Friday, October 26, 2012

I have lost. I got my paper back from my pre-sessional today and I made a second. I don't even know how to grasp that, I can't wrap my mind around it. I made a second. That's a B. I am a 4.0 student. I guess I was a 4.0 student. I just can't accept it. But I can't figure out what to do about it either. You can't contest papers here, and there are no rewrites. My whole grade is composed of this single paper and I made a second.
I lost. The Bible tells us to run the race like we want to win and I did. My professor said my paper had excellent prose, strong voice and showed a great deal of effort. You know why I made a second? Because part of my argument was based on a mini-series and the paper was supposed to be over cinema. I didn't know that the two were exclusive topics, but it doesn't matter now. Now I can't change it, I can't do anything about it. It's over. I ran and came in second.
But what am I supposed to do about that? I'm not done running. I want to scream that I want to keep going, I can do it. But the race is over and the judges have left. I could continue to run, but it won't count for anything.
I keep thinking to myself that I can't allow one persons opinion to change how I perceive myself. But it's not just his opinion when it comes from a university, it's the weight of an entire institution bearing down on me telling me that I am a loser.
Am I a loser just because I lost one time? I don't want to be, but it's not an insignificant loss. It's on my transcript. It will forever be emblazoned with a 3.? I don't even know how the grading scale works. I've always had a 4.0. All the way through college, all the way though high school. Until now.
I want to be like a cheater and say that it doesn't count because it's in another country. But it does, and it's still in my domain, the university. What does that leave me with? I have always been an excellent student. Even this paper had "some excellent writing" but apparently not excellent enough.
I know that anyone who reads this will probably be of the opinion that I should accept it and move on. But I don't want to accept it. I am not the accepting type. I have always operated on the belief that if life tries to give you lemons, you shouldn't make lemonade. You should just not hold out your hand, don't take it like a beggar, turn your nose up and move on. But I can't ignore or bat away these lemons, they have entered the realm of certification and paper work. I can never tell a future employer that I was a 4.0 student. And I can't try and cop out and say "4.0 in the U.S." or something equally ridiculous. I just can't.
What can I do? I just have to do something. I can't sit here idly and just let this happen, but what are my options? Other than a time machine, I can't think of a way to fix this and even if I did have a time machine and I went back and told myself to change it my past self wouldn't because she wouldn't want to cause some kind of time paradox.
How am I going to apply for graduate school? 4.0 was my selling point. It says, I am an excellent student, you want me at your school. Now it just says, I slipped up. I wasn't good enough. I failed.
I don't know what to do. I know many of my professors at home have been waiting for this day to come. Waiting for this because they have long believed that I would benefit from a "b", that it would make me less worried about my grade. I think they are wrong. If I can make a "b" then what if I make a "c"? It never seemed possible before, but now I just don't know.
A friend of mine asked me what this changed, and part of me thought, nothing. I won't lose my scholarship, I'm still the same person, I won't be kicked out of honors, sigma tau delta, or alpha chi. The other part of me thought, everything. This changes everything. What is it all for if I can't be the best? If I can't be my best? But I did do the best that I thought I could. I had to write a paper without any of my usual sources and in an unfamiliar style with strict rules that I didn't understand, and I thought I was up to the challenge.
 I tried.
 I failed.
But it just feels so wrong, there should be something I can do about it. What can I do?
I don't know.
I can't accept it, I can't ignore it, I can't figure out how to change it. I hate the word "can't". But I can't think of a single "can".
I just feel so let down. I let myself down.
Maybe I am being a drama queen, maybe tomorrow I will have a different perspective, but today I feel like I've lost. Like I've lost something very dear to me, and I don't know how to get it back.

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