9 A.M. Waktu Indonesia Barat. Jam kosong. Saat kelelahan sudah menggerogoti tulang, saat itulah kukira aku harus bangkit.

Yes, I'm trying to convince myself that I'm going to kill these exams and also perhaps give myself a pep-talk that it's not the end of the world if I fail. Feel free to skip this.

Today, is the last free day I have before exams start rolling. I'm in dire need of luck and motivation—really, a general sense of wanting to live. Nah, just kidding, I'm great. The next time I update anything in this account, I will—hopefully—not be a high school student anymore. Yay, I'm so not ready for adulthood, and jobs, and who knows what else I have to deal with.

I don't actually know why I'm writing this. I thought I needed to tell the world what's in my mind since it seems to help me with my nerves—even if no one cares.

One thing that I would say about this; I don't know if I'm going to graduate at all. Hopefully I will. I haven't finished one of my projects that is supposed to be due tomorrow and here I am wasting time writing this thing. I don't have the right motivation, but that's okay, because I need to learn to push myself. Learn to be independent, because no one is going to be there for me when I'm truly alone in the future, having my own job and living my own life.

Would I say I'm afraid of the future? Definitely. There are so many things—too many things—that interest me. It's a little difficult for me to decide which of these I want to pursue. Of course, I could always combine all of it, but that's for me to contemplate another time. My teachers told me that I will miss high school and everything that happened in the last three years, but I'm not really sure about that. The last three years had been one of the most difficult times of my life, and maybe that's because my academic skills are behind most people (but I swear, I'm not dumb.)

There are many misconception that I've seen in the society, especially in Asia, where people don't appreciate what you can do and fixate on what you can't. What I mean by that is people tend to focus on academics alone to determine the future. There are so many talents that goes past so many people, because they only focus on the fact if you're good at math, science and languages. When you're good at arts, music and other "insignificant" thing, you're always regarded as dumb and useless. Why?

I guess this is all why I think graveyards are such a rich place. There are the seeds of writers who died without ever writing, artists who never create, journalists never snapping a single picture, athletes who never chase. If only the society didn't force them to be a lawyer, a doctor or a scientist. It's one thing to have a job in order to live, it's another to live only for a job. There are many things wrong that I so helplessly want to fix when it comes to education. Did you know that the current system of education was invented to "educate" factory workers during the industrial revolution? Is that what we are, just lifeless automatons told what to think and not taught how to think. Ever wonder why oppression occurs? This is one of the reasons why: because people don't think properly.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't care about school or that I don't care about my exams. I was merely contemplating on what could be if things were different. Aren't I glad that I know the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell and that I can do a lot of things with the pythagorean theorem. Of, look, logarithms and calculus, how interesting. And yes, to some people they are interesting, but not to me.

Still, I don't know where I would be without school. I do know that schooling gives a clear path for you to walk on. The problem with that, we can't always choose a different path once we're in one. Some can, some others cannot. But of course, that's only my opinion. If I had a writing blog, this long-winded piece of writing would never ever graze Wattpad. I might not even be in here in the first place.

But that's it for now. The next time you see from me, I will be exhausted but hopefully happy without the confinement of school suffocating my imaginations. See you then!

~AJ