It's funny how we use numbers for everything. How a series of
numbers is all the world needs to judge a persons worth. And with
numbers, comes tests. When you're born you're weighed and
measured in length, toes and fingers are counted, and you even take your
first test and given an Apgar score. Then you grow older and they test
you in school, and the first thing they tell you when you get to
kindergarten is that you have to pass the first grade writing test, and
then when you pass that they start to obsess about the fourth grade
tests. So much that the biggest insult a teacher can give you is the
notion that you're too stupid to pass them. These tests can cause a
teacher to break down in front of you telling an entire group of third
graders that they're too stupid to pass a test. Then you get to high
school where tests start to have a little more weight. Each week in
every subject they test you on the weeks lessons. You memorize and
memorize but never actually learn anything because the moment the test
is over your brain hits delete to prepare for the next weeks material.
Then you rinse and repeat for the next four years. Then comes the
college admissions tests where one number can determine where you go to
school, and how much money the college thinks you are worth when they
give out scholarships. And through it all there is that great number out
of 4.0 that everyone is trying to reach. Then grad school with another
entrance exam with another score. These numbers dictate our lives. If we
let them.
I'm
trying not to, but I've been having a bit of a mid-semester crisis this
week. I received a C on my first biology test, and although that isn't
failing, its "honors failing." And if my course grade is a C I'm going
to have to cut my losses and try another major. I really don't want to
change again, and its really more out of pride than love for the
subject. I don't want to be the kid that messes around all of college
and can't figure anything out, and I don't want to piss off my parents. I
really like college and socially it is 100% better than high school
ever was, but academically I feel like I'm not getting it. This,
however, has been a huge eye opener to my study skills, or lack there
of. I am not going to be one of those naturally smart people, I am going
to be one of those people who has to work at it. I just have to decide
what's worth working at. Lately, I've thinking about majoring in
psychology, but I feel like psych is a serious cop out major. Not that I
think the subject is a waste, but everyone else does. And I don't want
to do what I did with bio and jump into it to find out I'm not very good
at it. But, I do like it, and I'm over here geeking out to a
spreadsheet full of my friends personality tests. Interests, though,
don't pay bills.
So, I'm
gonna spend the rest of the semester trying my best and hoping my best
is good enough, and if it isn't I guess I have to make decisions. No one
is perfect. I just want to say that to everyone I've been listening to
freak out about they're grades lately. That and offer them my C to dry
the tears from their A-. No one is perfect, and as long as you feel like
you're doing what you can, there is nothing else that can be done.
Accept the things that can't be changed, change the things that can be,
and know the difference between the two, or you will drive yourself
insane. Enjoy your life, because sometimes things aren't meant to be,
and if it isn't meant to be, there will be something else to take it's
place.
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