I thought of one thing I could write about, but I don't know how interesting you'll find it. I guess if you've read everything else I've posted in this blog de secrets, then you're in it for the long haul with me. Anyway, this is me trying to introduce myself. Like you didn't already know how long-winded and self-conscious I am.
Okay. Here it is. I was in Western Civ II today with Mosser. We were talking about Descartes and Newton and the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment and blah-dy blah-dy blah. Dull stuff. Mosser does this thing where she gives us discussion questions on the reading we do every night, and then in class the next day we, well, discuss them. So, it's gotten to the point where she's starting to have members of the class present these discussion questions, basically trying to teach the class the answer. To be honest I'm terrified. I feel like everything I will say will be shallow and wrong. Luckily she hasn't assigned me a day yet.
There it is though. Two people from our class presented questions today, and I don't know if it was just because I didn't do the reading or what, but most of what they said soared right over the top of my head. It's not exactly a foreign topic, the Scientific Revolution or the Enlightenment. We just covered it last semester in my America and the Enlightenment class. The Enlightenment is in the freaking title, for Pete's sake. But for some reason, I couldn't understand how they went into such depth.
Basically, I felt stupid. It wasn't a groggy stupid, where the thoughts just cannot penetrate the sleep around my brain. I've experienced that before, and while it's a bit scary, I know in the back of my head that if I review the class later, I will be able to understand. No, this was a truly awestruck, oh my gosh I have no idea how we got here or what we're talking about thing.
This is going to sound really arrogant, but I don't have moments like that very often. Okay, maybe in math classes and some science classes, I do. Not history, though. And then I started to think about all of the times where I felt that panic of being out of my depth in other classes. And I figured that I've probably been lying to myself for the past few years. You see, I was a pretty smart kid. I had a crappy teacher in 2nd grade math, which is why I hate math now. But, generally, I was smart. There were two "smart kid" programs at my school: GAP and TRIAD. GAP (Gifted Academic Program) was the smartest, brightest kids. We had kids transfer from other elementary schools so that they could take part in our GAP program. TRIAD was for the not-quite-GAP kids.
You had to take a test to get into the GAP program. I took the test in 3rd grade, I think? Or 2nd. I don't remember. Well, I took the test and was about 2 or 3 points below the GAP level (I'd say the test had at least a 20 point scale). Needless to say, my mother was furious, but I was placed in TRIAD instead. It was really just an extra class where we learned at a slightly accelerated level. I honestly don't remember much of anything from TRIAD. All I remember from the GAP test was looking at a math equation with a variable in it. 3x=3 or something like that. And having no idea what to do.
I don't know where I was going with that. ...Oh yeah. I was proving my intelligence. Wow I'm a prick. OK, so I was a smart little kid who hated math and always felt not-quite-smart-enough. And then middle school came around. The only time I've ever gotten straight A's for an entire year was in 3rd grade, by the way. Also the year I won the spelling bee. And the year that I met my first British boy (Matt Shultis. I fell in love immediately. He brought in his cricket bat for show and tell and gave me a teal, sparkly pencil, which I cherished. He moved to Virginia soon after and I never saw him again).
Middle school. 5th grade I was friends with a girl who cheated on her science tests. Our science teacher was a bent old lady that had a grabber thing...
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| One of these. The right end is where you held, and you squeezed it like a trigger to pull the claws together. Hers was red. |
6th grade, I was on the "smart" team (we were split up into teams... TEAM WISDOM!) but the smart team was divided into four sections. Sections 1 and 2 were full of GAP kids. Smart kids. 3 and 4 (I was in 4), were average kids. However, my teachers really liked me, especially my history teacher and language arts teacher, so in 7th grade I was in advanced History and English classes.
7th grade I really blew it. I was actually in a class with the GAP kids! I was thrilled and thought I was so intelligent, and spent too much time writing A Christmas Carol plays about Bush, Kerry, and Clinton with my politically astute new smart friends and not enough time doing my work. The next year, I was put into normal English and History. I was so ashamed, I was mortified that all of my smart friends would walk into my normal level class. Once one of them did, and I hid my face until he left.
