Tomorrow is finally my BIOL 273 exam. Pretty excited to finally be done with the course. As you may already know, I tend to get stressed out pretty easily, whether it's obvious or not. For example, this summer I've had tons of time to do my course and review the material, but I never feel like I can truly relax until the exam is complete. Same thing applies to the Christmas vacation between the fall and winter study terms. There's always this nagging at the back of my mind, reminding me not to let my guard down. There have been numerous instances in my life where I felt okay about a test or evaluation and ended up totally bombing it. Nothing feels worse than self-disappointment. These unfortunate circumstances have caused me to instinctively default to the life motto:
Expect the worst and you'll never be disappointed.
For any of my disillusioned or overly supportive friends, I am not naturally a dedicated student. I only started realizing school was important from grade 5. Unfortunately enough, that was also around the time I realized what a "boy" was. Previous to that year, I was getting horrible grades; I don't even remember how much effort or hard work I put into my schoolwork prior to grade 5 (somewhere around...little to none?). I carried on this dedication right up to probably the end of grade 11, where I kind of lost my patience and ran out of the will to work hard. I suppose it was a combination of being discouraged from the Accounting career path, the drama of getting into my first official relationship, discovering that no matter how much effort I put into Data Management, I could not succeed + a bunch of other things I can't remember right now/am too lazy to explain. I'm too fragile to handle, or even explain, all this emotional turmoil at once!
Anyways, at my private school, we had these dreaded "Friday envelopes" where all our tests would go home to our parents with the number of tests in them and a place for them to verify with a signature that they saw our tests. WELL, LET ME TELL YOU...my teacher must have been kind of stressed or totally out of it because it took her about...1.5 months to realize that I was signing my own envelope and tests with my own signature. Believe me, it wasn't because I didn't want my parents to be overimpressed by my AMAZING marks--quite the contrary, actually. Don't get me wrong, my teacher was my all-time favourite, actually the one who inspired me to want to become a teacher--until I came to my senses, of course. Teaching was not for me.
BUT ANYWAYS, I got in HUGE trouble from my parents and my teacher. Actually A LOT of drama happened in grade 4, just involving me. One story...
STORY TIME:
Basically, my teacher had family farm connections, so we hatched baby chick eggs in an incubator at the back of our classroom. She discovered a diplomatic and fair way to decide who would get to take each chick home for a weekend and who would get to keep them after that. I ended up taking one home for a weekend, thanks to a valid parental permission form.
I swear I was in heaven for that weekend, I took it outside, I took it everywhere around my house, I loved that chick within a day, but Monday morning came, and it wouldn't wake up. I had no idea why; maybe the weather was too cold for it?...but I couldn't stop crying. Not only because the chick died but because the person who was supposed to take it home for "keeps" was going to be really mad at me.
My mom went into school with me bright and early to tell the teacher, and I still hadn't stopped crying. My teacher sent me out of the classroom to "deliver a note to another teacher down the hall", and I'm pretty sure it said something about keeping me there for like 10 minutes because I just stood there for that time. Meanwhile, my teacher apparently told the class that the chick died, and I was really sensitive about it so they had to be nice and not mention it. I actually feel really bad and embarrassed now for wasting the class' time, forcing people to be nice to me, and just being a big crybaby in general. What's worse is that, after school, one of the kids in the other teacher's class (the one I got sent to) heard about the situation from one of the guys in my class, and he was making fun of me. What do you think I did?--I cried LOL. Yeah, and the afterschool program caretaker phoned my teacher who came down from her classroom upstairs, told the guy off, and rescued me yet again. Hey, at least now you know why she was an inspiration to me. As a side note, that guy actually ended up going to the Cawthra arts program...most of you probably heard of/know him, so I'm not gonna name him. All I know is...
1. I felt really bad about getting him in trouble for such a stupid thing.
2. I doubt he ever really forgave me, but I have a feeling he pretty much TRIED to forget me.
3. I don't think we've spoken since elementary school.
I don't know if I've mentioned this already or not, but I'm a really sensitive person. Both mean, nice, and family people have been telling me this since grade 1 when I cried whenever I lost a game. Honestly, I've tried to toughen up, dish out insults in return for the ones I get, and basically keep my emotions to myself because, honestly, nobody cares. As clarification, I don't mean that as an emo statement, but I think individuals know their emotions the best, and they know what treatments they can and can't handle (not medical treatments, but like solutions--but I didn't "just use that word" because it didn't sound right). Initially people might care, but you can rarely take their advice word for word and see actual results. Soon enough, you'll just be plain annoying. Sure you can ask for advice or vent your emotions on a voluntary victim from time to time, but ultimately your own fate is in your own hands. But yeah, I think I've been making progress by being able to ignore criticism, insults, and hurtful commentary directed towards me. Of course I can't help but take these hits personally, as it usually is, but I don't blame them.
Just as a reflection on this post, I felt like writing about a more detailed, personal experience. Obtaining honest, sincere feedback about my blog from my good friend Randall has played a significant influence in the nature of this post. He subtly reminded me that my previous posts are rather judgemental, and, I'll admit, they are. Let me attempt to explain myself...
I suspect that my desire to analyze and improve myself has extended its scope to society. As a result, I try to be more observant and less ignorant of the places, events, things, and people around me to gain a greater understanding of my surroundings' strengths, areas needing improvement, and unfortunate shortcomings that we'll just have to deal with. I hope that by reading my blog, you too will take a more active role in taking the time to learn about and realistically analyze the world we live in. This way, we can hopefully enhance both our appreciation and enjoyment of the great mystery called life.
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