acid reflux

My last few days at NUS were anything but ceremonious. These were days filled with severe acid reflux, palpitating hearts, over the top cigarette smoking and coffee intake that would make a New York lawyer who works 130 hours a week cringe with disgust. Preparation for exams was a bitch. I have never been so unprepared in my life.

Usually my exam preparation has two stages; the first stage is right after the mid-semester break where I plan out my schedule and carry out a half-hearted attempt to study and the second stage is about a month before exams where I go into full gear and short notes, all-nighters, coffee and missed morning classes take over my life. The NUS semester is only about 5 months long so based on my description above that means that the latter two and a half months of the semester has me looking for the best places to study, the most efficient sleep schedule, the places that make the best tea/coffee at 7am and pissing my friends off with my lack of interest in the normal and social things in life. I am going to miss that.

This time around unfortunately, the tried and tested method of studying didn’t work out. In fact, it got shot straight into hell or wherever study schedules go to die a long drawn out painful and withering death. I quite literally wasted away my semester with the clubbing, drinking, sleeping, hanging with friends…but….wait a minute!!! I’ve done all that in my past semesters and yet, I have studied as intensely as anyone; what the hell was different this time around? I have a strong feeling it might have been the lack of interest in the modules I enrolled for but it could also have been the feeling that washes over you when it is time to graduate; the feeling that you’ve done this a million times before and you can handle it, it is just no big fucking deal anymore.

Anyway, with whatever little I did as regards preparation, I still expect decent grades. That’s just the way I work. I think, at the very least, an education at NUS has taught me how to study intelligently and I do think, I hope, that my intelligence crept into all the papers I did this semester. Ha Ha. If only intelligence were this separate entity that senses when it is needed and like any self-respecting super-hero comes to the rescue by unconsciously directing your pen to create sentences that have a profound impact on the soon-to-be blown away professor.

Anyway I am finally a graduate. If I don't fail that is. It doesn't feel any different. As usual.