The Grad School Diaries: Episode 11 - Tatay would've been so proud

Last week, I took a day off work to study. Like for real. The Friday morning was spent reading notes, by afternoon of 1pm, I went to Baker Hall to give the stuff for donation for last week's monsoon that I wrote about. Expect no pictures of me donating stuff. Things like that are just not for display.

Anyway, I spent the rest of the Friday trying to relax. God knows I hardly know how to relax nowadays. My Blood Pressure is on borderline from all the stress (seriously) of my upcoming FINAL Oral major examination for graduate school.

I had  a pedicure, read my notes, ordered a club sandwich that I don't know how I was able to eat it alone and concentrated on my checklist. 

Monday, August 13 is the big day. I woke up at 5am and within 6:30 am I am already 5 minutes away from the college building for my 9am Examination.

I can hardly remember the last time I really felt this nervous. The night before the exam, I was sneezing all throughout the day and coughing. I am afraid to get sick because I really want to get this over and done with. I really don't want to go through these jitters once again.

I realized that I really just want to do this once, and even if I crammed the hell out, I really will just put up a big fight. I will not go down without a fight.

By 11am I was told that I passed the UP Graduate School Compre Exam! Forgive my ecstatic state of having the urge to really blog this. I was secretly telling myself that I do not want to be a statistic in failing and that I will only take this exam once. In UPLB Graduate School, you get to have a second chance but if you flunk again this time you're out.

Even if people keep on telling me that I will be just fine and that I will make it ,of course, at the end of the day, it’s still a battle with my self and I don’t want to be too complacent. I want to earn it fair and square.

God knows how much tears I’ve cried over anxiety and fear and how many tea light candles that I lit up because I really want to pass this so bad. Not really for me, but for my Tatay (Dad) who passed away last June 5. On the 39th day since he died, he spoke to me in my dreams telling me to finish my Master’s Degree. He must have felt that it doesn’t matter to me as much as before that’s why I was not really preparing for it even if I enrolled my self this semester.  

The last time I took an eligibility exam, I flunked. I remember calling my mom’s number to vent out that I ended up calling my father’s number. Then, unexpectedly, I broke down, crying uncontrollably over the phone. It was his first time to hear me get upset and cry over an exam (he always thought I am too happy go lucky).  He was the one who told me to pull my self together and I can always take it a hundred times. I did not go through taking the exam again.  This compre exam is the next, if not major exam, that I’ve taken since my thesis defense back in 2003, when I was still in college.

When I finally got it, I was expecting myself to be over the moon. I'm happy I made my parents very happy.  I know tatay must be really proud of me and I know I made him happy,  but it’s just isn’t the same as having the chance to see my father’s face once again when I tell him that I passed my exam on a first try.