425,600 Minutes plus Four
425,600 Minutes plus Four Months
I woke up hearing my alarm blasting in the background and in an impulse hit the snooze button, on my phone. I tried to go back to sleep but then I thought “oh goodness, It’s today”. I dragged myself out to bed, but in a few minutes, was wide awake and the only thought that kept running through over and over in my head was “It’s today.”
I’ve been studying Nihongo for a year and four months and The Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) was held yesterday, December 6, 2009 at De La Salle University, Taft. This was the biggest exam any Nihongo student would be waiting for. It’s a test to see if all your studying has gotten you anywhere. Leaving the dorm where I stayed during the period of my study at around 6:15am I couldn’t understand how I felt. I felt calm and yet afraid at the same time. While on the MRT going to Taft Ave., I could see all my hard work going down drain. Yes, I am a pessimist that way, terrible isn’t it? Not that I don’t have confidence with what I’ve learned it’s just that I know I don’t hold any control on anything else aside from what I can do. I couldn’t talk. I didn’t want anyone to talk to me. I felt like racing towards an unseen destination.
I saw people bustling around me. Others were jogging on the road realizing they were participants in a fun run going on that day. I was thinking we were all going towards a goal, towards something we all know was important in our own way.
Finally, after eating breakfast ( I wasn’t that hungry but I figured I’ll be hungry with all the thinking I had to do during the exam so..) I saw hundreds and hundreds of participants checking out their registration number, assigned building and examination room. I’ve never seen so many Nihongo Students in my whole life and we’re all here, suddenly I didn’t feel so good.
Finally, sitting on my chair where a number: 2060101-40017 was pasted on my chair. That’s me, for this day I am 2060101-40017. I was just a number like the others taking the exam. All the late nights studying, commuting from dorm to school, all the tuition fees, the books I’ve read, all the failed and successful quizzes my sensei gave me didn’t matter here. I was just like everybody else.
I looked around the room, staring at the backs of my fellow examinees thinking, what were the things they had to go through just to get here. I kept thinking could it be harder than what I had to go through?
Visions from the first day of my Nihongo class flashed through my head and backwards. I was seeing myself alone in my office building at RCBC Plaza listening to my collection of Japanese Songs in my mp3 player. I was looking at the intimidating buildings surrounding me, thinking: “Will I ever understand these songs?” Maybe it was all going to be just a dream and nothing else. Then forward to the day my Dad said I can quit my job and he will send me to a Japanese Language School and how I had to face and stand up to what my siblings had to say as being the eldest and wanting selfish things, being a burden to my Dad at the age where I should be independent and helping my younger brothers and sister instead.
I knew I was weak; I couldn’t juggle both work and school. Especially, that I’ve been employed in a call center, any agent would understand how hard it is to adjust your schedule in this kind of job.
Holding no support from the rest of my family, but God, my Dad and my most supportive, closest friends in the whole universe (God knows how much I love them), I trudged along. Studying, all the while keeping within me the feelings of guilt (knowing my family has a point about me being selfish), hurt, pride and hope, all covered in a thousand buckets of tears.
Now, I am here. I don’t know how, why or when, but my siblings and the rest of my family came through in the end. My sister, one I consider the most hardworking, intelligent and competitive person was my model. She passed her Nursing board exams this year and it was unfair to compare what I was going through to what she had been through. The nursing board exams is nothing like the JLPT, yet I also know that they both hold different perspective to different people involved in it. She even sent me a message the night before wishing me good luck and told me she knew I can do it. God knows how much those words meant so much to me, but didn’t quite help relieve my negative thoughts. The pressure was immense.
Waiting was the worst part of the whole process. Waiting for the proctor to distribute answer sheets and question booklets and waiting for the next set of exams etc…
After the exams, I couldn’t say I did well, but I know with all that I am, that I had poured my heart out on that exam. For 425,600 minutes plus four months, I couldn’t even imagine I was here, finally where I always wanted to be. Thousands of minutes back I was just someone who thought that knowing: Watashi wa Leri desu (I am Leri.) was going to be forever just a dream, is now a reality.
With this, I want to thank God with all my heart for being with me all this time, my Dad and my “Senseis” (I have two) who believed in me always, my ever supportive friends and the rest of my family who I know were honest and forgiving all through out, I want to say Hontou ni Doomo Arigatou Gozaimashita (Really, Thank you very much).
As this may seem to be the end but it’s not. My sensei said, this is just the beginning and it was true. Next year, I will take the same test but different level and I am sure with all my heart that whatever effort I made to take the Yonkyuu (level 4) I will need to double it for Sankyuu (Level 3). All I could wish for is for God to be with me still through it all and all the people who supported me for another 425,600 minutes plus four months until the very last second.
