“It’s amazing how you can work so hard the whole semester heading towards that A and all your effort suddenly disappears in one and a half hour of exam”. – Allison Bennett, MLOG 08
I can’t help but agree. In my entire life, I have never taken an exam that leaves me so perplexed. Usually, one will have a rough idea of how well one does after an exam. If you screw it up, at least you KNOW you screw it up. This exam… NO ONE has ANY idea how well one did. The whole paper was like placing bets on a craps table. You write as much as you can and hope something, just something, in your answer matches the solution key. It’s painful to the point of being hilarious.
But it’s finally over. The first semester is finally over.
And yet, I’m still sitting here in the MLOG lab, writing this blog. Maybe I’m so free that I have nothing better to do. Or maybe I am simply suffering from withdrawal symptoms. After all, I spent more time in this MLOG lab than I spent at home. And the time I spent at home is usually for sleeping anyways. I feel that a part of my brain has forgotten what my room looks like.
Looking back, the past 2 weeks were both hell and heaven at the same time. “Hell” because we had so much work to finish – a thesis proposal, 4 or 5 papers, final projects, and 2-3 finals to study for in 14 days. Some of the MLOGGERs stopped sleeping altogether. I think the two biggest zombies in class are Kin and Lee. But trust me, all of us became zombies to a certain extent. The program director, Chris, had to send an email telling us to “sleep”. But Chris, you were the one who deprived us of our sleep in the first place! ☺
But at the same time, the past 2 weeks were “heaven”. I have never been in a team with more spirit and drive and unity than this bunch of MLOGGERs. We literally eat, sleep, live and die together. It’s amazing how everyone was encouraging each other, sometimes explicitly, but most often, implicitly. The presence of seeing your peers studying so hard simply motivates you to work hard as well. It’s a reinforcing loop that keeps the whole class going. And amidst all the studying, somehow we never stop having fun.
Now that the semester has come to a close, I can’t help but be left with a sense of alienation. The MLOG lab suddenly feels so empty. Everyone’s probably back home getting that long-needed sleep. This is the first time I’ve seen the lab so empty. At the back of my mind, I keep getting that feeling that I still have things to do when I have none. This, my dear friends, is what people call withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal from what? From the sense of pride for being able to push yourself beyond your limits every single day, from the feeling of unity that your fellow classmates give you. Call me masochistic, I don’t care.
This is a good type of withdrawal symptom.