overachieving for a piece of paper, and other nonsensical nothings.

i am an overachiever.
there. i admitted it.
isn't admitting you have a problem the first step to recovery?
i suppose that some (alright, perhaps most) would not consider being an overachiever a problem, yet when you feel ill because all your frustrations and worries about grades make your stomach declare war on you, that could be a problem.
just maybe.
or when you are upset for days simply because you missed a question on a biology test because you put the wrong answer on the answer sheet, when you had the correct answer on the test, thus preventing you from achieving the ever-elusive perfect score of 100% on a test put forth by a teacher everyone dreads and claims is increadibly difficult.
maybe it's just the freshman mindset that made him difficult because quite frankly i had no problems.
maybe the real secret of being an overachiever is those that are bored enough to be one, are one. or at least that was the case with me in grade school. i had read any book of interest to me in our relatively small library, and for simple boredom was rereading several of them. i was the kind of kid who lived for those scholastic book order things to come around so i could go home and plead with my mom to buy me fresh material, that i would then reread in my boredom. i would then complete my assignments... out of boredom.
had my k-8 school library boasted authors such as rand, dostoevsky, or kierkgaard, perhaps i would have simply gone on some philosphy spree and faked my way into seeming so smart that everyone would leave me alone in a corner to read by myself. the teacher would have tested me out of fourth grade, and i would then go to high school where everyone would marvel at the kid who should be swinging on a swingset rather then toting books and applying to famed liberal arts colleges on full-ride scholarships.
okay, i did read a lot and they did leave me alone (however, that was why i read alot, it was better than doing nothing and hearing the insults thrown around in your general direction. you get a book, you zone out.)

i suppose that i got used to everyone expecting me to be smart.
huh. whatever that means.
'smart' is a word that i really don't like. so many meanings.

what happens if ther person expected to be smart isn't really smart and they feel as if they are just faking it all? is it possible to fool everyone into thinking you're a good student when inside you're just a dunce?

ah well. at any rate, you end up on a dead-end road, convinced that you're nothing, headed only God knows where, and are becoming unsatisfied with outr grades.

high school meant to me actually having to try. the transition from my parents pressuring me into all A's was seemless: i went from an above average student who teachers thought should get all A's instead of the peppering of the ever-horrific B's that showed up... perhaps that was my way of rebelling. "i don't want to try, i'm going for mediocrity, take that! teach you all to call me stupid again, i'll be both! isn't that what you want? for me to be pleasantly stupid and smart?"
and then i went to an absurd, perfection driven kid whose parents have long backed off of the entire grade thing because she pressure herself enough and gets upset over a B in any assignment whatsoever.

i thought that post had dierection before i wrote it...
now it's just...
pointless.
kinda like how i feel.
hmm.

all of my thoughts, thought in one sentance, seem to take forever to get out because they get lost, and then require me to dig everything else out in the process or finding them.

moving on...
well, to begin again...
i have trouble with being an overachiever. you feel good when you do well, however even when you do well you don't feel good enough...
i suppose that is why i seem to strived for perfection.. even thought i don't want to.
you do well, yet you do simply 'well' for so long that it means nothing to you. you have to keep toping your previous achievements over and over again...
you get a B, it's a bad day, you get in the truck at the end of the day and sing as loud as you can to some song thta always makes you feel better. you remember that you are alive, that it's no big deal and move on.
your college chemistry teacher say you are taking too long on a test and takes it away before you have barely scratched the surface on the last page... you cry all over the test at the ten minute warning (and it is hard to circle a letter D when that letter is barely ledgible because it's soaked) and can't even see the last page of the test because of your tears. you then feel pathetic (the worst insult i give, with variances to show the degree of patheticness.) and the bring yourself together, only to realize at one minute left that you know how to do ALL of the last page however it's a long set of redox and therefore you do not have time to finish more that writing the equasion.
you gather yourself together.
walk out.
and are stopped by your spanish teacher.
who reacts to grades the way you do, so that when she sees your face she automatically says "grades?"
yep. (that's all that question needs. i never say yep. just fits.)
and then you learn that once grades may kind of be important, however don't ruin your life over them. Once oyu go to college, the A student, the B student, the AB student and the student who's grades love rollercoasters all get the same...
peice of paper.
just a piece of paper.
it's a bad day, you get in the truck at the end of the day and sing as loud as you can to some song thta always makes you feel better. you remember that you are alive, and cry all the way home.
you get your test back.
you don't have time to cry because while your worst nighmares of getting a... not a B or A come true, a friend got a worse grade and didn't have the spanish teacher pep-talk. so then you make her laugh. give her a hug. talk about various anything's. talk about why grades are important to you/her.

it's a good day, you overcome and help someone else while you're at it.

yet why is it that such a thing is so important?
i suppose that i just want to be good at something...
anything that defines who you are.
i do something, and i don't count the number of people i'm better than, i count how many people are better than me.


after a group quiz in chemistry the other day, i was told "you don't give yourself as much credit as you deserve"
i...
think that was a compliment. the best one i've gotten.
better than "you're amazing." "you're soooo smart!" or "what do you mean you're not good enough? you're one of the smartest people i know!!" (smart... i don't like that word...)
it means to me: you're good, you just don't see it. i know that you are capable of more than you think.

