Know Your Worth

23

And just like that, the semester break was officially over. 

I was so not looking forward to the lectures and tutorials. There was this impending sense of dread that accompanied me whenever I had to start studying in earnest again. 

This time, I was the tiniest bit more prepared after looking through all of the new chapters, perusing through the more difficult concepts and diagrams more or less. At the very least, I had some questions to ask my tutors when I booked them for consultations. 

Unmistakably, I had less time to devote to Simon. He took Computer Science as his major and music studies as his minor. We had clashing schedules but we did arrange to spend some time during our study breaks at the library or at the cafeteria with our mutual friends. 

Today was the first day of the second semester, and I hoped that the teachers would take it a little on us for our welcome back to this hell. 

I was wrong. So freaking wrong. 

For my Economics seminar, I had to relook at the Circular Flow of Income and the basics of International Trade. Watching some New York Times videos on their youtube channel only gave me the layman, elementary logic. They thoroughly lacked the precision and depth that I had to painstakingly learn. 

I even turned to TedEd for some help, but they only offered a few marginal definitions of certain terms that I had already understood and memorised during the semester break. 

Glancing at the words on the pages of my booklets for Economics made me nauseous and lightheaded. For some reason, I had to battle the pre-study jitters that plagued me whenever I had to sit down and work out the math in the diagrams and charts. 

I might as well take mathematics for my extra modules because occasionally the math wasn't mathing whenever I drew the necessary diagrams and curves for my economic analyses. Almost every single time without fail I would be swimming in confusion because I wouldn't be able to locate certain equilibrium prices on the intersections of curves. 

In short, it was all very tedious, time-consuming, and plain aggravating. 

Business was slightly better, but that's solely because of it being my minor. The was less scope for content and the testing requirements and formats were not as hysteria-inducing as Economics. 

There was the odd sort of grudging camaraderie between my batchmates during Business tutorials because of how demanding our majors were. We looked out for each other in our own way, even though we weren't sitting together to eat or hang out. 

If someone was absent, one person will take all of the notes and relevant worksheets for them and would deliver them personally to their dorm. If someone skipped and the tutor asked why, we would just cover up by saying that he or she was sick or something. 

There was no active sabotage or hostility in my minor classes. I wished that I could say the same for my major, but that would be a total lie. 

It was every person for themselves in the lectures, seminars and tutorials. The seminars were basically lectures but with a longer time and more interactive lessons that I didn't enjoy because one of us had to answer the lecturer's question from across the hall. All the lecturers in rotation had typed in our names in the Google Wheel of Names, which was a random name picker. 

If no one was willing to answer a question asked by the lecturer during the seminar, they would turn to the fucking Wheel of Doom and we would wait with bated breath to see who was the unfortunate soul that got picked. 

I had been picked thrice consecutively, and thus my popularity increased in the worst way possible. I was pretty sure everyone knew my name and knew what I looked like, which made me want to crawl out of my skin.