I'm a ruin.
While these words are actually somewhat true, I'm just making a reference to this song.
Other relevant lyrics in this song include I'm really not that smart, It doesn’t feel right and it doesn’t feel fair, and I've been doing things I shouldn't do. (Otherwise the rest of this song is irrelevant, but I digress.)
I suppose the past couple of weeks have been rather tough, socially and academically, all culminating in today, which hasn't exactly been kind to my ego. The next few paragraphs are just going to be completely rambly, because I figure these things need to be said somewhere and it'd all take too long to write in my journal.
First of all, this week was the week we chose our "blocking groups," a group of up to 8 people that would be randomly placed in the same upperclassman house for the next three years. Blocking groups also have the option of "linking" with another blocking group, meaning the two groups will be placed in the same neighborhood. To cut a long story short (a lot happens really fast when you live with a bunch of other 18-22 year olds in the same place), I realized that I would rather be living in a room with the girls in my linking group than my blocking group. Although I had been great friends with everyone in my blocking group since much earlier in the school year (and couldn't even fathom not blocking with a couple of them), I recently became friends with a group of girls this past semester who just seemed to understand me on a different level, one that I would like new roommates to have. Fortunately, they also became friends with my original blocking group, so moving from the blocking group to the linking group wasn't an enormous deal (it's happened with some other people I know). So it's likely that next year, I could be rooming with a Mexican girl, a Greek girl, a Nepali girl, or all of them. It's gonna be a room with some pretty flags ;) But anyway, it sounds trivial right now, but considering I made the switch at the last minute, it was rather stressful to have to consider.
Did I want to do what would have made my first semester self happy? Or did I want to do what would have made me happy in the long term starting now into the future, even if it's completely different from what I envisioned my blocking group to be?
SIIIGH in the end, we will still all go to the same school, case closed. Blocking is way too much of an ordeal, and is more drama than it's worth. It's just so complicated when each person has their own network of friends.I can't help that I'm so popular.
All that aside, we got our science class midterms back today. And I failed. Just to put it out there. Like, I don't think I have ever received such a low grade on anything (not counting my year in France, but even then, I would get better grades over there than I did on this). I don't mean "fail" like "I got an A- fail" like some Harvard kids think (lol I shed myself of that mentality a loooong time ago). Literally, I failed. Yeah, yeah, I know that doesn't make me a failure and everything. I'm actually surprisingly calm about it; I didn't even cry. Sure, I don't like thinking about it, or thinking about what it could mean for the rest of my career here and as a person wanting to go into medicine (speaking of which, if I end up getting like a C in this class, will that even still be a possibility for me?). My mind was in a whirl today trying to process the implications of that test grade. Well shit, I've gone far from those middle school days where I would be the only person to get full points on science tests and the extra points that came with the optional challenge questions. I like to think that I'm handling it well. There've been other things in my life here I haven't handled as well, surprisingly. I wasn't even doing that badly in the homework assignments and other things in class, and when I did the practice problems on the site, I felt like I understood them. So I really don't know how I have fucked up that badly.
Honestly though, before coming over here, I had already consigned myself to mediocrity. I'm really not that smart. I can work hard and still not get good grades and still be okay with myself, as a student here. Is it wrong for me to feel that way? What am I supposed to feel? Because wanting straight As like I did in high school would only hurt me in a place like Harvard, where everyone was like that and a lot of people still are. I'm not about that mindless competition. Right now though I'm having an existential crisis. If I fail my science class, should I just completely reconsider the career I've been wanting? And it's so awkward because I recently got accepted into this Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital surgery interest group. When I join their activities I can just pretend I didn't fail my first science exam at Harvard.
I feel like this place has at once taken away parts of my identity I thought were distinctly me, but then also given me new identities to consider. I thought I was a good pianist, yet there are other people who are a lot more dedicated in their practicing than I am (I'm sorry, it's all so overwhelming okay? At least I'm performing the 2nd movement of a certain Gershwin prelude in the Arts First festival). I thought I was good at science, and here I am getting a grade far below average, and failing even by normal school standards. What am I even doing with my life? Can I get anything right?
