Fluke Academia

I had this essay (contrasting Ortega y Gasset and Friedrich Hayek on liberalism) due on the 21st of April, 12pm.

By the 20th, I'd done a grand total of exactly half my research - the Ortega side. I had a grand total of zero words on paper, out of a possible word count of 2500. Pretty much fucked.

By 5am of the 21st, I was tanked on a mix of redbull and coffee, managed a constipated 100 words and was stuck with writer's block. Total FUBAR.

At 530am, I raged around the house yanking at my hair. Haven't had a panic attack like that in years.

6am. In the state of delirium that I was in, I surrendered to my subconscious, writing and chaining arguments on the fly. I don't recall anything I wrote.

Fast forward to the 3rd of May. I open my NUS mail account, see a mail from my prof:

Dear Lionel,

I was impressed by your Ortega-Hayek essay, especially the treatment
of Ortega, which was strikingly clear and incisive. You really got it,
when quite a few of your classmates had considerable trouble pinning
Ortega down properly. I didn't have much to add, but I am attaching what
comments and mild criticisms I could come up with.

In fact I was thinking that your classmates might benefit from your
lucid view of Ortega, especially. Would you be willing, I wonder, to
share your essay with them? It shouldn't put you at a disadvantage as
the final will not be so narrowly focused. If you sent the file to me as
an attachment, I could distribute it by e-mail either with or without
your name given, as you prefer.

Well done!

What can I say? I lol'd at 430 in the morning. This 'A' grade wasn't about smarts or intellect. It was pure luck, clean and simple.

That, and maybe a bit of smarts lah.