I am extremely happy. I have the results for my final semester of engineering. Our university usually SMSes the results to us. I do well so it’s always a nice surprise when my phone goes “da da da da da da dum”, I check and look, results! Of course, many of my friends don’t do as well so they don’t enjoy the text messages as much as I do.

It’s is a gimmick, of course. There’s nothing at all difficult about checking your results on the internet. Imagine when people used to have to wait for snail mail! The internet is lightning in comparison. Text messages are just overkill. But this is coming from a person who paid $900 for a PDA, which does the job of a $10 diary.

Our beloved university educators are currently on strike. They refuse to release results by text message. In fact, they sent me a text message to tell me this. “Please check your e-mail,” they texted. Well. I’m glad I’m not paying for this completely unnecessary service (at least not directly)!

At the risk of alienating all the normal people who read my blog, I will tell you why I am happy. I got five high distinctions this semester. This means that I have made it through the Bachelor of Environmental Engineering with straight HDs. (I have gotten distinctions before but had them transferred to my Chinese diploma. Good thing too, don’t want nasty distinctions blemishing my record!)

I really, really expected to get at least two distinctions this semester.

“Hey, I reckon I’ll get some distinctions this semester!”

“Really? That’s good.”

“No…”

(pause while thinking) “You mean, it’s bad? You’ve never gotten lower than a high distinction??”

“Teehee.”

I enjoy boggling people.

Some of my friends also have ridiculously high averages. I’m sure they’ve never gotten less than HD or H1. It’s different, though, because they do maths, chemistry or some other science. My degree covers the technical and science aspects of engineering, but also law, economics, policy, management, biology and communication. Consider the fact that I have done 48 subjects over four years. To do well in all these subjects is something special, isn’t it? I’m a well-rounded person, aren’t I? (I don’t study too much, do I?)

Until this semester, I wasn’t too concerned about my marks. Meh, you get what you get. It was only when I arrived at the final semester of my degree, noticed the string of HDs on my academic record that I started getting nervous. To fall at the last hurdle! Oh, the ignobility of it!

It’s a false record, though. Last year, I had an extremely difficult hydraulics subject. I calculated that there was no way I could get a HD for it. “Finally!” I thought. “No more pressure to maintain the HDs!” Imagine my shock when the results came out and I had scraped 80 — enough for a HD.

Later that year, I was invited to be a member of the Academic Progress Committee. It was my job to listen to students appealing against expulsion from the engineering course. What a fun couple of days that was! Don’t ask me how I got onto that panel.

Anyway, while I was on the panel, I got to meet the secretaries of engineering. One of them said, “Joan, is it? I remember you! I was recording the official results and noticed that you had all these HDs except for one subject, where you got 79. I thought, ‘That’s was a shame!’ and bumped you up to 80.”

Golly. So I’m an imposter — not a nerd at all!