Now for the Fourth Run Through
Today I had to talk to admissions consultant for law school, with that comes with knowing my LSAT. I was finally able to take a glance at it and after looking at it I found myself in a position I have been in since the first time I applied in 2006, it was as if nothing from that prep course helped me. I was really indifferent when I saw but then when I had my conversation with the consultation, it started to sink in that I was definitely between a rock and a hard place. In short I am pretty much screwed for the time being. Having this been the third time I have take the test, the next time I can take it is in December. Sadly, this scenario was always playing in the back of my head for studying for this test from March onward. What disappoints me the most is that I thought when I was done with the test in June I had hope that everything will be ok and that if anything I would have made some improvement but I didn't I stayed exactly the same. There are times when I admit I can play the histonics pretty quickly but for this, I never felt so discouraged in a long time. I am not really sad but just so frustrated. My tears are frustration, the frustration that it never seems to go right that what's between me and even a fighting chance to get in anyway is this score. What frustrates me is that my score is so overdomeering that anything that I have made for myself since being in college means nothing. I felt that I could have done everything that I humanly could but the results are not reflective of that.
After my conversation with the consultation, I honestly was beginning to give up and begin to look to my backup career in journalism and start exploring that. I felt that all my avenues for law school are being exhausted. The consultatnt was very sweet and honest, she didn't BS me and she even told not give up if this was something I really wanted to do. I have some options but they are not really desirable and left me so uncomfortable afterwards. I was so discouraged and frustrated that I couldn't even cry, I just felt really numb during my lunch break. I felt everything that was happening before and after meant nothing. Then I was just quiet for the rest of the day at work and hid it from everyone; partly for embarassment and partly for the fact I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I have become so ambivalent to this test that I feel like now in retrospect I gave up the first time I took it and since then I have humored myself to thinking something could work. It's a nightmare I have had and while my best friend is probably going off to a wonderful law school next year, I am left behind and feeling even more distant than ever from my friend , my dreams and just really general progression.
As I am trying to grieve, I am trying to think what exactly went wrong and thihking what could I do better. The thought of taking the test for the 4th time in December seems so daunting, and while I have 5 months from now to get ready, I just feel so drained and not knowing what will become of this. I am scared that I am running a huge risk where I can do the same or even worse. It's risky and I am don't know if I am up to take the risk or rise above this challenge. I am just frustrated even more so because this is yet another thing I have to work 1000x harder than those who coast by, why cannot ever get the chance to to coast through. When I applied to college, I had to work just as hard because of my test scores, where many told me that I shouldn't even bother going to college and that my stats were mediocre, I ended up graduating with honors. When I was in AP Chemistry I had to work 10x harder than everyone else in class just to stay afloat, I ended up getting a 4 on the AP exam. When I ran for Senate 2 years ago, I had to campaign harder than everyone running combined, I finished first for the position. It's just gets frustrating how much work and effort is put in and sometimes it goes unnoticed or it is "not enough." I feel like I am in a never ending circle that is on loop. I am so frustrated that I feel like there is something wrong with me. It bothers me because I consider myself to be pretty intelligent but yet I cannot deal with this test. I even ignored all the talk about the test b/c I knew it would bring me down and even then it didn't work. I am one who appreciates the process in everything but I mean come on, I feel like I should be moving forward not just standing still.
As I trying to struggle with this setback, a light bulb comes up. I find that I am retroactively getting back into the habit of being a perfectionist, the one thing that made me so miserable at times has reared it's ugly head. I thought I beat this but apparently I did not this time around. The obsession, the unrealistic amount of pressure I have put myself on this test, worrying so much that I would be a failure if I didn't progress, the embarassment that I still behind, this is what worries the perfectionist, this is stuff I am starting to worry about again. I am trying to remember what I have learned in Kairos that helped me start to see that perfectionist is not the way.
I come to realize that I have been studying in fear, consulting in fear hoping to find the quick fix, an easy out to avoid the pain, frustration and embarassment but I found all have had an adverse effect on me. I try to runaway from the disappointment I found myself in. I have been paranoid, distrusting and lost confidence in myself, which I am very unhappy about. However, there is solace from past experience.
When I was a junior year in high school, I fought very hard to place in AP Chemistry. Everyone thought I was crazy to want something so ridiculously hard. However, I felt that I deserved to be in that class having done pretty well in Chemistry which exceeded my expectations and especially when life threw me a curve ball. My teacher also fought on my behalf and I ended up in the class. Later I found it to be a nightmare, I was never able to get past the curve, I was falling behind and I started to doubt myself to where I felt I didn't deserve to be in an AP class of 17 other exceptional students.
