the other day i was washing my dishes downstairs when i overheard <> a conversation of the holy family (i.e. my landlord, landlady and their two children)
dad: how’s your exams?
bunso: kei lang
mom: ilan nakuha mo?
bunso: meron akong line of 8.
mom: (panic registering on her voice) gano kababa?
bunso: 85 saka 89
mom: (in hysterics) 85?! kung kelan 4th quarter na...
i smiled as i remember a bittersweet memory. when i was young there were rules in the house for studying. rule no. 1: on weekdays, we must lock ourselves in our room to study from afternoon til night
rule no. 2: the only time for watching TV on weekdays is during dinner (since we have a TV in front of our dinner table)
rule no. 3: the weekend before the exams you also can’t watch TV
there were a lot more but this is all i could remember. so during those times, i’d waste most of my waking hours staring at the wall in front of my desk. yes, thinking about it now i could’ve done more productive things than that but i cannot not submit to authority that is my mom. she was then a dictator. a perfectionist. she goes hysterical when she sees my grades going downhill. then i came to the point when i had too much. i had to rebel. and rebel i did. i totally ditched my acads and had a boyfriend –> and this is a whole different story.
anyhow, at such a young age i already felt the pressure from my parents to become nothing but an achiever. it was expected. anything less would mean a disgrace to the whole clan. i then envied my classmates, the non-achievers. they went by their grade school and high school lives in a breeze. they can watch TV any time they want, they can go out any time they like and they only study if they want to or if it’s absolutely necessary (i.e. exam time). i wished back then i was just an ordinary student. i looked forward to college seeing that it was my only way to redemption. because i thought that our (my family and i) only goal in life is to get in UP. i thought they wouldn’t expect me to excel in school since they know for a fact that there are a lot of more brilliant minds who are in the same class as mine. but no. hell no. until college, thanks to my dear little sister who told my mom my grades prove to have all the makings of a cum laude (this was back in first year so my grades were still that high), my mom kept pushing me to be an achiever. though now she’d say it in a nice tone. gone were the days of her dictatorship. she had changed into a sweet mom after going through her menopausal stage.
in one of my classes this sem, my professor talked to us about mediocrity. how he was saddened by the growing number of mediocre students in UP who had the potential of being great it’s just that they’re too damn lazy to act upon themselves. sir are you referring to us? haha. unfortunately, we’ve developed an aversion to the thought of meeting deadlines, studying long before an exam or being prepared for a week before a scheduled report or what. we now worship cramming, all-nighters and two to three days sunog-kilay sessions. thus, we never really are able to bring out our best since we always lack time and panic is always setting in before work even begins.
therefore, the question is after all do i really want to be just an average student?
