Friday, June 16, 2006

As personal as I'll ever be on this site...
(Very personal post ahead. Tread gently.)

Recent events in my life, spanning over the course of months, has prompted me to write this.

I was recently reminded of a quote said in an interview with Matt Stone in the documentary Bowling for Columbine, the gist of it being, "Schools beat it into kids' heads as early as sixth grade that if you fuck up now, then you'll be a failure forever." And for me, life has worked much in the same way.

I've applied and tested to every single school I've ever attended, including elementary school. Yet even so, the first four or so years were really great. When I occasionally received a bad grade, my parents didn't take it to heart, because it didn't really matter in the long run. But in sixth grade, things changed. It was the year in which we would "graduate" from elementary school, and in order to get into a well-respected middle school, you needed to have good attendence, good test scores, and seemingly above all, good grades.

And then suddenly, getting anything below a B was a terrible crime. The class was constantly anxious for an entire year, and perhaps because I couldn't handle the pressure, my History grade slipped and I got a D for the first time in a long time. Soon afterwards, that D prevented me from getting into my first choice middle school, and when my mother found out, she yelled at me the entire night before eventually storming out of the house. I cried for hours, terribly frightened, because it was the first time my mother had ever been so angry at me.

Luckily, I managed to get into my second choice school, and at the start of 7th grade, I thought I could finally take a breather from all the stress piled up in the previous year. But on the first day of school, the administration made it very clear to me how I wrong I was. According to them, when applying to high schools, the admissions board checks both 7th and 8th grade report cards, so I was thrust back into constant anxiety, except this time, the pressure was much worse.

I remember one instance in which my homeroom teacher informed the class that "in order to get into the top-tier schools, you need straight A's." Which I later found out to be total bullcrap, but I didn't know that at the time, so the information only made me worry more about the competition.

Things went a little better for me this time, and in 8th grade, after months of testing, I got accepted into my first choice high school. At the time, my junior and senior years seemed so far ahead, and of course, I thought I could finally relax.

During freshmen orientation, the faculty gathered the class into the auditorium, and the first order of business was a short lecture, which I've nicknamed "High School GPA and YOU." In a nutshell, they explained that if you mess up your grades during your freshmen or sophomore or junior year, it will haunt you for the rest of your high school life.

And then you won't get into a good college.

And then you can't become a fabulously rich doctor.

Before I continue, let me get one thing across--I adore my high school. A few of the teachers are asshats, but the students are such incredible people, so talented and kind, and the school allows their students such freedom. I really couldn't ask for more. Yet despite that, this sophomore year was easily the most stressful school year I've ever had. (Though admittedly, it was mostly my own fault.)

I simply cannot be enthusiastic about a process I've become so sick of. These past five years have made me weary, and I no longer take any sort of pleasure in getting good grades for the sake of getting good grades. (Though I do it anyway, because failing every course certainly won't make the situation better.)

There are already so many things I want to do and accomplish in life, and I no longer see any merit in working hard in classes that won't at all help me attain those goals.

And most of all, I've grown tired. I'm tired of the constant stress and worry, I'm tired of my mother's reminders of "my responsibility as a student," and I'm tired of my brother constantly nagging me to take more AP classes. I'm tired of a lot of things related to school, and I can only wonder what will become of me next year.
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