Hey,
I’m in a bit of a weird mood today. Feeling quite reflective. I suppose it has something to with with going back to school and it being the last term and all.
I guess I’m just reflecting on expectations. My own expectations and how I
perceive other people’s expectations of me. The important part of that is perceptions. There’s no guarantee that my perceptions are correct (and it’s likely they aren’t). There’s a few things I want to say, but I’m actually kind of hesitant to write some of them because I think it could easily be misconstrued. None of this is either positive or negative. It just is, and that’s okay.
So - expectations. I hate them. I really, really hate them. It’s why I refuse to set goals and create study timetables (to the immense annoyance of my teachers), it’s why I constantly joke about having failed methods and almost failing English, even now I feel the urge to make a joke along the lines of ‘Except I’m actually failing’. But it’s not true. Sure I’m not getting great (or even good) scores. I got 43% for one of my SACs! Most people would consider that a fail - but who really decides what counts as failing? An arbitrarily decided mark of 50%. Half. You got the majority of it right, so you have passed. Why? Shouldn’t a pass be determined by what score you need in order to do what you want to do? In that case, assuming I get into my course, the purpose of receiving these test scores, and study scores, and ATARs, then won’t I have passed? Does it matter if I get a 20 or a 50? I suppose only I can answer that. No one else can decide what matters to me.
What makes something matter to me?
I suppose it all comes back to expectations. My own expectations of how well I will do in VCE and what I think other people expect from me.
I suppose it’s hard because being ‘smart’ has become something I pride myself on, It’s always been something I’ve prided myself on. Even if primary school I was the kid who was singled out for those math competitions and whatnot.
Now’s the bit I’m expecting mixed reactions on I’ve been reflecting on the role AN has on the expectations other people have of me, expectations they have of how I will do in VCE specifically. I don’t really know what you guys expect of me. Does anyone, really? But these perceived expectations have been bothering me a bit, and I think that’s something I should talk about. To be honest, I feel extremely unqualified to be giving anyone advice. I’ve been reminded of this today especially. My teacher found out that I got modded on here (not from me though lol) - he says he didn’t realise that I had kept involved with biology stuff, and he was reminded of something he used to do - get past students to give advice to his current bio class. He asked me if I was okay with coming in and answering their questions about studying etc. I said yes. Of course I would help other people. Why wouldn’t I? But I realised I felt a bit uncomfortable about it and I couldn’t really pinpoint why.
I’ve realised that it’s because I feel so unqualified to be giving advice - I’m just a year 12 student, who says that I know how to study any better than they do? Why would my way of studying be any better than what they’re currently doing? But that’s not really the point is it? It’s not that they’re going to do exactly what I did and it’s going to work perfectly for them. What I did didn’t work perfectly for me! I realise now some of the things that I could have done differently which would have worked better for me, but I’m sure there’s other things I don’t even know about that may have worked even better. And
that is what I’m really getting at here.
Despite my hatred of expectations, I had set expectations of myself and they weren’t at all realistic. I expected myself to be perfect - felt that I needed to do well in everything in order to be ‘qualified’ to give anyone advice. Given the type of people that AN is known to attract, this is obviously a bit of a problem. Someone else got a higher study score than me, are they more qualified to give advice than I am? I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think there is an answer to that. Who am I to judge how useful advice is?
Advice that may be useless to someone may be absolutely perfect for someone else, and who am I to not give advice just because I don’t necessarily value the advice I give? Someone else may value it.
I suppose I’ve also been considering how other people may perceive this. If someone asks how to study for bio and I reply to it, are there then people who aren’t replying because they had a different idea to me and don’t want to contradict me? I don’t know the answer to that, but I really hope not. I guess what I’m saying is that advice may be useful, it may not, but it is still
valuable. You never know who it may help.
Regardless of what numbers appear on my screen on December 14, it will be okay. I’m really just being too hard on myself. Seeing everyone else around me doing extremely well is hard. But it’s okay. My pass mark will not be an arbitrary number and neither will yours. Our pass marks are different, we are all different, and that’s okay.
I’m not where I thought I would be at the start of the year, but I’m okay with where I am now - and that’s what really matters
Take care of yourself everyone. <3
Also sorry if this appears to be a lot of negativity in this post - it’s certinly not intended in that way at all. The sky is blue and the grass is green. Birds are flying (unfortunately some of them are magpies) and I am happy. You guys are the most amazing, generous, and compassionate people I know, and I love you all so much. ❤️❤️
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Topic: PhoenixxFire's VCE journey (Read 33651 times)