So for me, exams have just finished and I recently got my results back. To say the least, I was utterly disappointed/shocked/angry/saddened/in despair over one mark in particular. And when I say I did poorly, I really mean I did poorly- my final mark brought my average down ten (plus) percent. Yup, ten (plus) percent.
I guess for me, the initial shock over my grade started with me refusing to believe that I could have gotten such a low mark. I went through the whole “the teacher must have miscalculated or switched my mark with someone else, because there is no way in eternity that that grade belongs to me. Nope, no way.” But I guess no matter how hard I tried to convince myself that there must have been some sort of confusion, subconsciously I knew that the mark really did *gulp* belong to me .
Then I went though the whole “I’m never going to forgive myself for this. Never. Ever. Ever.” (Though I found it hard to stay mad at myself, because the whole cold shoulder- evil glare- grudge holding- thing just didn’t work out. And I also couldn’t repeat the above without breaking into a spontaneous and not-so-welcome chorus of Taylor Swift).
Of course, then came the stage when I started regretting every single answer I put down. (“What if I had put ‘A’ instead of ‘C’? You knew that the ‘when in doubt, choose ‘C ‘rule’ was rigged, so why’d you do it? Why?“) I realize that all that despair and regret was really pointless, because I was just making myself feel worse about what I did.
Eventually, I had to just accept the fact that I did mess up badly and that I did totally screw up my average in one go. Though this mark really hit me hard, I realize now that it is just one mark out of the hundreds yet to come. At first, I was really, really, really sad over how badly I messed up on such a huge test, but I guess this is really a lesson to be learned. After all, there’s no use in pondering over the past when there’s more opportunity ahead to improve. No matter how hard I wanted to curl up in a fetal position and hide under my bed for the rest of forever, I have to realize that I need to work harder next semester and learn from my mistakes (as cliche as that sounds). One mark won’t make or break me in the long run- and hey, even if it does, life goes on.
Image source: David. 2012. Photograph. Tango Card, n.p. <http://blog.tangocard.com/2012/11/26/how-five-you-must-be-kidding-me-experiences-became-tango-card/>
