I’ve failed

I knew this would happen; I haven’t blogged in a while. It was inevitable after the initial spree. Have I failed at blogging yet?

I’ve since ‘finished’ school, but not really since I appear to be studying like hell for the exams ahead. Despite them not being of incredible importance — I have accepted my unconditional offer to Glasgow University — I still want to succeed pretty much because I hate failing. At anything. But especially schoolwork. I’m not sure why.

I never failed a test on anything in school right up until sometime in second or third year, a vocabulary test in French for which I simply didn’t study, for whatever reason. It actually destroyed me, failiing that stupid little test. I mean, the teacher didn’t particularly care, but for a “What happened there, Alasdair?”-type comment, but I was devastated. It was probably for a combination of reasons: of course the fact that I hadn’t to my knowledge failed anything before, but maybe also the fact that I could have avoided that trauma if I’d studied for the test.

I suppose you can ask yourself, what’s worse?: Being completely stumped by an exam or test full of things of which you genuinely have no understanding, and feeling overwhelmed by it; or looking at the paper knowing that had you worked harder, just applied a bit more effort, you could answer most if not all that’s in front of you, but instead you’re left almost as clueless as in scenario #1?

I don’t know if I’ve ever been in scenario #1; I’ve maybe verged on it at times during Maths this year — and to be honest, I didn’t find it that awful. It was almost refreshing to feel hopeless like that.

But my laziness that can lead to scenario #2 is dreadfully frustrating; knowing that you know the answer, or could know it had you worked harder, is an all-too-familiar feeling and one that has worryingly crept into my system over the last few years.

So this is why I revise — to avoid the horrible feeling of “I could have done better”, or “I am completely lost”. Not in order to achieve the top grades, to succeed. Don’t be ridiculous.