>Be me
>IPhO silver medalist from a 3rd world shithole
>Got accepted at NTU(Singapore) CN Yang honors program ME
>Fullride scholarship
>Sophomore second semester
>Playing in football team, table tennis team in evenings
>Playing football manager, rome total war at nights
>Sleeping during the day, barely attending classes
>Final exam time comes, first exam is Advanced Linear Algebra
>I open the book, don't know shit, have 1 week to exam
>4 days procrastinating
>3 days to exam, I open the book and start learning
>non-stop studying, with zero wasted seconds
>when I need to eat I RUN to canteen and back
>when I need to pee, I RUN to bathroom and back
>sleep 2 hours twice a day
>morning of exam day comes, I finished 75% of the book
>super exhausted, barely able to walk, go to exam
>solve everything in 30 minutes
>turns out they studied only half of the book
>got 97, second highest score
It didn't matter though. When I came back I slept like dead and woke up next day morning, just before my Material Science exam and I failed it. It meant that I would be kicked out of the honors program. Our director was pissed. He started hustling to keep me in the program but I failed another class, so it was over. I lost my scholarship too obviously. Couldn't pay for tuition and expenses, didn't want to take a loan, so I dropped out. Next year I applied to many places and got accepted pretty much everywhere, but none gave money. No choice, I went to local uni. It was easier than NTU, but not as bad as I thought it would be.
The most sad thing about all of this was that I just started a relationship with this awesome math girl from Hong Kong. Damn, she was the sweetest, nicest, cutest girl ever. Really caring and kind too. She was mad when I told her and cried non-stop at the airport. We kept in touch for like 6 months, but gradually it went to zero and we stopped talking.
