Day 10: TGIF

"Day 10. Thank God it’s Friday. After a week of lectures, assignments, cafeteria mishaps, and personal breakdowns, I was ready to collapse into my bed and forget that the entire semester existed—at least for a few hours.

But before I could embrace the sweet relief of weekend freedom, there was the usual Friday afternoon struggle: the last lecture of the week. You know the one. It’s the one where your brain is already in vacation mode, but your professor is still going full throttle with some mind-numbing topic. For me today, it was Microeconomics—the lecture I had barely survived earlier this week.

Dr. Tan—our beloved economics professor—was droning on about supply and demand curves, but I was barely holding it together. My eyelids were getting heavy, and my mind kept wandering. It was as though every word she said made my brain shut down for a few seconds. Elasticity, equilibrium, substitute goods—all these terms were bouncing around in my head, but they felt like they belonged in an alternate universe where students actually understood what was going on.

At some point, Dr. Tan paused and asked, ‘Eddie, what do you think about the relationship between price and quantity demanded?’

I froze. There was an awkward silence. Everyone in the lecture hall turned to look at me. My mouth opened, but nothing came out.

In a panic, I said the first thing that came to my head: ‘Uh, when prices go up, people buy less?’

Dr. Tan looked at me with an expression that said, ‘Well, you didn’t get the full picture, but at least you’re close.’ She nodded and moved on, but my face was probably as red as the pen she used to mark her lecture slides.

By the time the bell rang and we were dismissed, I was already thinking about the weekend. The weekend—my sweet, sweet refuge. I didn’t care that I hadn’t finished my assignment or that I still had a mountain of reading to do. Right now, nothing else mattered but the idea of doing nothing.

I met up with Faisal and Zane outside the lecture hall. ‘Are we doing this?’ Faisal asked, holding up a set of keys.

‘What’s this?’ I asked, trying to sound casual.

‘Weekend trip to the mall, bro,’ Zane said with a grin. ‘We deserve it after surviving the week.’

‘Can’t argue with that,’ I said, suddenly feeling energised.

We piled into Faisal’s car and headed to the mall. The drive was filled with terrible music (we actually listened to a few songs from the ‘90s that no one should admit to knowing), but it didn’t matter. We were free. The week was over.

At the mall, we did what any self-respecting group of college students would do: we wandered aimlessly, ate fast food, and tried on ridiculous clothes just for laughs. I bought a hoodie that was probably too expensive for my budget, but I justified it by telling myself I deserved it for surviving my first week of the semester.

The day ended with a round of bubble tea, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this relaxed. We laughed about everything and nothing, joked about how we’d probably be back in the library by Sunday night, and made plans for a ‘study group’—which we all knew would be nothing but snacks and procrastination.

Lesson of the day: Sometimes, the best thing to do after a chaotic week is to hit pause, have some fun, and remember that there’s more to life than assignments and deadlines. I might not be the best student yet, but at least I’m learning how to balance."