The first semester, I was just hoping not to get a C, I got a B- b/c the curve was a pain and my teacher saw that I was working so hard for it and I cruised through making lab report which bumps your grade a bit. Then second semester came where we did most of our intense prep for the exam. I was falling behind still and was kind of banished to students my teacher was concerned about, more like the weakest links. I thought I was the only one at the time but I later found from my teacher that was the contrary. I was expected to pass the class but not the exam, if anything I was pretty much wasting my time and from past chapter test I was on my way to scoring a 2 which really I didn't care for. I still struggled and I saw myself at the bottom of my class, something I never really encountered. My confidence was shot and was so discouraged to keep going and worried of what was to come especially since I would be going to college the following year. Then mid semester came, one day I was going to my normal seat in class and found a yellow paper faced down. I didn't know what it was but I saw through it faced down and started to freak out b/c I had a sneaking suspicion as to what it was. It ended up being a midterm deficiency, and that was the first one I had since the second grade, true story. I was getting a D+ in the class and right then and there I was pretty much failing the class (c- and above is passing fyi for that class) I was trying to reason with my teacher and told me there was nothing to discuss and only in our understood terms to "Step it up" I thought, how the hell was I going to do that.
So I studied smarter, and more than ever and still found disappointment. I asked my friends in the class to be my coaches, tutors, anything for me to get the material. I think at this rate I just wanted a passing grade. Then we started taking AP practice exams, I totally didn't care for b/c in the end I didn't care about college credit just a good grade on my report card. I remember struggling with the first practice exam, and I thought whatever, I don't care. A day later we got them back and my teacher comes up to me and he tells me, "Faiza, you should really look at this exam" I was like why, b/c I did bad or something, and he was like, "No, you got a 4 on this good job!" I was like what?!?! and then I happily grined. My confidence went up and I started to get the material and trying so hard to get out of my bottom of the barrel rank in the class. We took another exam sometime later and my teacher was pleasantly surprised that I got a 4 again on the practice exam. This happened another 2 times b/c we took 2 more practice exams. We were both pretty surprised by this. I remember telling my teacher after school one day, I think something clicked for me to get it, and I think it was that midterm deficiency. Then came the AP exam, I remember I was like whatever about it too but I remember being happy during the free response, I was like hey I can do this! Then afterwards, I wasn't obsessed in discussing it with everyone b/c it was like I don't care about chemistry, I took and I was done. When July came, I got a phone call from my teacher early morning when I was asleep. Then I got another phone call and this time I was awake. I was asked if I knew my AP scores at all (I was also taking AP French at the time) we had a running joke that I was going to do so bad on AP French b/c it sucked. I said no and he started to chuckle and said, "Well do you think you got?" I was like, "oh I don't know a 3?" He replied back, "You got a 4 on the exam" I was like are you serious? I was totally floored and I remember saying to my teacher, looks like all that hard work finally paid off, and he's like it definitely did and I proud that you did so well and you should be as well." I was speechless and I remember that was the happiest since being enrolling in that class.
I feel right now I am experience the hell I had in AP Chemistry all over again. I am trying to draw my experience and find that there are many parallels to the LSAT studying. I feel that I had no chance at doing well at AP Chemistry let alone get a 4 on the exam. I exceeded my own expectations but gave my confidence a chance. I find myself in the same position but this time no teacher to guide me through it. I am on my own and I think that's where I am losing half the battle right now, I cannot deal without support. As I remembered this story earlier today, I found that it may seems hopeless right now but if anything I can get back up and find a way to get through it. I refuse believe that being a lawyer is not in my path or that I should take time off and discover something else, no way, that's why I did the year off in the first place although I should have done that initially, alleviate much the stress then. Then I found I still wanted to do the same thing ugh. I found it unsettling how close I was to gviing it all up today because of my discouragement, but I found that I will never receive solace from that. What I have always is to make due with what I have. Given the situation that I am in, what can I do. I found the alternatives were not desirable, and that taking the test one more time was the remedy. While I am daunted by the five month attachment I will have on this test yet again, I feel like this time I am going to be smarter about it. I already created a study schedule from now to December 3rd (the test is on December 6th) which starts on next Wednesday by reviewing the June test and see what I did wrong. I already started to look to see.
I have noticed anything that I have done excellently in my life is the confidence that I know what I am doing. I don't think I can safely say for the LSAT that I have felt this way, even if I felt I did my best. I was always apprehensive, I mean come on it took me 2 weeks to look at my score! Right now with the Loyolan site, I am redesigning it, that's stressful especially since I am doing it by myself. However, I am not stressed and definitely enjoying it because I know it, I know what I need to do. I really need to change my attitude towards the LSAT, period. I gave myself until Saturday to decide if I want to take the LSAT in December. It looks like a yes but I want to sleep and ponder on it and see if this is the best for me. From feeling the lowest today, I am starting to get pumped because I am ready to take this on and I have exposure to it, I just want to master it!
