Honing my marathoning

Last night I didn't get a wink of sleep, in spite of my being very tired. I was too nervous because of the final deadline which will decide about my remaining a student or remaining without a degree for the rest of my life.
I am not paralyzed so much by the fact that there are seven essays waiting to be written in one week time, but that there is one more, longer essay, on the topic I do not understand at all. When I got similarly stuck with mathematics at the high school, there was always somebody whom I could ask for help and explanation. But in this Gordic knot case, there is no one.
I can hardly ask the underpaid, over-busy teacher, who already did his best to explain the problems in his lectures (which I attended, but still did not catch it), and when I tried to ask two different girls from our department (consisting of approximately 12 students, most of whom are abroad at the moment), they just did not get what I do not get. So it put me into even deeper depression, as I now painfully realize that I have aimed too high when I applied for this school, as the intelligence and creativity (and perhaps intuition) needed for finishing this particular course is set far higher than mine can ever get to. And still the thought that I got to this point, that I got through nine semesters of studies (as I was kindly reminded today), only to be expelled because of one area of problems my brain can't simply deal with, is unbearable. Of course, I might get to cutting the Gordic knot in halves, given enough time for research and self-study, but there is no such time.
In my self-pitying times I used to blame the "series of unfortunate events" for this great delay, making up a metaphor of car racing for a long distance and being permanently put a spoke in my wheel (whether it was in the form of sore eye, immovable wrist, various kinds of diseases, moving from room to room due to reconstruction of our digs, living in permanent noise and stress, two broken computers, several blackouts, and so on). And I was trying to focus on those of my friends of whom I knew that they wouldn't give up racing even if their car was crashed really badly. I think it was then when I realized that my pride (which I had mistaken for my desire to fight honestly) is my biggest enemy and that I can push my car over the target line only with some support from my friends (whether it was giving advice, lending me a laptop or helping me survive when I was ill).

Now that the self-pitying stage of my life is definitely over, I feel full responsibility for the point I got myself to and I decided to rely on my own feet rather than wheels. The preciseness of this metaphor stroke me today in a bittersweet epiphany:

It is no crime to participate in the Marathon run even if you are not trained at all, but in such case you have to accept the thought that you most probably wont make it to the target line (alive) for the first time you try. I have many former classmates, who stood at the starting line with me and gave up (or were recommended to give up) after two, three kilometres of running. I glanced back nervously as I felt that it was not right for me to run further when such sportsmen were disqualified, but I did not listen to my inner voice and continued running despite being exhausted. And while I kept struggling for air, some of my former classmates got some rest and tried again. This time they mostly managed to get to the tenth, fifteenth, twentieth kilometer and although most of them were unable to finish the race repeatedly, they at least got the feeling of improvement - or they just made sure that this race was not their cup of tea and tried to (and did) succeed elsewhere. Meanwhile, I was crying with pain, stuck between the twentieth and thirtieth kilometre and feeling like dying every second. I envied those friends who were clever enough to give up and move on with their lives; I envied those, who had the courage and strong will to start over and over again and improve continuously. Some of them felt ashamed of their repeated attempts, but I don't see why -
-for what is worse? To reach the target on a fifth attempt (but still reach it and be able to enjoy the victory) or to break down just a few metres before the target line or die by exhaustion right after crossing it with the thought "at least I did not waste time by repeating"?
There is no point in asking the referees: "Why did you let me get so far if you won't allow me to finish?" It's only myself I can blame for all this wrong estimate and overstress.

Well, at least of two things I am pretty sure :

1) If I faint before reaching the line, there is no way for me to be able to undergo this race all over again.

2) I will do whatever it takes NOT to faint and finish the race - except cheating, or using drugs.