I submitted my application to UKEC on a ruthlessly cold October night for two reasons: first, in hopes that I could throw myself into work to alleviate the excruciating homesickness I was experiencing; second, I had a lot of bones to pick with Malaysia’s progress, and I was done sitting around and waiting for somebody else to do something about it…

After all, if I’m stressed out and have to be working every waking moment, it has to account for something, right? If I have to sacrifice my sleep to write reports and articles, it will eventually pay off, right? If I can’t afford to go out with my friends because I’m occupied by editing and rehearsing, it has to add points to my metric of success, right?