Having everything your way does not yield experience.

This year around June, I was so excited and everything because my business programme offered this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where 15 people from my class, once admitted, could go abroad and study at the Chinese University in Hong Kong and Kenan Flaggler in the US for 2 semesters along with 15 other students from each business school respectively.

Many people applied from my programme, but only 25 people were invited for an interview. Fortunately, I was one of the 25. My motivational essay was pretty good, but once I sat down for the interview, my head went blank and in retrospect I gave some pretty bad replies to the questions asked. The results? I did not get the admission. I was pretty depressed for a long time, and not even a holiday in China could ease my pain. Up until today, I still feel some kind of defeat. I guess I'll never completely get over it. I had soo many hopes and dreams that were crushed.

But now when I think about it, even though I still feel the pain, it might have happened for a reason. Whatever I did prior to this incident, I never failed or encountered adversities. And when a failure occured, I did not know how to deal with it and was completely exhausted. At least now, I have developed this 'so-what' mechanism, which will enable me to deal more effectively with adversities. I have acknowledged that it is impossible to go through life without hardships (that's damn late!), and when facing one - deal with it! That's what everyone else is doing, so there are no exceptions in my case. Odd questions such as "why did this happened to me?" is completely off my list since dvelling on such issues or complaining about my abilities will not get me any further.

One more thing - if you want something badly enough then do not give up. That's what I did when two people from my programme withdrew from the exchange programme. In the rejection letter, it was stated that there was no need to contact the office if some of the participants withdrew since they already had 'runner-ups'. And guess what happened? A girl from my class scheduled a new meeting with them and she got one of the places! When you realize such things, that's when regret slowly gets to you... Why did I lose hope and gave up? Oh well..Lessons learned..

Experience comes from failure..That's one of the main lessons that I will carry with me for life.