Dear anyone,

I'm pretty sure I'm not getting promoted this year. Maybe future me will have an awesome lore drop to laugh at soon, but current me is just going through it.

I've never fumbled this bad, only stumbled. How is it fair I've been preparing, wanting my entire life to do this, but it feels like the course itself is against me? Every time my mother tells me, "God has mercy," I look at my failing tests and quietly wonder, "What kind of mercy is there for me?"

It's irrational and crazy that I kept wondering whether there's a limit to their love despite them assuring me a thousand times over and more otherwise. We're not rich, I'm aware my pursuits are expensive, and there's pressure being the first potential postgraduate pursuer in the family - God, I wish they made a firstborn who easily excels at anything like its' breathing. Maybe simply dreamt of a closer flight, finished a viable four-year course, swam along in the ever-competitive job market, and finally belonged to those financially stable young adults who occasionally return relief to their families. But no, I made myself a madman, and I can't even tell what's the difference of up or down at this point.

My family is too kind, really: "What's the point of pressuring you if you already are pressuring yourself enough?" Aren't those words alone enough to gut guilt through flesh? They both tell me, "You will get through this because you are our child," yet here I am, a coward who cannot apologize for my shortcomings that should've been a meager return of investment.

My father shares he was included in the removals when he was studying; my mother shares she was a point away from the minimum passing during her licensure - Stories that intend to provide comfort in these trying themes. But how could I compare myself to them when they had managed what I couldn't, with even lesser support at the time? One could argue that the level of studies that I am pursuing far exceeds both of my parents - Isn't that the irony? I should've been better because they provided better avenues to walk on, and yet here I am.

It's easier to say one could brush themselves off and fight again, but no one ever prepares you for the implied changes: Five and a half years of my life potentially uprooting, starting *another* life in a foreign place, the implication that I'm not enough at all for the school I chose in the first place, or worse: Dreaming is not enough, and I was not meant to reach something this ambitious to begin with.

I could only hope there is relief at the end of the long tunnel. If not me, then hopefully for my family instead.

Ma, Pa, and to my baby - I'm sorry for letting you down.