Paying the price

The last few days have been sickening for me. I had an in-class assignment on monday and a lab test on tuesday. I woke up in the wee hours of the morning to study before going for both hurdles and I didn't even go to bed early. And the funny part is I'm gonna flunk both tests.

I am paying the price for my lackadaisical attitude during the past few weeks, not paying attention in lectures and not doing tutorials. I am so left out in every subject. I don't know why every semester has to be like that. Somewhere in the middle of the semester, I just have to lose the enthusiasm and the will to study. Last semester, I slacked right when I started the first week and managed to pick up towards the end of the semester. This semester I don't have the luxury of time anymore to catch up cos this time, I was hardworking for the first few weeks and slacked for every other week. It's week 12 and it's the climax of the semester, where assignments and exams come slapping your face all at one time. And I haven't been aware of what has been taught in lectures.

It's taking its toll on me. I couldn't sleep well and enough. And the ridiculous thing is I put myself through all these rigorous routines and I cannot do well in exams. It's becoming pointless. All the weeks of slacking have definitely left my brain rotten and rusty. I can sit at my table with my books for hours but I can tell you the hours spent have not been productive ones. I'm just sitting there for the sake of sitting there and comforting myself, the truth is I haven't putting in enough of effort and thinking on the subjects. I've been putting too much unnnecessary pressures on myself. I have people telling me that I'm now thinner than the already very thin me. And, I grow thinner for no reason cos I'm not doing any better in my exams! Fuck me!

My parents kept telling me to control that social bug in me, but really, I don't see myself as that sociable. Most of my time out with friends were occassional and fuck, normally the first thing I do after my classes end every day, I go back home. I have all the time in the world to study and yet I couldn't fare reasonably well. I must be really rotten.

I'm growing increasingly irritated with UTAR's schedule for actuarial science, which I think is killing me. There's so many subjects, so large syllabus, so many exams and so many assignments crammed into 14 weeks. I have lecturers who themselves are baffled that we even have exams and assignments in the last week of semester. We don't have time to really understand the subjects. The actuarial subjects are not like any other four-year course subjects. There's a reason for people to say actuarial science is tough. But it's being treated like any other course. That is why they have abnormal failure rate for some subjects. That failure rate coupled with the subject lecturer's own admission that the subject needs time shows that the time frame for this course is really unfair.

When the subject alone is already very tough, it's even worse when you let a stupid lecturer to teach it. The "Doctor" is freaking blur while teaching cos he comes to class unprepared, yet he has ridiculously high expectations of students, as if he's teaching a bunch of masters students. We are new to the subject but he expects us to know a lot of things and understand a lot of new things right away. His classes are really unproductive because little is learnt, defying the true purpose of a class, like in tutorials where only 3 or 4 out 20 questions are discussed.

But, in the end, I know I still have myself to blame.