I was a pretty good student in high school with pretty impressive grades, if I say so myself.
Especially for someone who was so self-conscious of not having had tutoring like all my peers had. (And now we know that the college you go to, or the major you major in doesn't even matter in the end. My friend Timothy from California came to visit NY several months ago and we, as post-grads, discussed this in a very tragic, har-har, matter-of-fact manner.)
While I didn't have abysmal grades in college, compared to how well I did in high school, I was appalled at myself. At the same time, I felt paralyzed as I swam in my mediocre grades. In fact, you might even say I was just floating on water from all the hard work I put in during high school. I basked in them as I sat in the last row of my classes.
Part of me thinks it's the weight of student debt upon graduating that finally made me realize that my private school education, unlike my K-12 public education, was not free. I didn't know what it really meant to rack up my loans the way I did year after year at Syracuse.
So, today is a different day. I think I'll do just as well as I did in high school in grad school because now I know what I'm paying for. The crazy thing is that in high school, you had absolutely no excuse to do horrible. What was so hard to manage? All the free time you had ogling over some lanky, underdeveloped boy? Or, all the time spent at church? (That was totally me.) Well, in your mid-twenties-- and God forbid whatever more comes your way as you get older-- you have your social life, your romantic life, your self-care, your personal struggles, your family struggles, your financials, your independence, your activist mindset, your creative side, and your non-existent boredom. And now you're saying I have to do homework? But how can you not take school seriously at this age? It's significantly harder to balance school now that I'm juggling all these other things, but it weirdly makes me more motivated to prove to myself that I can do it, and that I'm doing it for a good reason.
Well, at least I think I am. Sometimes I wonder why I make my life harder by risking my own mental health attempting to help other peoples' well-being. Some critics call it a "God Complex." I call it "Questionable Mental Stability."
I figured that Mr. Obama will grow some white hairs during his presidency. Then he'll finally be able to exhale when he leaves office next year. I kind of think grad school is the same concept (minus being a leader to several million people). You deal with all the crap you signed up for, and wait until it's over to celebrate.
