An eye opener!

I had about 3 months to go for my MRCP(UK) part 1 exam. The last 3 months or so are called the golden months of ones' preparation. It is one of the most gruesome exams one can take. I had my entire schedule planned out. Fall asleep by 11 and wake up 5 am-ish and get in a good few hours of revision before the city wakes up and I set off for hospital.

I was sticking pretty strictly to the above schedule. On one rainy night, I cozily slumbered off to sleep and as my alarm went off at 5 a.m. I woke up to the noise of still heavily pattering rain. I stepped out of the bed and where my floor was supposed to be was now replaced by a pond, or a lake or something. I was confused till the sleepy grogginess left my head and my eyes. I turned on the lights, my floor was still there. Only, it was an ankle below water! It all started to become evident - The relentless rain was so heavy it had flooded not only the surrounding, but inside our house too!

Living in southeast Asia had made sure I was quite accustomed to floods and the hazards and difficulties and everything that goes with it! But never in my life was it a problem in me walking to my toilet from my bed! I woke the rest of the family and we scurried off to turn off the electricity and tried to salvage some of the wooden furniture. It was frantic, it was chaos, and it was annoying of the highest caliber!

By morning, as the rain finally took a break we had some help and we finally managed to clean up the entire house. It was no small ordeal let me assure you! Only for the rain to return and by evening we were floating in water again! This went on regularly for the coming week and my preparation was taking a major blow in the face!

When we were kids, if we weren't very keen on studying - our parents used have some common example at the ready. They used to show us example of the less fortunate kids, who maybe didn't have a table to study on, maybe didn't have the lights after dark and had to rely on candles to find their ways into the light. For many many years of my adult life I never fully comprehended what these stories were telling! And all of a sudden, in less than a week I lived a little bit of the stories! Like magic I could all of a sudden understand why my dad told us those stories.

Life is not always going to be sunshine and rainbows. And when it's not, if we sulk and feel sorry for ourselves the sunshine and rainbows may never really return. But pull yourselves back up, face the adversity and the sun will rise again.

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