As I begin to start this journey again, there is one thing I want to make absolutely certain, it's that it's for me now, not for anyone else. For too long, I have relied on others or work in the gaze of them that I forgot about myself. Now I have to step it up for myself because ultimately this is what I want to do!
After my conversation with the consultation, I honestly was beginning to give up and begin to look to my backup career in journalism and start exploring that. I felt that all my avenues for law school are being exhausted. The consultatnt was very sweet and honest, she didn't BS me and she even told not give up if this was something I really wanted to do. I have some options but they are not really desirable and left me so uncomfortable afterwards. I was so discouraged and frustrated that I couldn't even cry, I just felt really numb during my lunch break. I felt everything that was happening before and after meant nothing. Then I was just quiet for the rest of the day at work and hid it from everyone; partly for embarassment and partly for the fact I didn't want to talk about it anymore. I have become so ambivalent to this test that I feel like now in retrospect I gave up the first time I took it and since then I have humored myself to thinking something could work. It's a nightmare I have had and while my best friend is probably going off to a wonderful law school next year, I am left behind and feeling even more distant than ever from my friend , my dreams and just really general progression.
As I am trying to grieve, I am trying to think what exactly went wrong and thihking what could I do better. The thought of taking the test for the 4th time in December seems so daunting, and while I have 5 months from now to get ready, I just feel so drained and not knowing what will become of this. I am scared that I am running a huge risk where I can do the same or even worse. It's risky and I am don't know if I am up to take the risk or rise above this challenge. I am just frustrated even more so because this is yet another thing I have to work 1000x harder than those who coast by, why cannot ever get the chance to to coast through. When I applied to college, I had to work just as hard because of my test scores, where many told me that I shouldn't even bother going to college and that my stats were mediocre, I ended up graduating with honors. When I was in AP Chemistry I had to work 10x harder than everyone else in class just to stay afloat, I ended up getting a 4 on the AP exam. When I ran for Senate 2 years ago, I had to campaign harder than everyone running combined, I finished first for the position. It's just gets frustrating how much work and effort is put in and sometimes it goes unnoticed or it is "not enough." I feel like I am in a never ending circle that is on loop. I am so frustrated that I feel like there is something wrong with me. It bothers me because I consider myself to be pretty intelligent but yet I cannot deal with this test. I even ignored all the talk about the test b/c I knew it would bring me down and even then it didn't work. I am one who appreciates the process in everything but I mean come on, I feel like I should be moving forward not just standing still.
As I trying to struggle with this setback, a light bulb comes up. I find that I am retroactively getting back into the habit of being a perfectionist, the one thing that made me so miserable at times has reared it's ugly head. I thought I beat this but apparently I did not this time around. The obsession, the unrealistic amount of pressure I have put myself on this test, worrying so much that I would be a failure if I didn't progress, the embarassment that I still behind, this is what worries the perfectionist, this is stuff I am starting to worry about again. I am trying to remember what I have learned in Kairos that helped me start to see that perfectionist is not the way.
I come to realize that I have been studying in fear, consulting in fear hoping to find the quick fix, an easy out to avoid the pain, frustration and embarassment but I found all have had an adverse effect on me. I try to runaway from the disappointment I found myself in. I have been paranoid, distrusting and lost confidence in myself, which I am very unhappy about. However, there is solace from past experience.
When I was a junior year in high school, I fought very hard to place in AP Chemistry. Everyone thought I was crazy to want something so ridiculously hard. However, I felt that I deserved to be in that class having done pretty well in Chemistry which exceeded my expectations and especially when life threw me a curve ball. My teacher also fought on my behalf and I ended up in the class. Later I found it to be a nightmare, I was never able to get past the curve, I was falling behind and I started to doubt myself to where I felt I didn't deserve to be in an AP class of 17 other exceptional students.
