Nope, this isn't the opening line of some sort of autobiography titled Ranaditya Alief: The boy who endured the hardships of his youth, and against all odds became a national icon. Moreover, the term 'hardships of his youth' becomes over-the-top politically incorrect when applied to my wonder years. Bloody hell, the closest thing I've ever experienced to the expected famine that comes with poverty is Ramadhan!
Anyway, what I meant by not having the slightest idea on where I would be right now refers no less and no more to where I am now academically, and how I envisioned it back before I regularly wore shorts to campus. During those me minus 8 kilogram days, I had a mental picture of myself in full graduation attire at the end of my 7th semester, and my name as a cummlaude graduate on the big screen in Balairung.
Simply put, flash-forward June 2011, I'm a veteran.
I didn't submit my thesis in time to graduate at the end of my senior year, and thus, my undergrad days will outlive the normal student lifespan of eight semesters. To be blunt, my dear mom -who happens to work where I study- chose to comment on this added longevity by stating, "those who do not finish in time diminish the accreditation points of this campus". Bummer.
No need to scathe, fellow veterans. What my old lady said was just a failed attempt to fire me up; she doesn't regard it inferiorly, and for all I know, she ended up with my dad, who took eight years to don his toga, long even for 80s standards.
But for a period of time, I myself did.
It wasn't a taboo, but if I had to fill in a form about all of the undesirable things in university life that could possibly happen, I'd definitely pencil graduating late somewhere in the middle of the paper.
Yet funny enough, here I am now, facing a late graduation in the eye, while peering occasionally at my classmates, all of them saying "It's a wrap!" to sunny Depok. The melodrama inside of me points out my delayed graduation date as a form of karma for all of my snobbery in the past. I'd like to think that it was true, because these kinds of quirks are both funny and charming in a way.
However, I can only point to myself for not getting the job done. I am guilty of slacking and more criminally, dwelling, especially when faced with questions I can't answer, and dots I can't connect. Some people say I'm too ambitious, but that kind of irritates me, because I have the least intention of crafting any kind of magnum opus. I just want it to make sense.
Sadly for me, it hasn't. Although in all fairness, I admit that my attitude could benefit from a change, namely in dealing with all of the stumbling blocks.
Excuses aside, the weird thing these days is that I don't consider graduating late as an inferiority anymore. For all I know, this might be another rational justification of mine, just to deal with the fact that I am graduating late. Or perhaps, the blow has merely been taken out by the optimism that I'll get my thesis finished in the end, I'll get my fair share of job offers, and I'll do well with one or two business ventures (pretty amped about it right now). Either way, I do hope that all of this doesn't bog me down, although premature indications suggest otherwise.
So with all that, I guess I'm a veteran, albeit a happy one who doesn't want to stay one for too long.
Well, God bless me. And my 'hardships'.
