Okay, I was thinking of apologizing for the tone and content of the following post, but then I thought, hey, this is my blog, so I shouldn't get all defensive about expressing my feelings. I mean, this is kind of like my...pensieve--you know, from Harry Potter, at least, that's what I think the thing's called--a place for me to drain my thoughts, etc. Okay, so it's not exactly the same thing, because I'm not writing this to help me reflect, I write reflections, but close enough. Woah, that was a garble. The point is, even though I feel kind of guilty for what will surely be a bragging tone in this post, I'm not going to apologize for it because I know that I'm not writing to boast, but to express my happiness, and if people misinterpret, well, that's unfortunate, but I'm not going to try to dampen my feelings or anything for the sake of other's opinions, because that would defeat the purpose of blogging, y'know?
Anyway, even though our marks started going up yesterday, mine weren't all up until today. ^_^ What can I say, except that I'm really happy right now? I honestly would've been satisfied with a B+ or A- average, so finding out that I've actually got a decent A average, and a 4.0 GPA (grade point average, the top score is 4.0!) is truly awesome. Actually, my overall mark wasn't as important as my one mark: History of East Asian Civilizations. That was the one course that I actually worked hard in, so it was most gratifying to discover that I got 90% in the class. ^_^
I'm still somewhat in shock right now, truth be told. Throughout the year I didn't do a lot of work, even less than in highschool, if you can believe it. Realistically I was expecting a three point something GPA. Now next year looks really promising. I just know that if I improve my work ethic, I'll be able to maintain a solid, if not 4.0, GPA. See, not everyone is cut out for university, specifically the style of grading, and I was kind of worried that this would be the case with me.
Even though I was really enjoying learning, I wasn't totally sure that my marks would be any good. I'd say that was probably why I set my standards so much lower than in highschool. It would have been devastating if I had given my all and still got "bad" grades, but at least if I slacked and didn't really try, I could justify my poor marks, if you know what I mean. This is actually something I figured out during exams. Even though I knew that I had a lot of material to cover, and studying to do, I still put things off and did a very half-baked job of studying. As my exams actually approached though, my indifference started to fade and I began to panic. I kept asking myself why I had been so stupid as to procrastinate when I knew how important the exams were. Then I realized that it was simply fear--as I mentioned before, fear of finding myself incapable. It was so much safer to hold back and to use lack of effort, rather than lack of skill, as a reason for any failures or disappointments. There's a saying that goes something like, "unless you aim for the moon, you'll never reach the stars," and I think that I now realize how true that is. I mean, I'll never know if I would have been able to achieve a nineties average this year, and I'll always remember that in some corner of my mind, as much as I try to tell myself that it was smarter to use the law of diminished returns to justify my lack of trying.
So now that I've been reassured that I am capable of university level academic performance, hopefully I'll be able to give my work a one hundred percent effort without fear.
