A collection of thoughts and emotions that start to surface and accumulate in the hours proceeding sunset and prevent us from the restless slumber that we so long and wish for.
Just talking about this topic makes me tear up. I've always been a somewhat above average child, when I was in primary school anyways. I'd like to say I peaked around the age of nine, perhaps, and since then it's been somewhat of a plateau, followed by a slight decline as we hit the A-level years.
It wasn't a slight decline as much as a drop. My career was predetermined at the ripe young age of twelve/thirteen when I was rewiring an electrical plug socket (as nerdy as that sounds), in a physics lesson that my favourite teacher of all time was teaching.
I passed my GCSEs with what was an average score for my school (and above average for any other school), with 2A*s, 7As and 2Bs. I was very proud of myself, even when comparing with my friends and finding out they basically had straight A*s. I worked to the best of my ability and I received the grades that reflected my studies. The education system is so flawed anyways, I'll probably make another post on that sometime soon.
I hit A-levels and my mental health declined. Struggling to keep up in class, I would come home and would be unable to grasp concepts. It was even worse in school as I had to switch maths classes due to a teacher that, frankly put, was an asshole. This change of classes meant that I had to change my whole timetable, being put in a class with a boy that caused me mental disturbance for the better part of the year.
Looking back on it, I forgive him and I hope he's successful in whatever he wants to do, I just hope he's grown out of the toxic little attitude he had with me.
Until I hit the moment, I never considered another career path. The moment came in my final year, as I was in the process of switching maths classes. The deputy head, who also was the head of the mathematics department took me to her office and told me that I might be better off looking into alternate career paths as my grades might not be good enough to get me into university to study what I wanted to do.
That day I cried. I called up my father and told him that I wasn't good enough to pursue a career in Astrophysics and that I should give up. He came into school that day and talked to the physics teachers, helped me put extra measures in place to help me get to where I wanted to.
My parents have always been so supportive to me from the start and I don't think they've ever been disappointed with my grades; my sister is a very top achiever and I'm average and I love them for accepting me for the way that I am.
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