The first semester, I was just hoping not to get a C, I got a B- b/c the curve was a pain and my teacher saw that I was working so hard for it and I cruised through making lab report which bumps your grade a bit. Then second semester came where we did most of our intense prep for the exam. I was falling behind still and was kind of banished to students my teacher was concerned about, more like the weakest links. I thought I was the only one at the time but I later found from my teacher that was the contrary. I was expected to pass the class but not the exam, if anything I was pretty much wasting my time and from past chapter test I was on my way to scoring a 2 which really I didn't care for. I still struggled and I saw myself at the bottom of my class, something I never really encountered. My confidence was shot and was so discouraged to keep going and worried of what was to come especially since I would be going to college the following year. Then mid semester came, one day I was going to my normal seat in class and found a yellow paper faced down. I didn't know what it was but I saw through it faced down and started to freak out b/c I had a sneaking suspicion as to what it was. It ended up being a midterm deficiency, and that was the first one I had since the second grade, true story. I was getting a D+ in the class and right then and there I was pretty much failing the class (c- and above is passing fyi for that class) I was trying to reason with my teacher and told me there was nothing to discuss and only in our understood terms to "Step it up" I thought, how the hell was I going to do that.
So I studied smarter, and more than ever and still found disappointment. I asked my friends in the class to be my coaches, tutors, anything for me to get the material. I think at this rate I just wanted a passing grade. Then we started taking AP practice exams, I totally didn't care for b/c in the end I didn't care about college credit just a good grade on my report card. I remember struggling with the first practice exam, and I thought whatever, I don't care. A day later we got them back and my teacher comes up to me and he tells me, "Faiza, you should really look at this exam" I was like why, b/c I did bad or something, and he was like, "No, you got a 4 on this good job!" I was like what?!?! and then I happily grined. My confidence went up and I started to get the material and trying so hard to get out of my bottom of the barrel rank in the class. We took another exam sometime later and my teacher was pleasantly surprised that I got a 4 again on the practice exam. This happened another 2 times b/c we took 2 more practice exams. We were both pretty surprised by this. I remember telling my teacher after school one day, I think something clicked for me to get it, and I think it was that midterm deficiency. Then came the AP exam, I remember I was like whatever about it too but I remember being happy during the free response, I was like hey I can do this! Then afterwards, I wasn't obsessed in discussing it with everyone b/c it was like I don't care about chemistry, I took and I was done. When July came, I got a phone call from my teacher early morning when I was asleep. Then I got another phone call and this time I was awake. I was asked if I knew my AP scores at all (I was also taking AP French at the time) we had a running joke that I was going to do so bad on AP French b/c it sucked. I said no and he started to chuckle and said, "Well do you think you got?" I was like, "oh I don't know a 3?" He replied back, "You got a 4 on the exam" I was like are you serious? I was totally floored and I remember saying to my teacher, looks like all that hard work finally paid off, and he's like it definitely did and I proud that you did so well and you should be as well." I was speechless and I remember that was the happiest since being enrolling in that class.
I feel right now I am experience the hell I had in AP Chemistry all over again. I am trying to draw my experience and find that there are many parallels to the LSAT studying. I feel that I had no chance at doing well at AP Chemistry let alone get a 4 on the exam. I exceeded my own expectations but gave my confidence a chance. I find myself in the same position but this time no teacher to guide me through it. I am on my own and I think that's where I am losing half the battle right now, I cannot deal without support. As I remembered this story earlier today, I found that it may seems hopeless right now but if anything I can get back up and find a way to get through it. I refuse believe that being a lawyer is not in my path or that I should take time off and discover something else, no way, that's why I did the year off in the first place although I should have done that initially, alleviate much the stress then. Then I found I still wanted to do the same thing ugh. I found it unsettling how close I was to gviing it all up today because of my discouragement, but I found that I will never receive solace from that. What I have always is to make due with what I have. Given the situation that I am in, what can I do. I found the alternatives were not desirable, and that taking the test one more time was the remedy. While I am daunted by the five month attachment I will have on this test yet again, I feel like this time I am going to be smarter about it. I already created a study schedule from now to December 3rd (the test is on December 6th) which starts on next Wednesday by reviewing the June test and see what I did wrong. I already started to look to see.
I have noticed anything that I have done excellently in my life is the confidence that I know what I am doing. I don't think I can safely say for the LSAT that I have felt this way, even if I felt I did my best. I was always apprehensive, I mean come on it took me 2 weeks to look at my score! Right now with the Loyolan site, I am redesigning it, that's stressful especially since I am doing it by myself. However, I am not stressed and definitely enjoying it because I know it, I know what I need to do. I really need to change my attitude towards the LSAT, period. I gave myself until Saturday to decide if I want to take the LSAT in December. It looks like a yes but I want to sleep and ponder on it and see if this is the best for me. From feeling the lowest today, I am starting to get pumped because I am ready to take this on and I have exposure to it, I just want to master it!
As I begin to start this journey again, there is one thing I want to make absolutely certain, it's that it's for me now, not for anyone else. For too long, I have relied on others or work in the gaze of them that I forgot about myself. Now I have to step it up for myself because ultimately this is what I want to do!