After waiting for so long, today has finally arrived. I’ve dreamed for so long, yet the dream remains elusive.

I started school in 1993, in what the village called a pre-school class, which lasted only one year. After completing it, I officially became a primary school student.

Memories from that ancient time are vague, but I recall my parents mentioning that I often sat with my back to the teacher and frequently stepped on others’ desks. Despite this, my academic performance was decent, and in the second year, I successfully passed the entrance exam to move from the village school to a town school.

At that time, the average age for starting primary school was six or seven. Being only five, I faced significant pressure. For the first two years of primary school, I followed my cousins to school. Back then, the school week was five and a half days, meaning we had classes on Saturday mornings.

In the first grade, I miraculously joined the Young Pioneers, a mysterious organization, and remained a member for nine years until I joined the Communist Youth League in junior high.

My three years of junior high were mostly spent in a daze. Fortune-tellers said I was going through a “confused phase.” In the second year, the school divided students into key classes. Despite ranking fourth in my class at the end of the first year, I wasn’t selected for the key class. Instead, I became the class monitor in an ordinary class. It turned out that the top 15 students from five classes were usually selected for the key class. Fortunately, my uncle, who worked next to my classroom, intervened the next day and got me into the key class. Later, I learned that many students with poor grades had gotten in through connections. The reason I wasn’t selected was due to my uneven performance: my total scores in Chinese, Math, and English were too low.

In the key class, everyone’s grades were stable. I consistently ranked around 25th. The top three positions were always held by the same few students, and the next few positions were also predictable. Over the two years, this pattern remained unchanged, making any significant shift in rankings a major event.

Based on our class’s performance, about 20 students should have been able to get into key high schools. My uncle had been transferred to a regular high school in a neighboring town, so I applied there. The total score for the entrance exam was 760, with key high schools usually requiring around 670. My mock exam scores hovered around 660, which would have placed me in the top class at the regular high school, a class that historically had a higher university admission rate than the average classes at key high schools.

To my dismay, I scored well above the key high school cutoff in the actual exam. This presented my first major life crossroads: should I stick with the school I had applied to, or use connections or money to get into a key high school?

With little time to decide, I made a surprising choice to attend a private school that had just started its high school program. This decision was met with significant opposition, as many couldn’t understand my seemingly foolish move. However, the school offered me a full scholarship, which gave me some confidence.

At 14, standing at my first major life crossroads, I was naive and ignorant, believing that my cleverness and pride would help me overcome all obstacles and get into a good university.

In my first year of high school, I remained steady and diligent. However, the quality of students in our inaugural high school class varied greatly, with many struggling academically. We had three classes totaling about 200 students, along with a few full-time and retired teachers from other schools. This was the entirety of our “high school department,” and no one knew how far it would go.

If my choice at 14 was somewhat justifiable, the decision I made at 15 significantly influenced the trajectory of my life.

Despite having a clear advantage in logical thinking, I chose to major in the humanities. I made some reckless decisions that left my family unable to sway my choice. During this time, I transitioned from being steady and confused to becoming self-absorbed.

At 16, in my second year of high school, my confidence soared. I was young and brash, believing I could conquer the world, often making bold statements and acting recklessly.

I hardly remember how I got through my third year of high school. Suddenly, some repeat students joined our class, and they would significantly impact my life in the years to come. I was placed in a dormitory with these repeat students, and that dormitory eventually became the first in the school where all residents were admitted to universities, albeit at different times.

In 2006, I took the college entrance exam for the first time and scored 546, just 10 points above the cutoff for undergraduate programs. This was unexpected, as the cutoff had been around 520 in previous years, and I had performed normally. My scores were Chinese 99, Math 115, English 95, and comprehensive subjects 237. I underperformed in Math, which I could have scored above 130 in. That year, one of my dorm mates got into Tsinghua University, and another from downstairs got into Renmin University. However, among the fresh graduates, only one female classmate from our humanities class made it to an undergraduate program; the rest failed.

Haunted by this shadow, I decided to repeat the year. But again, I struggled with Math. In 2007, I scored 105 in Math, 114 in Chinese, 87 in English, and 246 in comprehensive subjects, totaling 552. After a year of repeating, there was little improvement. Fortunately, the cutoff remained around 520, so I barely made it to an undergraduate program.

They say that for top-tier universities, you choose the school; for second-tier, you choose the location. So, I casually picked a few schools in decent locations and randomly selected majors, confident that I could excel in any field.

Four years of university flew by, and today marks the last class.

Before class, the whole dorm went out drinking again. Five of us ended up vomiting, showcasing the “killer” spirit and witnessing the rise of a dark horse beer champion.

It’s now 5:30 AM, and I’ve been typing on my phone. At 7 AM, the whole dorm will head to the classroom, aiming to seize the front row seats for the first time.

Time to sleep…

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