wtf/on uni applications

i feel kind of screwed up not applying to harvard. they emailed me again, the asian american organisation or sth. on the one hand i feel damn lucky & honoured and (of course) gratified (i like that word) to be worthy enough of their attention through their pretty intensive email campaign (2 emails in under a week!)... and i kind of regret not asking the teachers to write an extra teacher rec hehe. if they ever read this, thanks for the attention.

but on the other hand i'm
a) damn scared that my hoped-for 5A's & 1D(istinction, not D as in one grade below C!!) won't materialise come march next year and
b) very very aware that there are tons of other much smarter people than me applying to harvard so it was likely to be wasted effort anyway

this is a slight dilemma that i hadn't intended or expected to encounter. cos all the time i've been thinking: ok my grades are pretty decent, but i'm well aware that i'm not that brilliant; i know there are lots of people who are ×100 better equipped to go to places like harvard, oxford or cambridge. and besides, i'm not sure if i could survive the pressure to compete tacitly or openly (in class, tutorials, exams, whatever) with people who are definitely smarter and more impressive and expressive than i am. that's one of the main reasons why i refused to apply to oxford or cambridge even though mr sowden and some of my friends did encourage me to do so.

also (and related to that) i think that if i myself feel that i'm not up to it, on a subconscious level the interviewers or applications people or whatever will recognise that; it'll manifest itself somehow, through a general reluctance or... something. put it another way, to get there, you really have to want to get there; and since i don't, i probably won't. so screw it.

another reason was that i couldn't stand the thought of interviews during a-levels. last and most mundane reason of all, was that oxbridge applications are just before prelims -.-

it all boils down to an excess of a) self-deprecation b) sense of perspective and c) modesty, i guess. but i'd sooner lose a place in cambridge than a sense of perspective, of what an insignificant little turd i am (or indeed, any one of us is) in this world. it is disgusting to lose a sense of perspective, have airs of self-importance, that sort of thing, and i certainly don't want that.

then again, my sense of perspective might just be screwed up. false modesty, or whatever. maybe i should be aiming for the skies. maybe i should have whored myself to cambridge for a place.

whatthefuck.

[to self: stfu and mug phys geog lah.]