Word of the Day: Elation

I never understood what the meaning of the word Elation really was until yesterday. When I learned that I passed the Civil Service Commission's Professional Examination held in November last year.

www.dictionary.com explains:

elation
noun
1.	an exhilarating psychological state of pride and optimism; an absence of depression [ant: depression]
2.	a feeling of joy and pride

...

I was in an intense mixture of emotions when a good pal at the gym told me that the list of the examination passers was already posted on CSC's website. I got no hold of internet that morning , leaving me uneasy throughout my fitness routine. Between optimism and pessimism, I stood on the parameter of pessimism. I never had an ounce of hope that I would make it! All these times, I believed that I failed the test. Starting with my negligence at reviewing for the exam. I only gave it barely a week to scan through the pages of the Civil Service examination reviewer I bought at the United Bookstore. And I had a partial run-through. I only went deeper for English ,Filipino and Clerical. I can't for the life of me do the Mathematics! Thus, reaching the 80% mark on the scale was nearly impossible, or so it seemed!

Finally I took a seat infront of desktop PC and went to http://www.csc.gov.ph/. I looked for a link somewhere on their homepage for the list of passers. And there it was! I clicked it. I clicked not in the hope of seeing my name on the list. I clicked to confirm the absence of my name on the list! It took about a life-time to load the whole page of family names in alphabetical order. And since my family name falls on letter U, I had to struggle and wait til the page drops to letter U! There must have been tons of users accessing the same link around the country so that loading was at a snail speed. I had to refresh the page again and again. At last, the status was done. The list was now loaded completely. And so the final verdict. I scrolled the down to the bottom. My sight missed letter U and went straight to letter Z. So I looked back up to letter U...

Uh-oh!

I couldn't believe my eyes. It read in capital letters: UDASCO, VINCENT TOM I

Could I be dreaming? No, I couldn't! Then I scrolled up again and look for the header of the page. It read: Civil Service Commission Examination Passers. I noticed I was starting to smile. And that smile turned into a chuckle. And that chuckle turned into a burst of laughter! God, I passed the exam! I couldn't believe! Thank God! I was totally elated!