Written by Daniella Krisha M. Lozada

We are all trying to follow the same path: our youth spent trying to make the most of our intelligence, squeezing our studies like a lemon to make sure we would secure a spot among the elite, then the rest of our lives wondering with a flabbergasted look on our faces why all that hopefulness has led to such a vain existence.

That is exactly what I was thinking about the entire semester—like life is already all plotted out and so dismal I could cry: Life can sometimes be absurd and when we think about it, being a brilliant success has no greater value than being a failure. However much true this is, we still spend our energy persuading ourselves that there are things that are worthwhile and that that is why life has meaning. I used to romanticize my freshman year a lot— flexible schedule, more time to hang out with friends and family, cool outfits every day to school—not even a single one of these has happened. Instead, I was faced with more than 10 hours of work every day, frustration from unstable internet connection, more sleepless nights, more isolation, endless confusion, ambiguous communication with my professors, and even with all of these, I have not interacted even once with my peers physically. I have set as my goal to have the greatest number possible of profound expectations for my first semester in college but as we all know, most of the time we create our own disappointment through expectations.

My lack of interest verged on the void: nothing spoke to me, nothing aroused me and like a helpless wisp born this way and upon some mysterious wind, I was not even aware of my existence. Intelligence no longer seems an adequate compensation for things. I have read so many modules and written so many papers but like most self-taught people, I am no longer quite sure of what I have gained from them.

There are days when I feel I have been able to grasp all there is to know in one single gaze in my laptop, as if invisible branches suddenly spring out of nowhere, weaving together all the disparate strands of my reading—and then suddenly the meaning escapes, the essence evaporates, and no matter how often I reread the same lines, they seem to flee ever further with each subsequent reading, and I see myself as some mad fool who thinks her stomach is full because she has been attentively reading the menu.

Online classes just do not work and all there is to do is hope. Hope that it will all make sense one day. Hope that all our efforts and hard work will soon pay off. Hope that our dreams will chase us instead of the other way around. Hope to grow through what we went through. Hope for ourselves and for the people we love. Hope that eventually everything connects and hope that tomorrow or even that second semester will be so much better than before.