There are always going to be disappointments and setbacks in your life. There's little you can really do but it doesn't mean you have to give up. Things can't always go swimmingly for you. Things can't always work out perfectly the way you planned it. Maybe you tried your hardest to make certain things turn out the way you want it to but you realize that it didn't...and you're disappointed. But does it mean life is over? Far from it!

I'm about to go receive my philosophy paper right now that's worth about 35% of my final grade for the course. This paper will either make me or break me. This paper will determine what I have in the class going into the final. If everything turns out great, I have a chance of receiving an A in the class which is what I'm striving for. However if all else fails then I don't have a chance, at all. I have no idea what I received but I have to just simply acknowledge that I tried my best on it and the work was the best I produced. I can't please every teacher out there. Maybe my TA didn't think it was good enough. But all I can do is bite the bullet and work extra hard for the final this Thursday and hope for a miracle. As long as I know I did my best, that's all I can really do.

I'm going to turn in applications to potential internships for the summer this week. I've worked painstakingly on my resume, rewriting, editing, adding, revising, and asking other people for feedback until it reached its level of professional perfection. A resume is hard...it took me a month to really come up with a great one that stated all of my achievements and work experience and who I am as an individual, all fitting on one page. I worked tirelessly for production on my schools newspaper staff on Friday so I could list all the things I can do and the skills/computer programs I learned in case that's what these internships are looking for. I joined the school newspaper so that I could list more experience. I sacrificed so much of my time and effort just so I can have the possibility of getting a job as soon as I graduate this June. And yet of course, whatever I've done so far in my life doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what most internships may require in a potential applicant! Hell, I don't even know if I'll get to the "we'll consider you an applicant" level! I mean, yes I sacrificed so much my whole life...but...

However does it mean I'm actually going to land a job or an internship? No. It is very likely that I won't get any, but I mustn't let that stop or discourage me from trying anymore. I have a problem of giving up and abandoning a goal of mine as soon as I get a door shut in my face. My mom used to scold me anytime I had that attitude. She told me all I can do is get back up, take this as a life lesson, and try harder next time, to do everything I can to not let them say no to me. When I first joined the school newspaper, they rejected my trial articles telling me it didn't fit the tone of the publication. I was so embarrassed that I didn't show up to the next meeting and even contemplated quitting before even giving myself a chance to redeem myself and try again. Thank God I decided to try harder on my next issue and stick with it...because they ended up loving the second trial article I wrote and told me it was going to be published. I proved to myself that I can't just give up and if you keep at it, miracles can happen. It may not be a big deal but you have to celebrate the small triumphs. For me it was a big step, because I had to handle rejection for the first time but still get back up. There are way more things in the future that I have to accomplish but this was a large stepping stone for me. It taught me an important lesson.

So who knows? I most likely won't land any internships, I may not have gotten a good grade on my philosophy paper today, and rejection is always inevitable but I can't let that decide who I am or who I am not as an individual. All I can do is try my very best and don't let things get me down. Rejection does hurt...and I'm not the best person that copes with it. However I can't let that determine how the rest of my career pans out. And if I didn't try my best then I can't complain. Who knows, maybe all this work I've been putting into hopefully landing an internship this year will all be in vain but as I like to believe, everything happens for a reason, but it's up to you to decide whether you want the positives to outweigh the negatives.