(Actually, my roommate told me that a wise upperclassman told her, "If Harvard doesn't break you, then you're not doing it right." OK I'M DOING SOMETHING RIGHT)
This brings me back to my motto: in the end, all I have is my story. And maybe that's all that matters–having something to say. Which I always do, lol. Being able to relate to other people as they go through this crazy thing called life is a pretty important thing to me; I know I sure as hell couldn't do it alone.
Okay, it was just one test out of who knows how many I'm going to take as a student here. If it turns out I just really suck at science, so be it, I'll find something else to do with my life, like become a UN official ora lawyer the Mindy Kaling of the travel channel. If that test was a fluke, so be it, I'll continue along the same path I thought I'd be taking for many many years. But who knows? Just because I've thought I would do a certain thing for a long time doesn't mean I'm going to actually end up doing it. The blocking situation above proved it.
Ugh. I can only hope it's all for the best, shrug, write to make sense of it all, and move on to trying to do well in other things.
BUT NO IT DOESN'T END THERE
We had a paper due today for my literature and medicine class. I wrote mine (about the balancing game inherent within the doctor-patient relationship) thinking the range was 3-5 pages and ending it at about 4.75 pages. And then shortly before class started, I checked online and saw that the limit was 3-4 pages. Oops. I freaked out and hoped for the best that my TF (teaching fellow, the equivalent of teaching assistants who lead smaller discussion groups) wouldn't mind...
(IMPORTANT: Said TF is a lovely Parisian man. On the first day of section, after he spoke with that beautiful accent and said he was from Paris, I was smitten. I went up to him after class and we had a nice conversation in French, and he told me my French had practically no accent. What's more, his name is Raphaël, and I had always wanted to know a French guy named Raphaël because it'd give me an excuse to sing this sexy song.)
Anyway, it's been pretty established that Raphaël and I only communicate in French to each other. It pleases me immensely. So I nervously went up to him to hand in my paper, and the following conversation ensued...
Me: Euh, excusez-moi... je croyais que la limite était de trois à cent pages, alors...
R: Cent pages !?
Me: Ah non non non, CINQ pages ! My bad. Bon, je croyais que la limite était de trois à cinq pages, alors j'ai dépassé les 4 pages un peu. J'espère que ça peut aller.
R: T'inquiète, c'est pas grave. On s'en fout des limites, ce qui compte, c'est que l'argument soit cohérent tu vois ? Comme moi je suis français, je m'en fous des règles comme ça. Trois ou cinq pages, peu importe !
Me: Alors ça, j'ai adopté !
R: Oui, c'est que tu vis comme les français toi ! Ça va.
Here's a translation, in case you need it. It made my day.
Me: Um, excuse me... I thought that the limit was from 3-100 pages, so... [I accidentally mixed up "cent" with "cinq," which both start with the s sound]
R: 100 pages!?
Me: Oh no no no, FIVE pages! My bad. Ok, I thought the limit was from 3-5 pages, and so I went over the limit of 4 pages a little. I hope that's fine.
R: Oh, don't worry, it's not a big deal. Page limits don't matter as much as the argument being coherent. You see, I'm French, and in France we don't really care too much about rules and limits like that.
Me: Ah well you see, I've adopted that mode of thinking!
R: Well yes, it's because you live like the French do! You're completely fine.
Yeah. Hopefully I do okay on that paper. If I don't, at least it gives me more time to spend with Raphaël asking how to revise it (though it'd be weird to talk about revising an English literature paper in French). Ahahaha.
In the flurry of confusion and deliriousness, I ended up losing one of my gloves. And this is my second pair, too, as I had lost one of my other gloves before winter break. I ended up losing my right glove. Since I had kept the other remaining pair from my old pair of gloves, I sincerely hoped that it was the right glove that was left.
AND IT WAS
SOMETHING WENT RIGHT TODAY (kinda, considering something had to go wrong for it to be so but I digress)
So now my left glove is white and considerably warmer than my right glove, which is black. But at least they both have touch screen capabilities.
It's 12:28 am and I have 7:15 am Zumba tomorrow. I should probably sleep. But I needed to write down this day, the day almost nothing went right, so that I can look back on it one day in the future and laugh. Or cry. Whichever works.
There's so much more going on before spring break starts. Whether it'll be worth posting about or not is to be determined. But let me end this entry with what really matters: my next trip away.
