Dear Coming Through The Rye Staff,

I’m a general engineering student in a well-known engineering school here in the Philippines. This course is what my parents dreamed for me ever since I was a child. Out of respect, I followed it for them since was a child. It’s my obligation to follow what they want or else they won’t send me to school. To be honest, I find it hard solving those complicated problems – so many computations, sines, cosines, logs, everything. I hate wasting my time torturing myself with these. I hate algebra, trigonometry, and chemistry. I hate everything about mathematics. I’m tired of failing exams. I’m tired of having lower grades (which my parents don’t know). I get nothing but headache, depression, bad days. All that they know is that I’m a good student with good grades, because I always lied. Every time they ask me about my studies, I always said it was okay. Otherwise, they will be disappointed.

Math is not really my passion – art is. These days, I’m thinking of shifting into another course. My parents will surely disagree. I would like to get a B.S. in Fine Arts. I have always loved the arts. I love expressing myself. However, this would be hard without expressing it first to my parents. All that comes to my mind is to runaway. After that, I’ll study what I want. I’ll be a scholar or a working student. I will stand by myself. However, I’m afraid I might fail and come to regret all of these choices for the rest of my life.

The closing of the first semester is already coming. I can’t keep lying to my parents and myself. The truth will come out, which will surely disappoint them. After the first day of our semi-final examination, which was today, I walked out. Alone. Thinking… I just don’t have any of the answers again. Tomorrow, the second day, I will surely not have any of the answers again. And the third day will be the same.

I don’t have any idea where my life is going – no direction. I don’t see any glimpse of tomorrow with me as an engineer. I can’t do this. I don’t want this. Sometimes, all I want to do is just listen to music and forget everything. I want to stop time, so I won’t have to attend school anymore – no more sleepless nights. I just want to be with friends and laugh all day. I want to return to my childhood days where there are no problems to solve. I’ll just play and dream. I wish I could escape from the reality. Stay in my bed all day. Sleep forever and dream. It’ll be a place far from reality. I’m just being hopeless with my life. I don’t know what to do. Could you help me?

Sincerely,

Wilson

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