Disappointment stings. My plan for the summer was to be focused on one thing: taking organic chemistry during summer and getting it out of the way before my sophomore year. For my major, it is almost a prerequisite that I be done with organic chemistry before my second year. Everyone else in my major is doing it, which meant I had to too. I, however, recently received an email from the school saying that there aren’t enough seats for everyone and that I had to be put on waitlist for the class.

Long story short, my whole two-months-worth of plans for the summer vanished and my sophomore year is going to be like climbing Mount Everest, trying to juggle organic chemistry on top of what I originally had to take. And I was, and still am, under a great deal of stress because—like a whining five-year-old would say—I didn’t get what I wanted.

I bet many of you have had this disappointment. Perfectly laid out plan going awry and making your life more difficult. Some of you could relate to when you were applying to colleges. The disappointment from getting rejected from your dream school can be disorienting because it’s like your dream suddenly becoming unavailable. Disappointment stings.

But I want to share with you what I have to say about these disappointments.

Disappointment is part of life. You are going to learn how to live with it. But it is important to realize that it is these disappointments that ultimately defines us and makes us unique.

If the one path you have been walking suddenly closes, you start to see many other paths you couldn’t think of before. At this junction of different paths, you get to choose your own and these choices make us unique and fill us with different experiences.

So what if you can't get what you wanted. It just means that you have to take more classes next semester, work harder, try different things, find a new way to the top, take the longer route. Who knows if the longer route might end up being more rewarding.

Another person who faced a public disappointment, Conan O’Brien, just before leaving The Tonight Show, said: "Work hard, be kind and amazing things will happen."

I have no ideas for the summer now, and I equally have no idea how I’m going to deal with organic chemistry next year, but I know that if I work hard, it will work out at the end.

So if it comes to worst, I might stay here in Korea and do something more rewarding and meaningful. Meet new people, read more books, might as well make the best summer out of it.