I worked my butt off in 8th grade so that would never happen again, and it paid off. 8th grade was a good year for me. I was in the theater program, did the morning announcements, got straight A's in nearly all of my classes, and generally had a good time. Freshman year, I signed up for Honors English and Honors US History 1. I wish I had skipped Earth Science and went straight to Biology like my smart friends did. One of my only regrets. I could have done it, I just didn't.
I won't even get into high school. It was awful. True, I stayed in Honors and AP English classes throughout high school, but that was only because I had an amazing English teacher sophomore year who wasn't afraid to call me out and get me to put my act together. I learned to mostly embrace my normal classes, because I knew that I was smart. I was just paying for past mistakes, I thought. College would be the start of something amazing.
It really has been. I was so excited to come to college and prove that I was worth more than my crappy high school GPA said I was. I hope that I've done myself a bit of justice so far in college. Still, whenever I start to get lost in class, I panic. I see my downfall all over again, except this time it's not middle school or high school. This is college. It counts. It follows you everywhere.
I feel like I have nothing when I'm lost in class. I'm constantly afraid that people will think that I'm unintelligent, because for a while in middle school and high school, I thought that my intellect would be the only thing I owned worth having, and it would by my only saving grace. Even if I'm not pretty or successful, at least I'm not stupid. That's how I thought.
Basically, I go through that TRIAD vs GAP, Honors vs Normal dilemma in my head. I feel that not-quite-good-enough label on my forehead. Intellect is extremely important in my family, especially to my mother. I always felt her disappointment when my grades wouldn't come back as A's. This was before my siblings started to struggle in school because of their ADHD. I was the first, and I was the first to fail. My mother never failed. It was a heavy burden to bear, and I fell beneath it during my Freshman and Sophomore years in high school.
When other people go to depths that I don't understand, and not just other people but my peers, I get scared. Really scared. I need to be intelligent. I need to know and understand.
I don't think I'm explaining this right. I don't know how to describe it. I just think about looking up at my classmate, drawing an ellipse on the board and talking about some philosopher or another, and thinking, we are not equals. He's more intelligent than me. And, as arrogant as this sounds, that scares me. I can't be just average. I can't allow myself to be there anymore. I've worked too hard to prove that I'm not. I can't let myself be capable of simply not being able to grasp something or draw certain conclusions on my own. It's not okay. It's just not.
Am I not working hard enough? Probably. But I feel like I'm not using my whole brain's potential, and I don't know how to fix that. Sometimes I think that my brain works too slowly. I can't think on my feet, really. It's why I'm awful at arguing and debating. Have I trained my mind to work slowly through writing? That's not okay. Have I trained it to be less critical and intellectual, somehow? What am I doing wrong? Why can't I come up with the things that my classmates come up with?
That's what I've been thinking about today. Oh my first world problems, eh? That, and the fact that my harmonica didn't come in. :( And the fact that I'm going to be totally alone in a few weeks. And the fact that I am apparently not "relationship material". Or I'm just really good at repelling things like that. And I don't want to transfer, but I know that I have to if I get accepted. And I want to travel study in Ghana. And I've started writing again and it's wonderful, but so anti-social. And I feel guilty about being anti-social now. And I'm trying to read the Book of Mormon in it's entirety this summer, but I'm already about 15 pages behind my schedule. And I've never read it all the way through, which I am a bit embarrassed about. No, really embarrassed. Don't get me started on the other Scripture.
And I really don't know if I'll ever be able to write this book. It keeps morphing and sometimes I don't think I'll ever be able to claim it as my own because I'm still, after all these years, not confident about my writing. Doesn't help that my effing Creative Writing teacher gave me a B+ last semester. I saw her yesterday and she didn't even look at me. That makes me even more angry. She knows that it was purely prejudice against my writing style that made her give me that grade. I AM PISSED.
The end. This is way too long. Sorry Emaloo. Here's your update on my brain. I really really pray that my harmonica gets here tomorrow. Suggestions on names?
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