4 times as I’ve spent my nights at my friend’s place because I needed someone to wake me up in the morning.
When your own bed feels colder than your friend’s couch, you know that shit just hit the fan.
So, what went wrong?
To search for the faults, I first had to connect the dots. Why did I dip myself into actuarial science anyway? Let’s be clear, I was neither a genius in math nor did I ooze out any math-sy demeanor [I freaking need a calculator when doing the most simple arithmetic, say...90/4]. The money isn’t a factor either – I actually went for accountancy before plunging into realm where numbers are monarchs. The answer I have been searching was there all along:
People.
It should always be about people – The Chicago Roosevelt Fellows, one of the best times of my life.
My flirtation with additional mathematics sparked in Form 4 because I had the best unconventional teachers who managed to inspire me to see beyond the numbers that I was learning. Ms Alicia carries a very unique personality and I would have to say that I was more drawn to her as a teacher than what she had to teach. Attending Mr. Chan’s tuition classes helped sealed the deal. I reveled in Additional Mathematics and subsequently emerged best in my class for that subject. It wasn’t math anymore – it was a craft. So I went into actuarial science, because I remembered the excitement when I could solve a question, amidst the hair pulling from my peers; or the inflation of satisfaction when I nailed a problem that was harder than what was required of my syllabus.
History repeated itself when I took my Math 425 – Introduction to Probability. My Professor was a charming lady from India who spoke with an Indian accent that was still very much pronounced. She was always seen with her specs dangling from her hunched neck and her fingers white from the remnants of the chalks. Wrinkles permeate her forehead, they told tales of her age. She would allow me to sit next to her table as I worked through every problem in the book – EVERY PROBLEM – for three hours. When she had to attend meetings, she would say, “It’s ok. Stay. I’ll be back in a few hours.” And came back she did, helping me through all my math problems till the night beckoned. At the end of it all, when I finally nailed the last question at the very last required chapter, she gazed at me with those grandmother eyes and said with a smile:
“You are a good student.”
I scored an A+ in her class.
It took sometime for me to swallow the pride and backtrack to the roots of my strengths. I don’t like busy schedules for it robs me of my time to concentrate on what I think is important: people and relationships. This may not apply to everyone, but studying to me is more of a relationship between a professor and a learner, than those indiscernible crap loaded in the textbooks. I am not a very bright student [academically speaking]; I merely work harder than most of my peers. There is a passion that ignites in me when I feel that a professor is really invested in what I have to offer and by default, sees the best in me. From then on, studying will no longer be a chore but an enjoyable process of enquiry. And that was what I felt when I was in Oxford with Dr Addison teasing an answer from the cohort as opposed to feeding it to us. “You’ve got this in you. Just connect the dots!” I keep telling myself every time I left Dr Addison’s office feeling a little un-intelligent than what I thought I was.
I’ve got this in me.
The Low-Fat Ketupat Lifestyle – Complete ZEN. =P
My life isn’t measured by metrics, thus efficiency isn’t my credo. I like to take my own sweet time, doing things that I think are meaningful but also in a process that extracts the best out of me. I like to day dream; to stare at clouds and to think of the “NEXT BIG THING.” That was why I ran for head prefect anyway or the Malaysian Cultural Night Director here in Michigan. I saw a vision and I wanted to be that bridge that turns it into reality. An intellectually-charged conversation over steaming coffee is as meaningful to me as those A-pluses that I amassed, possibly even more.
I’ve been sitting in the car of life for far too long, forgetting to ask the driver to stop for me to enjoy the sceneries that zipped through. Finally I have. I’ve stopped and I saw what I was missing. And just when I thought I was alone, I came across an article about President Obama during his Columbia University years. He remembered it as years of reclusiveness. “I needed it.” he said. It was a stage of life where he simmered in this thoughts and brewed the ideas that shaped him in his Presidency.
So, after a midterm review, I’m turning this ship around and bringing it back home. In doing so, I would have to convince myself that dropping my environmental classes despite doing very well in them is in-sync with my broader aim of lightening my course load. As I’ve said, learning has always been a people process for me, and there shouldn’t be a reason why it should be any different now that I’m in my tertiary years. So, I can be sure of making my last few years here more people-centric. Emails would be sent to catch up with professors who have taught me some time ago – I sure hope these relationships last. =)
Just for your information, I took sometime writing this post. I allowed the thoughts to simmer for awhile, wondering if this is just another knee-jerk reaction of mine, where a cursor click on the ‘delete post’ button would have solved everything. As I was writing this, one potent memory came to mind. It was when Pn Yek, brought her former students from SMK SJ to my secondary school to tell us about what they thought about leadership and life. Cynthia, one of those charges, said: “In the end of the day, your life here in secondary school will not be about the As that you get or the medals that you keep. Instead, it is like a book and you walking through the pages as it flips. In the end, it will be about the foot prints that you leave behind.”
The footprints that I leave behind…
