Today I got back my Animal Behavior exam. You know, the one I spent the last couple of weeks studying for, forgoing socializing with friends, dinner dates, sewing classes, and even blogging, to study for?
Yeah. I got 2 points lower than my last exam. I studied about 4 times as much and 4 times as hard. I actually did worse.
While I may have failed genetics, I made no bones about sucking at it. I suck at genetics and always will. I've taken Animal Behavior before, and while we're studying a completely different aspect of it in this class, I feel like I should have an advantage over other students. I don't. If anything, I'm at a disadvantage being a graduate student. The thing that bothers me most is that the professor has no idea who I am. His sole reflection of me is my grade. My grade which is barely passing at the moment.
Never have I actually wanted to just give up. Today as I stood on the sidewalk, freezing my ass off waiting for the stupid mbta bus to show up, I wanted to walk away and drop everything. I wanted to submit a withdrawal from Animal Behavior right then and there, call in sick to work, and get on the bus and go home and get into bed and not move. Never have I put this much effort into a single thing and done so poorly. Never have I wanted so desperately to do better in a class and have actually done worse. I feel like my studying is fruitless. I think the professor takes waaay too many points off for small things; he already told us not to come to him with that though, because he thinks his exams are "fair." So I want to run away. Run away from grad school that is. Since the first third of the semester I have been working my ass off. And what do I have to show for it? A fucking 62%, that's what. God. DAMN. I used to dream of getting A's. Then I thought "a B would be great." Now it's "please, if I can just pull of a C." A frickin "C"?! I went to fucking Smith, I should be able to do better than a "C". But I suppose time has shown that I just can't. I'm just average. I always thought I was an above average student, but maybe I was fooling myself. I'm just average.
More frustrating than anything is the fact that I am good at things: crafts, sewing, cooking, baking--things I don't give a sh*t about. I mean, it's nice to be good at them, but please don't tell me it was my destiny to sit at home at sew and cook. I feel like I have so much more potential than that. I feel like I have ideas coming out of my ears for conservation biology. Yet school is taking away all of my confidence. Each time I do badly, it knocks it down a little more. I wonder, if I manage to even stay in my program, if I'll have any left by the time I graduate. I wonder if I'll even get a job. I wonder if I'll be smart enough or good enough to get the job I want, when I can't even compete academically with my peers.
Of course, I don't really have time at the moment to worry about this. I have a huge project coming up that I have to finish by the 13th, because I'm going to be extremely busy starting April 13th, and I have to dedicate those last few weeks of the semester not to projects, but to studying for exams. Tonight I'm going to call in and back out of sewing class because I need to study for Animal Behavior starting NOW, even though the exam isn't for another 4 weeks. I need to figure out what I'm taking next semester - preferably classes that I can actually excel in. I need to meet with the TA and vent about this exam, because I need to talk to someone and not the professor, because I need someone to know how hard I'm working. I need someone to tell me what I'm doing wrong. I could've given you a list after the first exam of things I'd done wrong. This time around, I'm pretty much at a loss. Why did I only miss about 6 points on the first 4 pages of the exam and then bomb the second half? What am I doing wrong? Someone please tell me.
Anyways. I have to get back to work. I have to meet a deadline. I won't even start about how I'm sucking at my job, and at life in general, or no one will ever read this blog again because it's so effing depressing and self-deprecating.
Sigh. This sucks.
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