i just hope that other people of the overachiever persuasion do not try to achieve perfection...
it's not possible, and even when you know that, you still strive for it.
stubborn mind.

when your mirror is broken on the ground... wait, what mirror?

i apologize (to my friend laura, who i think is the only one reading this) however due to a virus on my laptop, i cannot get on the computer too often. my mom is addicted to facebook. without 'fluffriends' 'hatchlings' or 'pet society' i wonder if she would have a social life or hobby at all. before facebook it was television. it has now migrated to television and facebook.
and, to add to the amusement: my grandma is also addicted.
and her computer is currently being worked on.
so my mom is on double the time she normally is...
spledfirous.
splediferous?
splendiforous...
hmm.
i suppose for a made up word spelling doesn' t matter.
unless it isn't made up...?

at any rate, a recent blog (recent would equal today) by stephen christian reminded me of how much the opinions of everyone shapes who we are... it made me think of back in my elementary school days (and they are not too long ago, my school was a k-8 school. so i considered jr. high to be elementary. my high school is three of the k-8 schools, each school being in it's own small town. my entire school is just over 400.)
i was always the 'model child' because i did as i was asked. the only 'real acting out' was two temper tantrums (i knew that they wouldn't get me what i wanted, i just threw a tantrum anyhow. i don't know why. i didn't even want anything.) and two accounts of cutting up clothing i didn't like. (with safety scissors. now that's impressive.) and those were all when i was seven and under.
maybe that was why everyone seemed to dislike me...
i would read through recess many times, and when i didn't i would sit and swing. swing and daydream. always by myself. completely in my dreams until that sharp recess whistle called me into the classroom. often i would dream of going away, and coming back to school completely different. i would be accepted and everyone would want to be my friend. i would then, with great indifference, casually tell them who i really was. they then would become embarrassed and ashamed at the thought of disliking someone so much only to later want to befriend them... i would then day dream about places in the school i could live. upstairs near the third grade hall (there were four rooms upstairs, three for third grade. i liked it up there...) seemed a favorite place of mine. i would live at school because the teachers were nice to me, and because the other students, were or course, ashamed. i have rambled on about this before, however i would also have a big brother in these dreams. being an only child is not something this only child dreamed of.

however, one thing i don't understand...
everything everyone ever said to me, at home, at school, everywhere... i believed it.
.
my brain was filled with the expectations of everyone. it didn't matter whether the expectations were good or bad, or even if i followed them.
i just believed them.
i still do
i know certain things are not true, however i still believe them. i don't think i'm stupid, however i don't think i'm smart. i don't think i'm worthless, i don't think that i'm a genius. what is true and what isn't? what happens when your self-image is not your own? when t is laying down on the floor, waiting to be picked up but you don't even know what shape it goes in to begin with?

well, i suppose you put it together anyway.
or just leave it there and become yourself while still wondering what to do with that mess on the floor. you see yourself broken and can't be sure what piece shows you without distortion.

how do you live with believing you are both smart and stupid?
i have gotten rid of one view...
however, getting rid of believing you are smart and still maintaing your position in the top ten in your grade...
does not work well.

a few weeks back, i didn't understand what we were doing in college algebra (my school offers dual credit classes.) and... it was due before i finished it. so, i wrote "i'm sorry i'm stupid" on problem 39 and turned it in.
did i believe i was stupid?
yes.
was i sorry?
yes i am.

i apologize profusely. my mom yells, immediately "i'm sorry!" runs through my mind. if she says it was my fault, i believe it. thankfully, i have limits on that. when my dad's eye problems (speaking of, after a year and a half my dad is BACK AT WORK!) were blamed on me, i was able to be hurt yet not believe it. thankfully, on that occasion she apologized.
i apologize for everything and anything that goes wrong. what do i mean when i say that?
well, mainly
"i'm sorry i'm stupid."

i said that once out loud.
to mom.
mistake.
what would you do, if your parent was calling something you said stupid?
well, for your sake, i hope that it isn't "i'm sorry i'm stupid"

what are you to think when your mom, a school psychologist who you think could handle such things a bit better, then tells you that it's a sin to think you're stupid because when you're "really smart" saying your stupid makes other people feel bad about themselves. then you do a double take realize that after saying something you said was stupid, she called you smart.

what?

you begin to feel oxymoronic.
i feel oxymoronic.
like you're stupid, yet you're expected to be smart.
that if you study and work hard enough, you can be both and therefore will not be letting anyone down.
i am a paradox.
that's...
not a good thing.

and then the stress from having an overachiever's mindset embedded in a mind that thinks it's stupid gets to you.
and you can't eat anything without it making you feel sick because the stress gets to you.
(went to the doctor for that. they took a blood test. i was laughing while blood was being drawn, apparently everyone handles anxiety differently. and this morning i went to get an ultrasound of my liver, stomach, gall bladder, etc because they wanted to check things out before they chalked it all up to stress. it's amazing. all of my organs look like gray blobs. and i see where the term 'kidney shaped drapery' comes from.)

why can't we just be ourselves without outside influence?
however, i suppose that the outside influence makes us who we are...
i wonder, if we all were raised in the exact same way if we would all turn out exactly the same.
hmm.

well, regardless, i wouldn't take back a moment of my life.
it makes me who i am, and without that who would i be?