I will be having my biggest assessment examination next week that is why all the textbooks and reviewers, pop sheets and the calculator are swimming on my study table. I just poured hot water on a cup with strong coffee so that I could endure the silence of the night and suppress the slightest bit of will to give up. I keep on checking my newsfeed and occasionally post status on Facebook. I wait for text messages from co-members of my organization about an event we are to hold next week. Pop music is blasting the speakers on the laptop. Out of nowhere, I begin to read a novel I bought on the bookstore just last week. I know that this should be the case for a graduating accountancy student like me. I want to be a CPA so that I can put an end to all of this misery but my actions are not in line with pursuing what I dream. Or is this even what I want for myself? If you share the same story, in a strict or a loose way, you may want to take some time, find a corner and sit then read.

I needed four years before I realized that my passion to be a CPA is wearing out. If my dreams of being in this profession are to be measured by how full they can fill a glass of coffee, I would say that I only have the powdered coffee in the cup. I don't have the water. I was just a normal young dreamer when I first set foot on college. I was this stereotyped bookworm because they knew that I graduated valedictorian in high school and I was confident enough to take up a course where even the fittest need to shake their knees to survive. Everything then was full of turning tables. As a freshman who just had an academic shock realizing how big the arena for scholastic competition there is in college, I read pages, burned bridges and defied my biological clock during my first year in the academe just to keep the good grades up and so that I could be ahead of my class. All these efforts somehow paid off. These years are the times that I always want back every time I think of my frustrations. I never knew why I had to change directions and why I had to have a change of heart.

It is one of the tendencies that young students who show early potentials have to face after bringing their names on top of lists and having their professors speak of their ability in front many people. I simultaneously battled with financial accounting and ventured in new paradigms: applying in a semi-academic organization, joining every non-accounting-related single quiz bee in the university, getting updated with the pop culture, music, television, literature, etc. and holding some leadership positions in various clubs. The slideshow of my college events was so unpredictable. On my second year, I unintentionally flunked my P.E. 3 subject, I had severe financial and family problems, and I lost the passion to study my majors due to all these series of storms. When I felt like I was recovering from the emotional and academic damage, all the doors have been locked.

I was already in a big position on my organization. Quiz bees have never missed my participation. I realized that I couldn't keep popular culture away from my lifestyle. I was already winning contests in our department, college and university level. I have already started joining local, national and sometimes international leadership and peace-related forums. I became busier than I ever was. I could say that every night, my academics only consume 30% of my working hours. My grades are not going any better yet I am not doing anything to offset this decline. How did I manage to be to be in my fifth and last year now when I used to tell other people that I forsake accountancy? I believe only God knows. All that I have are hypothesis and weak theories.

Time - this is something which I think is the most important thing nowadays. Many are on the verge of slipping off the Laude portals. I am not an exception. I keep on saying, I could have done better. Tenses verb won't turn back the time anymore. It's not important to be buried in the regrets of the past. It's time to move on. I am not someone with a great light who deserves to share others some tips on how to succeed. Though I do not love this course that is very precious to many students out there, I always tell myself that I am doing this not just for myself but for my parents and many other people who trust me. Though I hate accounting, it is part of doing business. In the real world, in the world that awaits us after graduation, accountancy will involve people. They are my inspiration to continue - PEOPLE.#