Real-Time Rant

I wrote this today, sometime after physics. I can’t remember exactly when because the whole day has just been a bad-to-worse-to-worst muddle of sadness and hopelessness. I almost decided not to post it. But then I decided, damnit, life is too short anyway. Let me be disagreeable in peace.

***

I am not giving myself time to think it over, otherwise I’ll never write about this. Consider it real-time, filled with all the irrational fire of emotion that comes with failing an exam.

I am in a bad state. I am in a very bad state. Within seconds of receiving my physics paper, I was on the floor. How did I get there? I don’t know. Within seconds of getting Physics Paper 2, the tears were streaming down my face like a freaking tap. Why? Because I feel like life’s greatest failure. Not felt. Feel. I’m writing in real-time, remember? Oh, logical? I know it’s not logical. Eh, she got into SOS, eh, she didn’t get a U. Eh, she has a blog. Eh, she can write.

Here’s the thing, okay? Here’s the thing. When one begins to feel like life’s greatest failure, one tends not to care about the things that should make them not feel like life’s greatest failure. Does that make sense? No? I don’t care.

It’s very hard to care about what makes sense and what doesn’t when you see your whole future flashing before your eyes in an instant, and something as silly as an exam grade is making you question your own intelligence. Why does it have the power? Why does it have the power to do that? Why do a bunch of fractional numbers on a paper have the power to determine our futures, to measure our mental capacities? Human beings, you silly creatures, after all this time, you mean to tell me this was the best you could come up with, to evaluate each other? Measly things called grades. What stupidity.

Yes, I am insulting humans like I am not inclusive. Shush. I am a demigod. Daughter of Athena. I no dey mong.

What is painful…what is painful is the idea of waste. I do not like waste. Dear God, I can barely stand to see food being thrown away. But to waste the intangible – money, time, energy…that is never fine by me. Never fine. Especially when I do it to myself, and for whatever’s worse, see no results! That is the worst insult of all. Me? I like learning. I hate studying. To consider that I got up to freaking study, to read, to practice questions, to watch videos, to do research, to worry how many classmates (who had to probably force themselves not to give up on me) to teach me until I understood – then to go in and write a paper and bloody fail!

It’s an insult to all that I and my mother Athena believe in. Of course I couldn’t really be mad if I’d done nothing towards preparation and then gone in to face the fire. That one dier, I’m an idiot. But to know – to know flat-out that I studies till I slept, that I worried and I worked, all to fail. How on earth would you ever expect me to come to any conclusion other than that I’m just a stupid girl whose brain does not know how to even comprehend natural phenomena? Isn’t that what physics is? Natural phenomena.

It isn’t one subject. It’s all of them. (Plus TOK.) I am hopeless, and I am bloody tired of everything. I am tired of school, of examinations, of grades, of the world’s bloody “systems” of doing things. I’m tired of being in an academic situation that is wrong for me, and I’m bloody tired of failing! I’m tired of the world’s standards and un-altering “systems” which never fail to try to dictate how an individual must proceed through their lives in the middle class.

Yes, the middle class are the most trapped. Too rich not to have an excuse to pursue “privileges” of the system, too poor to be powerful enough to run around them. You middle class persons, you are not worth anything unless you can go to nursery, go to primary school, go to high school, freaking excel at academics while being engaged in a billion activities so you can put it on your college application; you MUST go to a great college and get a first degree, and preferably also a masters, PhD, a second, third, fourth and fifth degree, top your class, find a job and make money for your spouse and kids, then die, regardless of whether you were happy or not. OMG. It makes me want to die!

I’m acting out. Yes, I’m acting out, but at least I’m doing it with the furious movement of my pen on my notebook, and not screaming curse-words in the middle of my school campus, or smoking weed. Be grateful that I’m acting like a teenager with a harmless outlet. Be. Freaking. Grateful.

It bothers me that those who wish to will have a whole plethora of things on which to blame my results. Oh, you hang out with friends too much; oh, you read too much; oh, you write too much; oh, you tweet too much; oh, it’s because you speak too much poetry; oh it’s because your best friend is male, and you both have hormones; oh, it’s because you wear too many wrist-bands; oh, it’s because your hair is too long. Who knows what else they can come up with?

The unfortunate part of it all is that my version of a good life and excellence…is not academic. In my opinion, this is not unfortunate for me; it’s unfortunate for everyone who is archaic enough to believe that I should believe that my academic performance is my highest priority, especially at my age.

What a world we live in! For the sake of humanity and mortals, I will end my senseless rant here, and go and cry somewhere else.

-A.