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Hello Everyone,
*Warning: this is a long and random jumble of thoughts. Don't read if you're going to complain about the length or inaccuracy of it all. These are just thoughts that run through my mind at midnight.
My name is Jasmine - yes, I know this degrades the purpose of an anonymous post, but my title explains this contradiction - and I am currently a junior. Long story short, I was born in England where I had sugar-coated memories of happiness. When I was 8, I moved to an "Americanized" area. As of now, I have been part of this microcosm for many years, with beautiful friendships and remarkable experiences. It would be accurate to say that I am happy that I moved away from England and settled in a whole other world. However, in this enclosed community lies the highest of social pressure, prestigious expectations, and extreme competitiveness. Let me say this: to keep things together in this rigorous environment is virtually harder than mastering quantum physics in one go. Here, people have their eyes on schools such as Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and other elite names. I don't see anything wrong with aiming for the highest of the highest, however what I did not realize in the past was that this environment wasn't much of a motivational factor, but instead a rolling snowball which I had been helplessly dragged into. At times, my school made me feel like I wasn't even part of this snowball, but instead a lone flake of snow being tossed and turned in a blizzard. With the average GPA here being a striking 3.8-3.9, I can't help but be pushed to try harder all the time.
Sophomore year was probably the greatest transition of my life. I had fulfilled my dream of losing weight, having the pleasure of wearing whatever I wanted, and overall feeling great about myself. My confidence and self-esteem skyrocketed for these few months and thus, I got good grades and lead a good lifestyle. Then came summer and I practically binged on whatever I saw, hence the inevitable pounds started piling on. At first, I didn't mind because I knew I was going to shed it off anyway, however months went on and I only gained more and more weight. I believe that this was the trigger to this confusing haze that I am in right now. After my weight gain, my confidence levels dropped drastically and my mentality began to shift to a foreign zone, which I have paid visit to multiple times during the dark of night. This zone was a dangerously dark zone of questioning the purpose of everything, the system that we all fall victim to, and ceasing all motivation of accomplishment. First, I gave up on restricting myself from what I wanted to eat, then it was academics. My GPA dropped a good 0.8 and albeit knowing the dire consequences of this, I didn't care. I stopped doing many of my previous activities that I used to enjoy, such as taking walks and hanging out with friends. Because of this whole new state I was in, I began to think that I spent time with friends to make them happy and not a mutual experience; I also started to think I didn't actually like walks, but instead only engaged in them to exercise. Then I started to push my friends away, despite the obvious pain that it caused them. I would often have to listen to their heartfelt confrontations of asking me why I never spend much time with them or if I even view them as friends anymore. Upon hearing this, my heart would ache and a rush of immense guilt and nostalgia would hit me, however I didn't change. Time passed and I was still hearing the same complaints and I would apologize again like a never ending cycle, yet deep down I wasn't sure if I could bring myself to make time for them into my lives again. I love my friends, yet the fact that I always end up hurting them scares me and makes me unintentionally push them away even further. Although I face these confusing struggles, it appears on the surface that my social life hasn't changed much to others, or maybe even broadened. I believe this is because I'm already so afraid of hurting those that I am closest to, hence I leave my comfort zone and interact with new people, where less damage can be done. (This is not me saying that I have plans to hurt anyone I meet, but instead a very weird way to stop further harm to my closest friends while keeping things at a fair distance with my new friends so I do not wound them deeply either.)
Aside from my social life, I am beginning to question the educational system that students are subjected to. Being an A+ student brings respect and positive praise from all those around you, while being a C student brings judgement and a sense of inferiority among peers. Though these grades place us in a ranking of academic performance, it also corrupts the minds of students, as they begin to associate grades with individuality. I, myself, have experienced the change of attitude of my fellow classmates when my grades dropped. I won't get into detail, however the way that this system or grading affects social standing in the classroom is absurdly corrupt. I have much more to say on my mind, however I am wasting my time "not giving a f***" about my AP biology mock exam tomorrow. Sorry for the colloquial manner in which this was written (currently 12:25 AM and this was a complete freewrite)
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