Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

The real fight has just been begun as the real course has just been started. In this period of time, the living might not be as same as the previous life  or at least the last two month period of life. Have been residing in Adelaide for almost two months, for settling, adapting and coping with the new system, people and environment in which so called preparation and orientation program. Generally speaking, there is no doubt how essential this agenda is. This program in which you prepare and get yourself ready before jumping to the real life, in this case the real lecture. And now, here i am in my real life as postgraduate student.

Having said that the preparation and orientation worked properly, I have to admit that the challenges and demands in the real course are not easy to overcome.  In the first week of the course, the thought of assignments, academic paper, due date, and so forth "cramp" my mind, not to mention the text books which deeply cost the pocket that every student should own for at least one for each course.  Talking about textbooks, like or dislike, a must or not, though the digitalise resources are in plenty  numbers on the of tip your finger, it is still good choice for the students to possess at least a single text book for every single course.

Due to its expensive price, most of the students prefer purchasing second hand textbook to buying brand new textbook. Lucky us that Gumtree - the most adorable website for Australian and people residing in Australia  does exist. For those people who are not familiar with the website, that Gumtree is a platform where you are able to find secondhand or used items in a very extremely low price. The items in that website may range from real estate products, academic stuffs, to automotive matters. There are plenty of lists you might be happy to look at in that platform for reasonable quality and satisfying cost. 

My first intense interaction with the link was when I was told by my classmate that he had just got the  extremely needed text book  through Gumtree website. The book was titled "Managing for Quality and Performance Excellence" and written by James R. Evans and William M. Lindsay. A brand new of the eight edition of this book costs US$ 311.33 while my fellow spent AUD 80 for that second hand book. Without clarifying for further explanation, I started to surf in that specific link. However, the only posting regarding the book was that my classmate had grabbed. Lucky him, an early bird  catches the worm. He started to find the book early and ended successfully. For me, the struggle keeps going on!

Feeling hopeless on Gumtree, then i looked at the Amazon and Ebay website for finding the book. Amazon listed a new brand of that item for US$ 311.33, shipping excluded! converting to Australian dollar, the number obviously increase. Putting the Amazon aside, then trying to find in Ebay. Thank goodness that it offered the book for 20AUD only. However, I could not simply purchase the stuff straight. The seller administered the item on the bidding list instead of selling it immediately. This meant that I had to wait for the ending while competing with other bidders. Lucky me that there were only two bidders (including myself) and my 25 AUD bid became the leader at the time. It was about 3 days to go to ending date. During the period, I wished that there will no any bidder at all so I could won the book for 25 AUD. Surprisingly, on the day before the closing date I was out of bid, and the number of bidders multiply. The bidding rate raised just over half a hundred  dollar. I kept my eyes on the track, I would raise my bidding rate to the last hour even to the last second of the closure. I wished that my strategy would not be copied by others which meant I was the only person to bid on the last minute of the termination. 

On the last hour of the auction, I managed myself to stay online with the website. Kept my eyes online, wishing and imagining that my victory would come very soon at the end. However the anticlimax story emerged. Somehow the internet connection was in trouble which put me out of connection. The last minutes of the termination had come and I was still facing the connection problem. I started to be panic and worry. The feeling of sadness and dissatisfied did profoundly exist at the time. I had no any idea what to do and what to fix for. I felt a lot of distressful and imagined myself on shame. About 5 minutes after the closing time, the internet connection was running as usual or in normal circumstance. What a very lovely and highly conspiracy if I might say. My anger and distressful doubled having known that I became a loser. If the internet connection had not been in trouble, I would have won my text book and saved plenty of my money and time. I was angry, I blamed everything, I blamed myself for deciding to raise the bidding rate to the last minute, and even the worst the I almost closely to blame the only ONE. Naudzubillahiminzalik!

To be continued....