HIM

There are moments when you feel the presence of God in you. You feel it in your veins, you feel it coursing through your blood, you feel it in your heart. When you couldn't have gone through something, something that seems so impossible, so improbable, that you just know that you could not have gone through that without a Higher power actually helping you through.

And I am not talking about my breakup from my 7-year old relationship either!

I'm talking about surviving my BCL Masters exam here in Oxford.

Yes, some people might think I'm being a bit melodramatic here. But they don't know. They don't know the amount of materials on the reading list for each subject that we are expected to read through. And they don't know about all these crazy people surrounding this place who all actually made it a point to finish reading up EVERYTHING. They don't know the amount of geniuses that walk through this place who at the same time are damn hard-working and work their asses off in the library EVERYday of the week. They don't know of the complicated ideas and concept that we are expected to wrap our minds around and spit them back out in an ORIGINAL way.

And the problem is I'm not one of them hardworking people. I know I HAVE to, and NEED to, work my ass off as well to compete with them in THIS PLACE. But I've been too caught up WITH this place. I'm too caught up with for once living FOR MYSELF and doing things FOR MYSELF. Not thinking about responsibilities, about what the future HAS to be like, about what is EXPECTED of me. For once, in this place, I found the break that I need, to stop being Ms. Perfect, the first-class Best Student of IIUM, the International Finalist Mooter, the all-rounder high-achiever, the perfect girlfriend to be proud of. The Perfect Person.

For once I feel I can stop being too hard on myself.

I've not been the most hardworking intelligent student of the BCL. I definitely haven't. But I have made it a point to EVERYDAY do things that make me HAPPY, be surrounded by people who I am comfortable being myself with. I have made it a point to travel the world (well, some parts of the world at least). I have made it a point to laugh the most and the loudest, to have fun, to feel great, to experience Life. To Rejoice. To do new things and meet new people, and learn things that can't be learnt from a textbook.

Yes, people might think I am not pushing myself hard enough academically here. But I've spent the best 17 years of my life (at least) doing just THAT. I know I can do it if I want to. And I have nothing left to prove. I've let, and seen, life just pass me by. But when you had your future ripped off from under your nose, it does shift your perspective a bit, and you realise that your priorities have changed. Being the Best Student no longer seem like the most important thing in the world. Being happy is.

So in a nutshell, after all these life-changing experience, I found myself at that dreaded moment. The moment when I have to sit for my exams. The moment when my first paper of 3-papers-in-3-consecutive-days (and then one more) is just a week away, and I have to catch up with what the rest of them have been doing for A YEAR LONG since September. Hell, it felt like the MOST IM-POS-SI-BLE thing and I almost cried a few times thinking I would not get through this without actually breaking down during AT LEAST one of the exams for not being able to answer the paper.

And hence I come back to the point I was initially making (oh how I've drifted!). I actually made it! I got through each and every agonizing moment, and emerged safe and sound on the other side. I made it without breaking down. I made it without dropping dead. And I knew. And I felt it. In my veins, in my blood, in my heart. I could not have done it without HIM.