// life is about removing obstacles//

In life, the amount of obstacles can perhaps, be illustrated by an exponential curve.
For now, I think I'm somewhere near the part of the curve where the gradient is maximum.
Great, it means there's even more to come.
At least, I predict that initial steps into the working world would coincide with the point of steepest gradient.

Somehow, I feel students are still more fortunate than working adults, as we are still given the chance to make errors and most importantly be forgiven.
As we still have the right to request for things we need, which the school would provide us with.
As least, for my school, it works this way.
In future, I can't imagine how difficult life would be, with more exposure to the ugly side of human nature.

Recently, I met some obstacles, some of which I managed to resolve with immense patience. Imagine 50 tries (or it might be even more, I can't remember) for an online test, unitl the time I managed to get 85% correct for all the questions.
Even if I didn't manage to do it before the deadline, I know that I can always request for a longer deadline or seek help from peers.
I guess, the satisfaction of passing the test on my own is enticing.

For some other greater obstacles, well all I had to do was to ask around and fortunately I asked the 'correct' people who were kind enough to point me to the correct source, without any sign of impatience. I kept reminding myself not to take their kindness, even in the smallest way, for granted.

Another thing I felt I did right is dealing with some psych group mates.
It all began when we had to do a group presentation on a paper and my group consisted of 2 psych majors and 1 exchange student.
Well, thanks to the exchange student who apparently overslept, we were not able to proceed with the presentation on the day itself.
The prof kindly asked if we want to continue without her part or present the week after, without any penalisation.
Without even consulting my opinion, the 2 of them told him next week, in addition, becuz the exchange student will be going off for her trip around SouthEast Asia, we would need to re-divide our parts in order to cover her part.
Days passed and I did not hear from the 2 of them about how to redistribute our parts.
4 days before the presentati0n, I e-mailed both, suggesting a way to redistribute the parts, but did not get a reply.
Finally, on the night 2 days before the presentation, I smsed one of them.
And she said she had decided how to go about it and had told the other in the morning of that day.
I was the third speaker and the exchange student was supposed to be the last speaker, they had decided to push back the sequence such that one of the parts originally covered by me would be given to the second speaker while I would retain the other part plus, take on the part which was originally the exchange students'.
The reason why I had to cover her part: Both of them are busy with quizzes.
Imagine my horror!

Well, I know that being psych majors who have to present for almost every module, last minute, impromptu presentations are a small feat for them.
I was aghasted by the fact that they generalise their ability to engin students, or students like me.
Also they simply assumed that I'm more free than them.
Or that I'm a total pushover.

Anyway, I definitely couldn't take that lying down, and tried my best to explain objectively (it was really difficult, with mounting anger) to them.
The main point being that I wouldn't have minded to take on an extra part if they had told me earlier, as I wasn't a good speaker and needed time to prepare.
But since they 'assigned' it to me one and a half days before the presentation, I have no choice but to take it, regardless if I had a quiz on the very next day.
Luckily, my words appealed to their sympathy or perhaps fear that I wouldn't do a good job and drag the group down.
In the end, the one who selected this topic decided to cover the extra part instead.

Anyway, I'm still amazed by how some people can just push work to other people.
Since they did not insist on pushing it to me, I guess, they weren't really that bad.
I'm sure I have not seen the worse.