Dear Papa Al,

    Yesterday morning, my cat Jessica give birth to her babies at around 1am. But I let my sisters took care of her because I needed enough sleep for the upcoming TOEFL test.

    I woke up at 6 am, had a very nutritious meal and started cleaning up the room to prepared for the test. I took a cup of coffee two hours before the test so that the caffeine will boost my energy. 30mins before the test, I’m ready. I sat alone in the room and meditate and sung a few songs to calm my heart. I didn’t want my anxiety to mess up my answers. The time for the test drew near.. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5..4..3..2..1.. I counted. It was the last moment I had my luck. What came after was a total mess.

    I’ve checked all the devices and equipment days before the test. I also reassured by checking 3 times again that morning. I also checked the internet connection and even made sure no device is using the WiFi except for the computer I will use for the test. But, the download didn’t start. I refreshed the page, restart the computer, restart the router but none of them worked. I switched to my dad’s desktop computer. It didn’t work either. So do with my sister’s PC. After trying for two hours, I got technicians from TOEFL to help me out. They told me to switch to another network. I tried that but didn’t worked either.

    Then an idea suddenly kicked in. “Perhaps, the military government block it just like how they blocked the social media”. I immediately turned on the VPN. “Yess! It works!” The download started. But that all the luck I’ve got. With VPN, the connection was too slow. They ask me to change the internet connection again. The connection I was using was the best connection we can offer with 25M/s. When I was trying to figure out how to do it, the electricity went out.

    In Myanmar, there is a daily electricity outage. The military government only allows us to use 8 ~ 4 hours of electricity per day. My dad had already prepared an inverter for this case but it can only last for 2 hours. Our original plan was to start the exam at 1 pm when we have electricity, and after 4 hours, when the electricity went out, we’ll continue with the inverter.

    With the electricity from the inverter, we tried again. This time, we have to start our process from the beginning again. What’s worse, the VPN didn’t work this time. We tried with all the computers we’ve got. Finally, we get to download it. But the battery of the inverter was about to shut down.

    So, we started our third plan which is to use the electricity generator. The luck wasn’t on our side either. The generator occured some problems which we didn’t have it before. It didn’t work and start generating electricity.

    After 6 and half hours past the test starting time, we finally gave up. It’s already late and the electricity won’t be coming back anytime soon. Moreover, unlike usual days, the internet connection was really terrible and that happened across the country. Yesterday, it was really an unlucky day I ever had in my life.

    However, I believe that everything happens for a reason we never know what tomorrow will bring. I hope it’ll bring me to a better one.

Love,

Ti Ti