Dec 10, 2006 02:46
When I was younger, I believed I could do anything. As a child, I thought I was going to be the first black woman president. I was convinced of this. In 4th grade, I was the best speller in my class. I spelled scrumdiddlyumptious almost correctly (I only missed one d). In 6th grade, I did really well in the geography bee.
Somewhere around 9th grade, this all fell apart. I came to SPA and realized that there were people out there who are a helluva lot smarter than me and better than me in everything. And then came volleyball, which further made me realize how bad I was at things. The one thing I believed was half-way decent at (and got better at thru high school) was fencing. And even then I wasn't all that sure. I remember senior year at the Midwest Tournament (which is the largest fencing tournament we do. It, as the name suggests, brings fencers from all around the midwest), I finshed my 5 bouts undefeated. I actually didn't give up more than 3 points in a bout (it's a first to 5 point bout). I went to my coach Bob and was completely surprised that I had done that. He wasn't.
As my high school career progressed, I lost more and more confidence in myself. I became more and more okay with mediocraty because I believed it was all I could do. Then the college process came. For some reason, I felt confident about the schools I applied to. I mean, I used Macalester and the University of Madison as safety schools. I got into Carleton and convinced my parents that it was worth the 40 thousand dollars a year to pay for it.
Then I came to college. A combination of not having my parents there to push me to do work and the whole new experience thing and a deep lack of self confidence has put me in the postion where I am. Worse than in high school, I accepted mediocrity because I believed that I couldn't/ didn't want to do any better. I'd write a paper, know I could probably write it better, but had put myself into a situation where I didn't have the time to write it better. (that sentence does not make grammatical sense.) And then when I would get the paper back, I'd be like, well given the circumstances, I didn't do that bad. It was the same with exams. I'd never try my best because I a) lacked the motivation to do so, and b) didn't think it was worth it because I didn't think it would be much better than what I did. I'm trying to apply for internships but in some ways I'm like what's the point. No one's going to take me anyway, given my grades, lack of experience... This mindset has made it really hard to for me to garner up motivation to fill out applications.
Now I"m about the start the 2nd trimester of my Junior year and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. For a while I thought I would go to law school. But then I realized that my grades aren't good enough and I'm too passive to be a lawyer ( I hate confrontation more than anything). So now I'm thinking grad school. But in what? I've realized I really like learning about conflicts. War interests me. Power interests me. So maybe I'll go to grad school for international relations. I also would have liked to study international law because it's such a new aspect of law and deals with a lot of really cool things. But first I need to figure out a way to motivate myself to do work. I need to gain self-confidence. The one place that I feel really confident at is JCPenneys. I've worked there for 4 years now so I know I know what I'm doing there. Occasionally I'll forget to ring up a gift receipt but I know that I could easily train someone in. But besides there, I've realized I'm not really confident in anything I do. Next,bring the GPA up significantly. I dont know how that is going to be done. but it needs to be done. Finally, I need to apply to things.
If I had to summaraize this entry in a short paragraph it would be this:
I started out my life with the notion that I could do anything I put my mind into. Somewhere along high school, that disappeared. In college, it got lost completely. Somehow, I need to find it.