Am I ready for the challenges ahead?

I am counting down the days, to when my next school semester will start again on 19th July. After surviving my first part-time studies semester with very good results, I thought I will be extremely confident with the second semester of 2009. However obstacle are thrown in front of me even before I step back into the classroom again.

Never had I imagine this H1N1 virus thing will become much disruptive until the empire decided to split us up into Blue and Red team to minimize infection bringing the whole department down. Each team got to alternate work between morning shift and afternoon shift and both team are not suppose to meet each other. Unfortunately enough, with the number of positive cases raising every few days there is no end to when the split up will end. This mean I got to work shift as well! Definitely will be missing out lessons during those odd weeks I'm working afternoon shift. Goodbye to the days I have an 8 - 5 job.

I asked myself if I should just defer my studies till next year when hopefully all this H1N1 saga and team split issue is over. Its a NO... even with the semester break, my momentum is still roving and taking a long break might actually make me stop part time studies forever. Next I asked myself if I should just take lesser subjects this time round. Its a NO, by the time I tried to made amendment to my course selection, its already July 1st, busted 29th June deadline to make changes. Blame it on myself for not taking prompt action earlier on when the team split plan came into action.

I made the decision, bit the bullet and brave through this storm. I will be heading down tomorrow, on the last day of registration, to make a hefty 3000++ course fee payment. Can already feel the burn in my pocket liao. sob sob sob. I will embark on my studies as usual but not without enlisting the help of my fellow classmates. Royd will still be able to attend all the lesson thanks to the Empire Sponsorship and I got to get his help to take lecture notes and lab results during my forced absence. Called De Xian this morning to ask for his help with the Aero-Material course notes and labs. Really appreciate his generousity for offering me his entire lab report for last semester which will come real handy this time round.

Fear? Yes. In confidence? A bit. This semester will be damn challenging. Missing out the lectures and labs, I got a lot to catch up with. Even though I can get off work at 3.30pm during the morning shift period and can make good use of that extra hours to catch up with school work, I still hate missing out lesson. Its just not me, I rarely miss my lessons and obviously don't like to do so. Damn!

Lingering on the back of my mind is another slim chance of major disruption to school. I am on the reserve team for the year end Empire exercise in Australia! Time and time again, I had requested to be put out of the reserve team...time and time again rejected. Now I am assured by words that there is no way I will be activated. My years in the Empire tells me everything in black and white are true, everything in words can't always be trusted. God please...I pray....the last thing I wanna see happening is I going through all the pain of disruptive studies to only have my chance of final exam taken away just because of some "kangaroo exercise" in Australia. Spare me the pain...

Riccardo, don't give up. The inner voice said. Capitalize on the situation and shape your mind and body to circumstances. Pain is part of life, suffering is not. I wish some higher mights and beings up there will give me the power to make it through in a piece and peace.

Tuck away in the corner of the entire conflict is my life goal, my family and "someone", they are the power to spur my little steam engine forward in life. I realize its been almost 2 months since we first met in the most unexpected places and circumstances. There are things I learn and there are things yet to be known but in every moment I am grateful that we can share thoughts and words all this times. We expanded and got to know each other friends, bestie and clinche (did I spell wrongly?) who are wonderful people in their own rights. We might even had became tools of fate for our own friend "C" and "S". With the coming challenges ahead, I shall ask for nothing else more than patience and understanding. May not be around all the time but will always be there on my mind.