NOTE TO SELF: Edit this douchey post haha.
While most of my batch mates are Tweeting or posting on Facebook a status that exclaims their recent success at surviving and conquering the Sure M.E. Graduate (SMEG) semester, I find myself writing a blog post instead. I'm not the type of person who posts a status on Facebook (at least not since I can remember) so my SMEG message goes out relatively unnoticed.
So... SMEG. Because of my uncanny ability to switch my memories on and off, the weight of 5 semesters does (or did) not burden me so I feel no more comfortable than I was a few weeks or months ago. But comparatively speaking, I am definitely more comfortable than I was two years ago. I'm pretty sure if I travel back in time and be able to re-experience the emotions of the first few weeks of my ME academic life, I would be singing an entirely different tune. But there might be another reason why I don't feel ecstatic tonight... (Hint: I'm foreshadowing what the post is about)
In case you didn't understand that previous paragraph, it simply said that I don't feel any different. And the reason why is that as you inch closer and closer to SMEG sem, it already becomes more and more a reality. In contrast to other events, when the closer you get to it the more anxious you feel. In the case of SMEG sem, the farther you are from it, the more likely the possibility of you getting kicked out. That is why the mortality rate in first year may have been higher than that in second year*, and it's not because the higher I go the harder I work, but because the higher I go, the more accustomed I am to the ME way of life, and "passing" becomes something normal. Failing (unwillingly) now becomes quite difficult.
*(I don't have the proper statistics for that, so you may choose not to believe in my claim but I do have this fact: our block got cut in half after the first semester--not year but semester. Accounting 20/35 may have a greater pull though I didn't feel it.)
Another reason this means very little to me now is the realization that nothing really changes. Yes, we are no longer restricted to the 2 D's rule, or the 2.5 QPI rule but that is, again, because getting higher-than-that grades is the norm. It's not like we're going, "Oh, thank heavens, we can now get all the D's we want" (no pun intended but I guess it turned out that way) because (1) that's not being magis, and (2) grades still mean something. The only thing that's gone is the abstract "pressure" to maintain those grade requirements; nothing has actually changed with regard to the grades we're aiming to get.
I don't want to downplay the effect of passing SMEG sem for others. I understand, even if I can't relate to, the other people who have worked hard and cried over this. And I especially don't want to downplay this moment for those who weren't able to get this far. I've had friends who got out of the program in first and second year. If my post is offensive to them, let it be said straight out that to offend them is not my intention.
I, too, felt the heartache of worrying about my grades. I don't anymore because of the norming effect I mentioned earlier and something else I will mention soon, but the point is I did worry in the early years especially with subjects that were too difficult for me to not care about. But I learned to not care about those grades. I developed a carefree attitude when it came to my grades so you should not compare my feelings about SMEG and the road to SMEG with others', especially with the grade conscious, and with those pressured by their parents (not saying that I am not).
Into my first weeks as a college student, grades were at the top of my list. No more acing tests based on 30 minutes of studying, I told myself, you can't pull off that shit in college. Hangouts with high school friends, I also said, could be placed on the back burner for now. Orgs were out of the question (it turned out not to be, but that's another story for another time). But obviously, something changed otherwise I wouldn't have mentioned my naive beginning. I can't pinpoint exactly when, but it most likely came alive with the angry emotions from when my college friends had to leave the ME program.
In my pathetic attempt to console them--which I'm not very good at to begin with, I suck at feelings--I turned to the negative aspects of ME. I unleashed a river of contempt for the program I was in, you could say I was a hypocrite. I complained about how pretentious it was, and how the teachers intentionally made it difficult when what they should be doing is teaching us. Majority of my claims were obviously incorrect, but I needed them to comfort myself more than others. From this anger, I brewed that carefree, devil-may-care attitude toward grades. I promised myself I wouldn't be too concerned about grades that I would get upset over not being "the perfect little ME student everyone wanted me to be". They tell you at the beginning that to stay in ME you have to be intensely competitive (it's actually the opposite, MEAns are intensely cooperative) but I chose not to be a part of the competition.
That is why today doesn't mean that much to me. It's how the rebel in me is saying, "Screw you, pretentious ME shadow people! I won't let your rules tell me how to live my life! I passed because I passed, not because of whatever effect you had on me." Those 'pretentious ME shadow people' don't refer to actual people. No, they are not my professors. No, he is not the ME Program Director. I deeply respect my professors and regard them as some of the most intelligent people in the country. I know they wouldn't treat anyone this way. These shadows are actually The They.
If you haven't taken Philosophy 101, or have but did not discuss Heidegger's Being and Time, you might not understand what I mean. But in simple terms, The They is similar to peer pressure, societal norms. Personified, The They is both everyone and no one, and are present in your everyday life. One key concept in Being and Time (at least how I understood it via my professor) is that The They constantly enforce a dictatorship over us, over our being. Our very being, subservient to The They, is not our own; our being is inauthentic.
So what my inner rebel is saying is that I got through SMEG sem unaffected by the threats and the pretentious propaganda. I didn't care for it when people would say a subject was difficult. I thought, "Who are you to tell me what's difficult for me? I wanna see for myself." Of course some of them were, but not because The They planted the idea, but because I did find them difficult. Some of them I actually found easy, and that wasn't because I studied harder since they said it would be difficult, but because I found it easy. The worst propaganda of them all, that I haven't yet 'defeated' is the one that says ME students are successful in the future. Our task now, is to prove that we are successful not only because we are ME students, but because we are.
My point is that after all this crazy SMEG stuff, I want people to realize that it really means nothing. It is not the manifestation of all your hard work, that would be you. I'm thankful for the kind of person SMEG sem and the road to SMEG have made me, but passing is not my reward. It is the difference between my present self and my first year self that shows my hard work. And the reason SMEG sem means nothing is because the difference will continue, i.e. I will still be developing, after or without that SMEG status.
For those in my position right now, what I'm saying is already a given. They realize this, too, but just want to celebrate. But this message is for those who aren't here yet, or who haven't made it here. Don't let prestige and promise ruin this life lesson: Reach for SMEG not for its name, but for its essence. Reach for that moment when excellence is the norm. But most importantly, at least for me, reach for it not because of anyone else telling you, or because of the promises you've been told, but because you want to.
Good night.
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