Iskul Bukol

Exactly a month from now I'd be back to school. The thought of it scares the shit out of me. I haven't been to school in over ten years now and I'm not exactly sure if I still got what it takes to be a student, a masters student at that. I wonder if I still have the same discipline and drive of my undergraduate years.

After graduating from university I had planned to take my masters in a couple of years. Schools in Las Islas Filipinas usually require masters students to have some work experience. That's what I did; packed my stuff and left for Davao City where I worked in an NGO.

The plan then was to get a scholarship to study abroad, and I applied to a school in the Netherlands, got accepted, but never received a scholarship. I applied to the same school the next year, and the same thing happened. I also applied to a few other universities but, after about five years of trying, the scholarships were always elusive.

Just when I was about to give up, someone harassed me into applying for yet another masters program. He graduated from the same school and thought my personality fits with the school's culture. Just to shut him up, I applied: wrote a study proposal and a personal statement, took the IELTS, and the whole deal.

It's pretty much a dream school for me, but I never tried applying before because I thought it is way out of my league. Besides, after the disappointments over the years, I thought I would never get a scholarship, thus, it would take a miracle for me to be able to afford an education abroad (I can't even afford the international programs in Thailand!).

Well, the first miracle happened. I learned in November 2011 that I got accepted to the program. BUT, the tuition fee is almost a million pesos, which would take me years and years of selling my body if I were desperate. Well, I was desperate, I seriously asked for a loan from some of my friends.

Also, I scrambled to apply for a couple of scholarships, which are always VERY competitive and you'd never know what the scholarship committees are looking for that year. I got a rejection from one of  the scholarship programs I applied for, and I thought that was it, I'd just go home and plant kamote. Until in June, I received news that I was granted a tuition scholarship by another committee.

(My story's not complete yet because I have to tell you about how I'm going to afford living in an extremely expensive city. I can't afford it to be honest, but through the amazing kindness of friends I could manage to survive somehow. I'd write about that in another post.)

So anyway, the whole process of applying to the school and then going through the whole scholarship drama took about a year or so. There were times when I thought it's never going to happen but somehow it's going to happen.

I have so many people to thank for making it possible, and I haven't held back in thanking them like crazy (I wouldn't be surprised if they're already annoyed with me). The challenge now is to prove to them that I'm worth betting on.

And then, I have to prove to my self that I somehow deserve all these. Bitch is going to work her ass off at school.

(Obviously, the photos don't have anything to do with this post.)