Graduation Buzz

I’m about to graduate. Yeah. The day will finally be here anytime soon, someday in the midst of this year’s September.

Am I thrilled? Sure am! Except for the fact that I still have to pay for that grad ceremony, I’m sort of thrilled to be finally able to get dressed up in beautiful kebaya and proudly wearing the toga..And then people will give me some flowers..Photos..Cries..Laughs…Friends..Lover (if I’m lucky enuff, yes)…

But then, I recently have been thinking about things I wanna do after grad. The more I think of it, life after college would never be as fun as I had back in college. I had suffered, off course, cause of those killer subjects. They were like some greatest pain I’ve ever had in my life so far (seriously, ga lebay, more on that later). But I gotta admit, my life would feel a bit dull without ‘em. And the friends I have in college are incomparable. Come to think of it, my college life was counted as pretty sweet.

Still there is some unsatisfaction regarding my non-thesis graduation. Yes, I’m graduating without having to do thesis like other college students. Yes, the non-thesis way of graduation is a thing in our university, especially in my faculty. I’m pretty sick of some people underestimate me for having to graduate without thesis, and I’m pretty sick of explaining it to them. The thing is, remember some damn hard stuff that I’d got to go through in my academic life? Well, almost every kid in my faculty has experienced it. Study in our faculty would be as tough as study in faculty of tech or even faculty of medicine. IT IS TOUGH.

Why is it?

For instance, in my case, studied in Chinese Studies Program was like giving my youth time to work in labor for the second Industrial Revolution. To be able to survive in this major you have to pass 6 painful levels of Chinese modern language, plus 2 levels of Chinese classical language, and some other hot stuffs. For Chinese modern language itself, if you failed on the same level twice, then it’d be the end of you. Finiti. 结束了. Sorry, but you can’t continue your study there.

To be able to graduate exactly four years, you also have to put a serial of darn hard work. For example, if you didn’t pass the first level of Chinese modern lang, you have to repeat it, right? But you can’t repeat it as soon as the new term started, no, you’ve to wait for next year to be able to repeat it. It off course would costs you some more time to hang out in college. Just imagine if you didn’t pass the first level of Chinese lang, then you’d wait, you’d repeat it, you’d pass to second level, but ooooh crap, you didn’t pass the second level! So there, the story would repeat itself. So on so forth and when you realized it, you absolutely can’t finish college on time. Don’t even wish to write one hell of a thesis cause time is running out.

Those stories happen in my surrounding. I have to bite my tongue off every time I see my friends failed, drop out, or have to stay longer in college. That applies to other majors in my faculty, I think, more or less.

I consider myself lucky cause I was able to survive and got through everything. I’m not even that smart and God only knows I speak Chinese just like a Chinese baby that’s just started learning to speak. I was just working my ass off, swallowing all of the pain, bearing lots of sleepless nights, drinking tons of coffees, surviving bad traffic and crap public transportation, while trying to maintaining my sanity.

So please, don’t ever judge ‘em who are graduating from non-thesis way. Those years of hard work probably are equal with one or two of your semesters doing the thesis. Besides, your thesis would never be the thing that guarantees your success after college. Camkan yah!

Okay, so, happy graduation for me! Write more later. Ciao!

xoxo,