words of wisdom

While waiting for the mrt to go to school today, a quote on the mrt electronic signboard caught my eye,

'Unfortunately, many of life's failures are experienced by people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.'
- Thomas Edison

These words of wisdom were like a ray of sunlight that crept out of the dark clouds in my academic endeavours so far. Defeatism was like an endemic disease that plagued me in my hell-ish period where I endured 5 deadlines in 2 weeks. In the midst of that crazy period, there were often times when I felt like giving up. Like when I can't really link Clausewitz,perhaps the greatest military thinker even till today to a 21st century Sino-US relation with Taiwan as a flashpoint. Like when I did my presentation slides till 6 plus am in the morning for a presentation at 9am, culminating in a 39 hour sleepless ordeal. Like when I got my C+ for a history essay two days before the submission of the next one.....

Defeatism is something new, something that has not appeared in my uni days. Guess, the focus is gone with the ending of that dream. Guess, when I need only a B grade average for my remaining modules (close two eyes also can get) to retain my ordinary 2nd upper contributed to this. Perhaps also, is that academic fatigue that comes hand in hand with the crazy deadlines of honours year.

Exams are 1 week plus away, yet, I still have one last deadline, due next tuesday, rested 3 days so far le with really little motivation since that hell period, think will be very preoccupied with the last deadline, but I will remember Edison's words of wisdom. Drive on, Yanwei! The battles may be needless, but you need to remember the satisfaction that you get from recovering from your setbacks. You need to prove to yourself that you can do it! You need to not disappoint yourself! You need to....