THE COUNTDOWN TO MY RETURN TO EUROPE IS DOWN TO THE SINGLE DIGITS!
9 DAYS TILL I BOARD THAT PLANE. SEE YAAAA.
While these words are actually somewhat true, I'm just making a reference to this song.
Other relevant lyrics in this song include I'm really not that smart, It doesn’t feel right and it doesn’t feel fair, and I've been doing things I shouldn't do. (Otherwise the rest of this song is irrelevant, but I digress.)
I suppose the past couple of weeks have been rather tough, socially and academically, all culminating in today, which hasn't exactly been kind to my ego. The next few paragraphs are just going to be completely rambly, because I figure these things need to be said somewhere and it'd all take too long to write in my journal.
First of all, this week was the week we chose our "blocking groups," a group of up to 8 people that would be randomly placed in the same upperclassman house for the next three years. Blocking groups also have the option of "linking" with another blocking group, meaning the two groups will be placed in the same neighborhood. To cut a long story short (a lot happens really fast when you live with a bunch of other 18-22 year olds in the same place), I realized that I would rather be living in a room with the girls in my linking group than my blocking group. Although I had been great friends with everyone in my blocking group since much earlier in the school year (and couldn't even fathom not blocking with a couple of them), I recently became friends with a group of girls this past semester who just seemed to understand me on a different level, one that I would like new roommates to have. Fortunately, they also became friends with my original blocking group, so moving from the blocking group to the linking group wasn't an enormous deal (it's happened with some other people I know). So it's likely that next year, I could be rooming with a Mexican girl, a Greek girl, a Nepali girl, or all of them. It's gonna be a room with some pretty flags ;) But anyway, it sounds trivial right now, but considering I made the switch at the last minute, it was rather stressful to have to consider.
Did I want to do what would have made my first semester self happy? Or did I want to do what would have made me happy in the long term starting now into the future, even if it's completely different from what I envisioned my blocking group to be?
SIIIGH in the end, we will still all go to the same school, case closed. Blocking is way too much of an ordeal, and is more drama than it's worth. It's just so complicated when each person has their own network of friends.
All that aside, we got our science class midterms back today. And I failed. Just to put it out there. Like, I don't think I have ever received such a low grade on anything (not counting my year in France, but even then, I would get better grades over there than I did on this). I don't mean "fail" like "I got an A- fail" like some Harvard kids think (lol I shed myself of that mentality a loooong time ago). Literally, I failed. Yeah, yeah, I know that doesn't make me a failure and everything. I'm actually surprisingly calm about it; I didn't even cry. Sure, I don't like thinking about it, or thinking about what it could mean for the rest of my career here and as a person wanting to go into medicine (speaking of which, if I end up getting like a C in this class, will that even still be a possibility for me?). My mind was in a whirl today trying to process the implications of that test grade. Well shit, I've gone far from those middle school days where I would be the only person to get full points on science tests and the extra points that came with the optional challenge questions. I like to think that I'm handling it well. There've been other things in my life here I haven't handled as well, surprisingly. I wasn't even doing that badly in the homework assignments and other things in class, and when I did the practice problems on the site, I felt like I understood them. So I really don't know how I have fucked up that badly.
Honestly though, before coming over here, I had already consigned myself to mediocrity. I'm really not that smart. I can work hard and still not get good grades and still be okay with myself, as a student here. Is it wrong for me to feel that way? What am I supposed to feel? Because wanting straight As like I did in high school would only hurt me in a place like Harvard, where everyone was like that and a lot of people still are. I'm not about that mindless competition. Right now though I'm having an existential crisis. If I fail my science class, should I just completely reconsider the career I've been wanting? And it's so awkward because I recently got accepted into this Harvard-Massachusetts General Hospital surgery interest group. When I join their activities I can just pretend I didn't fail my first science exam at Harvard.
I feel like this place has at once taken away parts of my identity I thought were distinctly me, but then also given me new identities to consider. I thought I was a good pianist, yet there are other people who are a lot more dedicated in their practicing than I am (I'm sorry, it's all so overwhelming okay? At least I'm performing the 2nd movement of a certain Gershwin prelude in the Arts First festival). I thought I was good at science, and here I am getting a grade far below average, and failing even by normal school standards. What am I even doing with my life? Can I get anything right?
