Moving

While packing, I can't help but pause at that stack of letters. That large and unsightly stack of rejections from the many institutions that had promised to offer monetary assistance to those with "high academic merit", "high community involvement", and various other buzz phrases.

I was pretty depressed near the end of my high school days. There were many around me who received substantial amounts of money from various schools and even governments, while I was only awarded scraps worth a couple thousand. And this excluded my childish and poorly handled flurry into the world of romance.

Anyways, because of the lack of scholarships, I was quite troubled financially: will I have to use loans? I told myself from the start that I will not and should not burden my parents by making them pay for my post secondary education. While my sights then was (and still is) at actuarial science, SFU became the most attractive choice for me because of their Open Scholarship. To this day I still think UBC sucks because of its total lack of scholarships in the undergraduate level.

I still had doubts; there was the problem of maintaining a 3.70 CGPA. I had no idea how difficult it is to have a 3.70 at university, and my doubts deepened after my first university midterm. But it turned out that 3.70 was a cake walk and I rebounded to an A in 232 despite an average midterm. So with the Open and subsequently the Alumni, a few tutoring gigs, and along with my inherent frugality, life was good; I was for sure going to graduate without accumulating a cent of debt, though my net worth will be practically nil when I graduate. This was when my flight of fancy ended and I smashed against a brick wall.

In order to accomplish my goal, I had to complete my degree quickly to minimize the fixed costs such as the student activity fee. I tried and had success with taking five courses a semester and I became bold; I felt bold enough to take five courses with ACMA 310. I was completely confident about my academic abilities; university really wasn't too hard at all when compared with IB. The brick wall was the second midterm of 310. It had an huge impact on me and it made me doubt whether I can really move forward in act sci. I put a lot of effort into that midterm and I walked out feeling like shit. It was probably a bad idea but I attempted to finish my linear programming assignment in the library afterwards. My mind was white and I became totally confused and angry at myself. I tried for half an hour, staring at the same exact question and wondering how the fuck can one obtain the minimizers after solving the primal. Am I not smart enough for act sci or am I really just an idiot like the rest of the population?

The latter thought was quite fleeting as I aced my other four courses at the end. Nevertheless, I completed 310 with my ego bruised and decided to take my first semester with only three courses--though whoever thinks 320 is only one course ought to be lynched and shot about fifty times. I got through it with a lot less drama than 310 and I saw the experience as another ascent after having hit a bottom. Mind you I was still scared shitless by every midterm and final, but the difference then was that I've since developed a fairly tight group of friends and I expected to get owned. Everything was nice and swell again; eventually I was recognized by the department and I was even offered a coop job on my first interview. My financial worries finally disappeared in complete certainty as the pay cheques flowed in.

It's funny how everything always seem to turn out for the better in the end for me. I was about to shred these letters into strips; I sorted them into the "to be shredded" pile along with all my PBC pay slips and BMO bank statements. Yet at the last moment I stopped, reflected, and decide to pen this post. And I am glad.

Because right now, I am again at a dip of the roller coaster that is life. After having experienced a wide spectrum of what it is like to be an actuary, from writing exams to working in an insurance firm and now in consulting, to academic successes and being respected by peers, I am uncertain about my future. The thought of sitting in a cube for eight hours each day massaging data for the rest of my life is repulsive, though that had been my goal since the day I stepped on campus--get in quick and get out quick so I can start raking in the money. I didn't expect my weekdays to basically become something which I typed on MSN today,

"...get off at 5ish.. cook, do all that jazz probably [by] around 7, [leaving] only about 4hrs of personal free time and then u have to hit the sack and go back to the grind life...lol."

This isn't exactly what BeAnActuary.com advertised.

So in midst of the harshness of reality, it's nice to have a few mementos to remind oneself, that life, sometimes, does have its sparkles. And to remind myself that perhaps I worry too much; as we Chinese say, 船到橋頭自然直.

LOL crap now I feel like a complete emo after writing all this drivel...