Not mad. Just talking to myself.

The words of 30th March still lingers. This amidst major understanding of the method of superposition.

Dear me,

If you're reading this, the exams for the first semester of your third year is round the corner. Right now though, you're currently 5 days away from your Computational Methods paper which is on the 22nd. After this first hurdle, you'll be left with 3 days to prepare for your Civil Engineering Materials, Structures 1 and Material Science papers. This is then followed by 4 days (of preparation) before your last block of papers - Singapore Architecture and Geotechnical Engineering.

You're currently toying with the idea of taking a gap year. Pay a small fee to maintain your status in school so that you can slowly try to understand every single concepts that you barely understand now. Like I said, you're just toying with this idea in case this semester turns out to be a bad one.

Let me tell you the reason for my toying with this idea. I want to be an engineer. I know my analytical mind can understand and analyze structures and beam if given the right amount of time. I want to understand the mechanics of soil and materials rather than blindly memorize formulas and subbing in values into them. I've reached a point where I want to work towards my dream. The day of studying just to get a piece of paper stops today. I want to go to Australia and increase my probability of getting a job there. I want to grow as an engineer. I want to go to places and help people - the floodings in Kelantan, landslides in KL....

Only if this chase fails will I then use the paper to do some other unrelated things like being a teacher or something like that. Now, if only you can tell me if there's a happy ending to this semester.

You've been at it for Structures 1 simply because there's no way you can afford to flunk this one module as it's a pre-requisite to 3 other modules in the coming semester. Exams suck big time. I'm still the same old last minute guy. There wasnt much consistency this semester.

These few days though, you were able to understand more concepts than you ever did in the past few weeks. I think it's the pressure I'm feeling. We're running out of time. If you're reading and wondering how you should approach your third year, I'll suggest you to READ UP BEFORE LECTURES AND ASK FOR HELP RIGHT FROM THE START. And SLEEP LATE to mug! And ask help from your friends on a regular basis. You have wonderful friends who are more than willing to teach. These people are the ones who make life in Civil Engineering worth the while.

Back to work. That's all for now.

Yours truly,
M.e.