Well, I Lied. Sorry.
Apparently the ability to find the silver lining in a situation is directly proportional to the amount of sleep that one has. And, seeing as i'm surviving on rather little of that at the moment, my silver-lining-finding abilities have disappeared down the gurgler.
The prizes got announced today. All the girls deserved them, they really did. And i'm sooo happy for them, specially the girls who topped about six subjects, i know how hard they worked. But then there's the part of me that wanted a prize sooo badly. It didn't even have to be a subject one, i'd have loved the service one - i do stacks, so it wasn't toooo unbelievable to think that i might have got that. But i didn't and now i'm sad.
It's not that i think i deserve all these prizes and i think i'm top shit or anything like that, because that most definately isn't the case. But you know what it's like at our school - if you're not recognised properly for whatever it is you do, then you may as well have not bothered. It's that whole "if i get under 80, i may as well have got 50" thing. Seeing as i missed out with the middle school committee/prefect/top of a subject/captain of whatever/etc stuff, a service prize was kind of my 'last chance'. Dowdy kept telling me how much i'd done for the school and i have to do that silly pagan-altar ritual for service, but apparently that's just some kind of consolation thing, because, once more, i didn't quite make the cut. Yes, i realise how negative i am at the moment.
It just seems like i'm coming out of thirteen years of school with nothing much to show for it. I know it doesn't matter in the 'real' world, but in terms of personal satisfaction? I'm running dry at the current point in time. Two more days of school and then i'll be in a world where people don't care if you were debating captain or DUX of school - but i'll always know that i didn't quite pull through.
I was talking to a wise old goat this afternoon (ahem. No, i wasn't cutting english and illegally going accross the road...) and he said that i should just aim to achieve my goals and then i won't need any recognition or praise from anyone else. But the problem with that is that i set my goals to high to reach! Can't help myself, bloody over-achieving environment that i've grown up in and super-competitive buddies. So, i need other people to say i'm doing ok, or else i'll never think that i've done something worthwhile. Again, i know that stupid but...
Ok, well that's enough melancholy venting for this afternoon. I have teacher's pressie's to wrap, so i'll no doubt return to unload later.
Three days until our big and fancy graduation ceremony! Wish we had those cool little hats to throw in the air :P
Signing Out
Annabel
1 comment:
The competitive secretly crave some manner of validation; at least that is how it looks from thee other side of 40. You will someday realize that life is not a graded exercise and that, when you look in the mirror all you see is your face.
You are, in ways that only time will reveal, unique in the capabilities that are defined by who you are; not the other way 'round. Competing with adults suggests the presence of an objective set of standards by which the success or failure to thrive, of a life is somehow scored.
Life is for living. Allow no one to write you into their drama where they have editorial control, or you will get to 40 and your epiphany will be that you have no common frame of reference with anyone because you don't know why you got up and went to work when you should have been following your nose through a fascinating world, all the while catching the sunrises and sunsets as the parenthes of a day you were just you. The rest of the people will follow you because you don't require their approval and they'll want to understand why. Love them for their innocence or you'll despise them for their blindness.
Only you know what you need; go and get it.
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