Friday, September 23, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
Do you think the secret to success is failure?
Do you think the secret to success is failure?
Sometimes when we used to talk about our university, we'd begin with incredibly funny moments we all were a part of at some point or another. But then we'd ultimately start trading or retelling horror stories. Stories about peers who retook courses so many times no one else had an accurate count anymore, stories about our own failures, stories at great length about how evil and unreasonable faculty professors could be. Stories about this one teacher who would command his silence by saying "Shut the fuck up or I will fail you all.".
Then some of us would say (because it was true): oh, how I hated university because I studied so much and never had a life, or how the education system sucks! How are these profs employed?? What the hell am I paying for?
I remember coming home, knowing full well that I had failed an exam, sitting on my bed and just bursting into tears. I tried so hard, but why couldn't I pass? Is that what I'm being taught? To fail?
Today (so it took me a while) I learned that that was exactly what I needed to learn. University taught me something money can't easily buy: grit. School built my character whether I liked it or not; it taught me to, when down in the dark pit of failure, to pick myself up and crawl out. It shoved me in that hole time and time again to the point I became not only a hardier but smarter individual, and learned to walk around that pit instead of falling in.
And once I wasn't a stranger to failure, I wasn't a stranger to rebounding with a greater tenacity, and then I was introduced to better expectations for myself, and from there, an idea of what success can be like for me.
Sometimes when we used to talk about our university, we'd begin with incredibly funny moments we all were a part of at some point or another. But then we'd ultimately start trading or retelling horror stories. Stories about peers who retook courses so many times no one else had an accurate count anymore, stories about our own failures, stories at great length about how evil and unreasonable faculty professors could be. Stories about this one teacher who would command his silence by saying "Shut the fuck up or I will fail you all.".
Then some of us would say (because it was true): oh, how I hated university because I studied so much and never had a life, or how the education system sucks! How are these profs employed?? What the hell am I paying for?
I remember coming home, knowing full well that I had failed an exam, sitting on my bed and just bursting into tears. I tried so hard, but why couldn't I pass? Is that what I'm being taught? To fail?
Today (so it took me a while) I learned that that was exactly what I needed to learn. University taught me something money can't easily buy: grit. School built my character whether I liked it or not; it taught me to, when down in the dark pit of failure, to pick myself up and crawl out. It shoved me in that hole time and time again to the point I became not only a hardier but smarter individual, and learned to walk around that pit instead of falling in.
And once I wasn't a stranger to failure, I wasn't a stranger to rebounding with a greater tenacity, and then I was introduced to better expectations for myself, and from there, an idea of what success can be like for me.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Summer Love Overheated : Junot Diaz
Anyway, something about where we each were in our lives, something about the wildness of our relationship, something about our weakness—-we were kind of trapped in each other. God knows for how long we lingered in our half-lives if not for the shit I’m about to tell you about. I have friends who were in miserable relationships for eight, nine years. I honestly believe we could have been one of them, trapped in “love” like bugs in amber.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
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