(Actually, my roommate told me that a wise upperclassman told her, "If Harvard doesn't break you, then you're not doing it right." OK I'M DOING SOMETHING RIGHT)
This brings me back to my motto: in the end, all I have is my story. And maybe that's all that matters–having something to say. Which I always do, lol. Being able to relate to other people as they go through this crazy thing called life is a pretty important thing to me; I know I sure as hell couldn't do it alone.
Okay, it was just one test out of who knows how many I'm going to take as a student here. If it turns out I just really suck at science, so be it, I'll find something else to do with my life, like become a UN official or
Ugh. I can only hope it's all for the best, shrug, write to make sense of it all, and move on to trying to do well in other things.
BUT NO IT DOESN'T END THERE
We had a paper due today for my literature and medicine class. I wrote mine (about the balancing game inherent within the doctor-patient relationship) thinking the range was 3-5 pages and ending it at about 4.75 pages. And then shortly before class started, I checked online and saw that the limit was 3-4 pages. Oops. I freaked out and hoped for the best that my TF (teaching fellow, the equivalent of teaching assistants who lead smaller discussion groups) wouldn't mind...
(IMPORTANT: Said TF is a lovely Parisian man. On the first day of section, after he spoke with that beautiful accent and said he was from Paris, I was smitten. I went up to him after class and we had a nice conversation in French, and he told me my French had practically no accent. What's more, his name is Raphaël, and I had always wanted to know a French guy named Raphaël because it'd give me an excuse to sing this sexy song.)
Anyway, it's been pretty established that Raphaël and I only communicate in French to each other. It pleases me immensely. So I nervously went up to him to hand in my paper, and the following conversation ensued...
Me: Euh, excusez-moi... je croyais que la limite était de trois à cent pages, alors...
R: Cent pages !?
Me: Ah non non non, CINQ pages ! My bad. Bon, je croyais que la limite était de trois à cinq pages, alors j'ai dépassé les 4 pages un peu. J'espère que ça peut aller.
R: T'inquiète, c'est pas grave. On s'en fout des limites, ce qui compte, c'est que l'argument soit cohérent tu vois ? Comme moi je suis français, je m'en fous des règles comme ça. Trois ou cinq pages, peu importe !
Me: Alors ça, j'ai adopté !
R: Oui, c'est que tu vis comme les français toi ! Ça va.
Here's a translation, in case you need it. It made my day.
Me: Um, excuse me... I thought that the limit was from 3-100 pages, so... [I accidentally mixed up "cent" with "cinq," which both start with the s sound]
R: 100 pages!?
Me: Oh no no no, FIVE pages! My bad. Ok, I thought the limit was from 3-5 pages, and so I went over the limit of 4 pages a little. I hope that's fine.
R: Oh, don't worry, it's not a big deal. Page limits don't matter as much as the argument being coherent. You see, I'm French, and in France we don't really care too much about rules and limits like that.
Me: Ah well you see, I've adopted that mode of thinking!
R: Well yes, it's because you live like the French do! You're completely fine.
Yeah. Hopefully I do okay on that paper. If I don't, at least it gives me more time to spend with Raphaël asking how to revise it (though it'd be weird to talk about revising an English literature paper in French). Ahahaha.
In the flurry of confusion and deliriousness, I ended up losing one of my gloves. And this is my second pair, too, as I had lost one of my other gloves before winter break. I ended up losing my right glove. Since I had kept the other remaining pair from my old pair of gloves, I sincerely hoped that it was the right glove that was left.
AND IT WAS
SOMETHING WENT RIGHT TODAY (kinda, considering something had to go wrong for it to be so but I digress)
So now my left glove is white and considerably warmer than my right glove, which is black. But at least they both have touch screen capabilities.
It's 12:28 am and I have 7:15 am Zumba tomorrow. I should probably sleep. But I needed to write down this day, the day almost nothing went right, so that I can look back on it one day in the future and laugh. Or cry. Whichever works.
There's so much more going on before spring break starts. Whether it'll be worth posting about or not is to be determined. But let me end this entry with what really matters: my next trip away.
THE COUNTDOWN TO MY RETURN TO EUROPE IS DOWN TO THE SINGLE DIGITS!
9 DAYS TILL I BOARD THAT PLANE. SEE YAAAA.
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