So today.

My lecturer suddenly called my name and I wondered which assignment I didn't do this time. But instead of that, she just walked towards me and took the ca comments slip and smiled.

"Nicole is the top speaker of this class."

(more stuff that made me blush hence I forgot)

"If I had to put her and all of you in a row, she would be number one."

And for the next 30 minutes, I glowed.

I also told my friends that I'll photocopy and laminate 16 sets of these and send it to all my relatives or maybe print 1600 and rent a helicopter and throw it all over Singapore.



But the point was, I haven't heard anything like that in a long while.

I've suffered 2 whole years in engineering doing maths and miscellaneous boring shit. Engineering is honestly the toughest thing I've done, so trust engineers when they say they haven't got it easy. I'm digressing but my point is:

For the past 2 years, I've gotten so many disappointed glances from lecturers and my family, went through so many nights crying because I couldn't understand a fucking thing, burnt my fingers so countlessly soldiering and leaving class midway because my board just wouldn't work, and just standing outside the class looking in and wondering why should I bother walking in.

My attendance in Ngee Ann was atrocious, and so were my results. There were days I'd wake up and think watching my hair grow was more exciting than class. I've went to school and stood outside the class and wondered what the fuck and walked away. I skipped school as long as it started too early or ended too late or if the breaks were too long in between. My attendance was 30% at one point but I didn't give a shit. There were so many tests I just looked at and tossed aside. There were so many exams I flipped through then scribbled batshit.

All that is just the physical evidence of my struggle.

The emotional edge it pulled over me. My english was getting worse because it's never needed and the lecturers are not the best at it, making me feel like the only thing I was ever good at has now been a liability. I spent nights crying over online quizzes and assignments because I could never program anything right. The amount of hair I pulled out and the amount of scratches I inflicted myself at all these failure stayed with me for a long time.

All that was only the surface of my emotional distress.

When I remember my engineering days, the only sunlight I remember is my so-fucking-precious friends, who did their best to teach me and pull me out of my hell-hole. And everything else is darkness. I was suffering and I was crying so badly that engineering in a single word for me is: tears.

There were little rays - there was a compulsory module that all my engineering friends hated: extra curricular. You could bid for any module and hope to get it.

For my first sem, I chose art but I didn't get it - I got design. And that was when I found my favorite class. I was good with my hands and I constantly had interesting ideas that my teacher, a very funky lady, adored. I sculpted for the first time and she loved it, and now a plaster sculpture of my hands are on display at a small shelf in Ngee Ann. Consistently throughout the sem, I came up with works that she would unabashedly show off in class.

It was one of the only things keeping me in Ngee Ann at that point. When the sem ended, I thought I was back to my misery. We had to bid again, and again I tried for art. I got it this time and I realized it was my funky lecturer who pulled my bid in. She greeted me happily on my first day and it was sooo smooth sailing there on. Everything she wanted, I delivered and better. She paraded my works and adored my eccentricity, and now a montif I dyed/designed is on display as their module's cream.

It was the only 2 classes that made me happy and feel useful. They provided me a temporary gasp of air when engineering was trying to drown me. In breadboard practicals, I'd look at my wires and wish I could melt them into a portrait. In theory classes, I'd do unnecessary doodles on my diagrams. In programming classes, I'd zone out and google the newest artists my lecturer introduced us to.

But it wasn't enough. The only module I was good at was worth only 2 credits. Everything else, especially programming, took up 7 credits and more. My demons were good swimmers. I drowned.

Late 2012, Ngee Ann finally dismissed me after my repeat module failure,

It was the best fucking thing that has ever happened to me.

There is no phrase truer than this:

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

I've never had a lecturer hold up my breadboard and say: good job!
I've never had an exam script I could smile at.
I've never had a happy learning day.

I believed I was beyond hope.
I believed I couldn't study.
I believed I was useless.

Engineering fucked my head over - it made me feel that there's nothing more pointless than me.

And I'm out of that hell-hole, finally doing something I like.

And to see it recognized.

My lecturer decided I was the best presenter out of 70+ speakers.
My past sem's scripts were me sighing in happiness.
My classes interest me and I love it.

This course saved me in ways more than one - I finally had something good to bring home, my creativity is appreciated and put to use, my groupmates and I value each other, I'm finally at a place where I don't suck and where I'm needed.

I wish very much I am graduating with my friends in exactly a week's time, but I wish even more that I had left the goddamn course sooner and start on my SIM happiness.

But I believe everything happens in good timing and I don't regret a thing. I'm glad for all the tears, because they make my smaller successes sweeter. I'm glad for all the stress, because they make my current work feel more conquerable. I'm glad for the friends, always the friends, who helped me through everything.

Up yours, Ngee Ann Electronical and Computer Engineering. 

You were never a friend to me.
You can keep all your misery.

And I'll keep my friends.



Also say hello to my darling Jonas.