i know some of you are jealous

i know some of you are jealous. i can feel your jealousy polluting the air of my world everytime i get a compliment from a lecturer or give a right answer. i felt it back when i topped in three subjects. i know it makes you burn when i show the initiative and drive and get extracts from books and external references to support the theoretical stuff taught in the class, whereas you're happy to just sit on your ass and mug up all the notes you can get.

maybe you were toppers back in school, junior college or graduation, when it was more about ramming pages and pages of books down your gullets, and less of thinking. it's not my fault if i cared two hoots for such knowledge, if that's what it can be called. i was more interested in putting shit to practice. i flunked three subjects, two in my second year and one in my final year. i have suffered the taunts and the looks that came with failure to pass shit exams i didnt care about. i have been through hell because my B.Com mother couldnt stand the idea of her son flunking, and because my father made me feel like shit just by looking at me, or stonewalled me as if i didnt exist. and this, when i didn't even understand why it was such a big deal to flunk an exam.

it's not my fault if i believed journalism requires more practical know-how. it's not my fault that i was lucky enough to get an internship which only intensified my contempt for the concept of trying to make journalists in classrooms, and deepened my faith in the belief that you learn journalism best when you are out in the field. i have nothing but disgust for academics.

i was even reluctant to do this PG. i didn't want to waste one more year of my life in a classroom of all places. but to my delight, it turned out to be wonderful. i can proudly say i have no regrets.

pride goes before a fall, you say? maybe. but after being a misfit and an outcast half my life, i deserve to be proud. fuck anyone who says otherwise. i've earned the right.

and now, when this post-grad course is finally giving me the chance to put my practical knowledge to test, you envy me? you want me to do worse, so that i can be called one of you. fuck you. i'm not one of you. i'm different from all those who think learning by-heart is studying. i do well because the course is not entirely based on theoretical shit. i do well because here, the lecturers are genuinely interested in making us journalists, and not mass comm post-graduates. and just a post-grad is all you want to be. you still think you can succeed just by the spoonfeed the lecturers dish out.

and when i manage to top in spite of the fact that there're few notes to mug, your ass burns.

go back home, gaze at your school/college certificates where you did so well, and cry. but spare me your unwarranted envy.

i refuse to join you in your mugging up of notes. yes, i will read grisham and archer and christie till one day before the exams. and if i still find the exams easy to write, it's not my fucking fault. you have no idea how hard it has been to be where i am.

i dont give a shit about model students and teacher's pets who're finding it hard to survive in the real world.

go screw yourself.