Unfortunately, there isn't much talk about videogames or my collection in this "episode", mostly because nothing special about that happened.
As I've mention before, I was quite scared of starting the second year in uni, in October 2002. Too many things happened that year. I worked even harder than before to the point my work rhythm started to decrease due to fatigue, meaning I would take more time to accomplish tasks that I could do in shorter periods without dragging them if I was well rested. It felt like a snowball... Instead of putting all the work aside once in a while just to get more sleep and rest when it was really needed, I would just keep working. Sleep privation and lack of rest can have some really nasty side effects on an individual's performance and psychology, but I was stupid enough to ignore that and I really felt the consequences a couple of years later. Working as hard as I could seemed the right thing to do at that time, but now I tremendously regret it. Some of my friends warned me about it but I was so stranded in my way of doing things that I didn't even consider other options, such as sacrificing a couple of classes or leaving some work unfinished. Today, I'm not even sure if all the work I've done was really necessary. I now consider that I spent too much time doing unnecessary things in order to guarantee I wouldn't fail any class. I even pushed my social life to second place. That is probably one of the biggest mistakes a person can do.
I think I was a coward in many ways. In fact, I still am a coward. I am a very stressed person. I'm usually afraid to fail when I have something new to do in my profession, even if it's something relatively simple. I always start by worrying and asking my inner self: "Can I do this properly? Will it go okay? Am I up to this?". In the end, looking at all my past experience, there's usually not much to worry about, or at least not as much as I usually do. I start exploring my new tasks, I eventually become familiarized with them and that's when my confidence finally starts to grow. I usually finish the tasks just fine, even those that seemed harder or complex. Once they're done, I end up looking back and thinking: "After all, there was no need for so much worry and stress. Why was I so concerned about this?". But I still react the same way whenever something new pops up... I'm not the kind of proactive guy that knows immediately what to do when a new problem or situation appears. I first need to familiarize with the situation and slowly build my confidence until I can finally say "I can do this" or "I can fix this". Unlike many people who immediately have the confidence to do whatever they have to...
This major lack of confidence and low self esteem is the opposite of what companies usually look for when hiring new workers. When I am looking for current job requests, it really upsets me to see all those ads from companies searching for "confident, determined people with a high degree of commitment, preferably the best employee in the world with many outstanding characteristics and experience". Especially if the payment they offer is far bellow all those requirements... I call all that stuff a major BS. I'm not the type of person to impress a boss by acting like a smart ass and only telling wonderful things about myself. I'm the type of modest person that would go to a job interview saying all my faults and problems in the first place, because that's what I feel more important to confess to someone expecting to hire me. However, that's exactly the type of person that no company would like to hire. Honesty and humility seems to mean zero in a job interview. All it counts is to impress the interviewer by convincing them that you are the perfect person to take the job, regardless of any other factor. It's funny, because I've met several confident people writing wonders about themselves in their CVs as if they were experts. However, after knowing some of them better or seeing how they work, I realize they're nothing that special and I don't consider myself to be inferior to them, professionally speaking. The only thing they have that I don't is self confidence, even if theirs is just a fake confidence or complete BS. Anyway, enough of this subject. I have a hard time explaining all these things in English...
While I was in the second year at the university, I still played a couple of games now and then, but I really can't remember which ones... There really isn't much I can tell about videogames or about my collection because I don't remember anything important that happened during that period. I know that I was just buying newly released PS2 games. Maybe Devil May Cry 2, Onimusha 2, GTA Vice City... I don't even know for sure. I guess I could just look at their release dates to find out exactly which ones I bought and played at that time, but I guess it's not worth the hassle. All I know is that I almost didn't play anything-
2002 was also the year when something happened between my parents. As if suffering from depression and having my mind all messed up thanks to the uni wasn't enough, things at home became pretty, pretty rough. They started to argue all the time. Sometimes, as I was finally trying to get some sleep after spending many hours awake, they decided to argue again. This happened many times and it was quite horrible. This sh!tty scenario lasted for about two years, by the time I was already a 4th year student, when my parents finally broke up and my father left home. Sometimes I would spend some nights at my friends' homes just so I could stay away from all that mess at home.
I started taking driving lessons on the summer break between 12th grade and the 1st year at the uni, in August 2000. I completely stopped taking those lessons for one entire year because I was too busy studying. I resumed those lessons on the following summer break between 1st and 2nd years (August 2001) and I was nearly ready to take the final driving test. However, classes restarted and I stopped taking driving lessons once again for almost an entire year. My 2 year apprentice license expire date was August 2002, so I didn't have another choice but to take additional driving lessons in order to pass the final test, otherwise I would have to restart everything. I retook driving lessons in May 2002 I believe, just before the 2nd year finals. With so much stuff to do and to study, I still had to skip classes to take more driving lessons... In June 2002 I took the final driving test and I failed. I am very confident I deserved to pass but the examiner was a complete a**hole. I retook the exam in the first days of July and that's when I finally obtained my driving license. Eventually, I passed every class from the 2nd year with good marks. I'm not exactly proud of it now.
Not everything was as horrible as I'm describing during the second year, though. For instance, I started to socialize with some of my classmates that I never sticked close to during the 1st year. We obviously had a lot of individual work to do in every class, but some of the tasks were so exhaustive and overwhelming that we were required to team up in working groups raging between 3 to 5 people. In order to make things work out more more effectively, we would usually use the same team in the required group tasks for different classes. If all the people in the group worked well together, things would just go smooth, despite the insane amount of stuff we all had to do both individually and as a group. However, if there was something wrong with the group, things could easily go wrong and affect a student's performance at most classes...
My first year's working group didn't go very well. Rui was a great classmate that seemed to admire my devotion to the university. However, he was older and he had his life quite filled already, with a wife, several kids to support and a part-time job at night. Even though he still did the best he could, unfortunately he didn't have much spare time to work in group, so I had to compensate for this part. Micaela was the only other person in my group that worked harder as well, but only two people trying to do the work of 4 or 5 can't end up well. As a result, half the people from my 1st year's working group failed to clear a few important classes and they stayed behind... I somehow managed to pass every class. So, in this 2nd year, I found a new working group with very interesting people: Pedro, Vanessa, Tania and Sidel, just to name a few. They were all dedicated people who were really interested in working together. And those people in particular, as well as several other classmates from separate groups worth mentioning, were those who stayed together until the very end of this journey that was the university - or college, like you guys from the US call it.
