The beginning of the end

What a way to start July. Oh so bleak.

Today, there was the Otago University Placement briefing by SELSET.

Get this:

There are only 2 placements MAX for Dentistry students.

There's five of us. Do the math. Mrs. Carol from SELSET explicitly told us to look for alternatives. It was a shock alright. NOBODY ever told us there're only 2 placements.

Then I asked her if this meant that the remaining three of us are doomed? (Of course I didn't word the question like this. I'm not completely tactless...). And she pretty much said "Yes." And what's more, it is subtly but very discreetly implied that there is even the possibility that NONE of us will get placed.

I was surprised but it ain't the numb-f**k-just-shoot-me-now kind of shock I felt when JPA rejected my PILN shoclarship application (before my successful appeal, that is).

I can't imagine what the other 4 students who share this bleak prospects were going through. I mean, I'm pretty much resigned since I started scouring the net for the said 'alternatives' (that being IMU's promising twinning programme). I mean, why would I be planning a plan B if I wasn't sure that plan A is going to the dogs aite?

But these other 4 students...I'm pretty sure they're the go-getter types with excellent results. Okay, make that 3. I already know what sort of insane test results one of them always score. It must have felt like a shot straight to the heart...or face, I believe. I feel sorry for them (I'm done with feeling sorry for myself). They don't deserve this. It's unjustified to spring this onto us. It is OUR oblivion-like impending doom, it ought to be OUR right to know of it earlier at least.

Then again, this is life we're talking about. When is life, ever justified? Never.

Not to mention the interviews. We shall be interviewed by Uni Otago's Dean of Dental School himself. We need to prepare 4 essays to submit to him on 30th July. On the same day, we'll be having a writing test and an interview. And oh, a presentation that we need to attend. Stressful much? Heck yeah.

At this stage, all this is absolutely mechanical to me. Just going through the motions. I've been this numb since sem 2. Of no feeling whatsoever.

Dentistry was absurd in the first place. But all this? Is a whole new level of absurdity. I shan't debate this no more. The futility of it only aggravates me more. Enough.

Hello, July. Be gentle. Keep me alive.