Thinking about where it all went wrong…

As I was taking my finals, I was thinking. A lot. And not just about exams.

I was thinking about the questions, certainly, but not just about that. I was thinking about exams in general. The structure. The essence.

I was thinking about studying, different subjects (not just the questions or the matter) but the way that the exams can be so different too depending on the subject, depending on the exam, depending on the year, maybe the room the air I don’t know. Everything.

Everything felt so real. So insignificant. So stupidly meaningless.

So much pressure on a piece of paper with some words on it. Probably delivered in a box. I mean really. I think all the time about people living across half the world who have not a worry in the world for pieces of paper with words on it, delivered in boxes. People living completely different lives than me, different formats.

They don’t wake up everyday, drink out of their orange/pink/blue ombré Starbucks water bottle, and put on their pink plaid scarf and north face jacket and air Jordan Nike sneakers to go to class.

They don’t check their iPhone 17 for notifications.

When I describe my life this way, perhaps I sound very privileged. But I can tell you right now, right now I feel anything but. Yes I have people I love in my life. But my life? My actual life? It’s falling apart right now. It’s falling apart in a nightmareish way I never thought it would. It’s falling apart in a way that I told myself, if it would, I’d much rather succumb myself to the fate of these other people I’m describing. I don’t even care about any of these things. Actually, nothing is worse to me. Believe me.

Perhaps they live in a very hot place. Perhaps a desert (I’m actually jealous. Can you take me?) Perhaps in poverty. Perhaps starving, thirsty. Dying. Perhaps in a war, with bombs flying. I know people who live this way. People who are my family. And yet, so much emphasis. On a piece of paper. And it feels like the end of the world. It really does. I don’t care how silly it is. We all live in our worlds. Whether it’s an orange pink blue ombré Starbucks cup pink plaid scarf north face jacket air Jordan Nike sneakers world, or whether it’s bombs. And yet genuinely I’d rather take the bombs fate. If things must be this way, then things must be this way. I’m not being ungrateful, believe me. I wish life could be a different way, but that’s just not in the cards for me. It already feels that way, anyway.

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much you study for an exam. What you were studying, wasn’t even on there and it’s completely different. And you’re confused. It’s all a joke. It’s all a game. It’s all- I don’t even know what it is. People don’t study, and get 100s. People do, and get 60s. Like what was the point of that? You could’ve just not wasted that time, and not studied at all? You could’ve just- done something else with your time.

Just reading words. Can you understand what the word are asking? Do you know what the words are saying?

And that guilt. That horrible guilt, when you feel like you could have done more.

Such a joke, when you feel like all you’re doing in your life is studying. And then suddenly you feel like you have so much more left to study, and now you don’t have time to study it all…in time for the exam!

And also with exams, I feel like it’s just the way you think sometimes that can be the issue. I feel like I always overthink it, overthink what the question is asking…I think it’s impossible and something we haven’t learned (and it’s not even that that’s not necessarily true, but, sometimes, it’s actually not complicated and was simple than I was thinking about it…therefore, I was actually overthinking it).

And there’s so much too just about the way you think…

I feel like I’ve only started thinking about these things because I started running into these issues.

Like sometimes I think I just think differently. And overthink. Like it makes me think back to high school, it’s all so robotic in university too (with an even BIGGER emphasis on exams and grades, AS WE CAN SEE OH SO CLEARLY…) where you have to think the same way like a robot…because you have to come to the same answer or conclusion. In order to get the “correct“ answer, in order to get the points, in order to get the grade. A system. A stupid system.

And what about when it’s history? If it comes down to two “best” answers, how do you ultimately pick the best? Isn’t that completely subjective? Historians themselves, would probably side separately, would probably argue differently? Because there are so many different perspectives of looking at history???

And I know, STEM is not so subjective. There is a right answer. But sometimes it also seems stupid to me when all this seemingly made up stuff (because it’s not taught very well) is being thrown out at you, like for physics, over 100+ formulas, and so much emphasis on grades all of the time. But, does just because you get a “bad” grade mean you will be a bad engineer?

When did innovative thinking, the different thinking I am talking about, like in engineering, start meaning nothing? When did grades become the only thing that mattered? So much can go into one individual grade, in any case…but that’s not something I’m going to get into here.

I started to really see how exams didn’t represent me, after taking my first math midterm this semester. I thought I did so good, I thought it was easy and yet my score was not good. Stupid mistakes, added up. BUT SHOULD IT ACCOUNT FOR MY ENTIRE UNDERSTANDING, SHOULD IT AFFECT MY ENTIRE FUTURE? Stupid scoring system.

Speaking of stupid scoring system, what makes me mad is the scoring for organic chemistry. They will just be like “briefly rationalize” and you can say something completely correct, but if it’s not on their rubric, if it’s not what they wanted you to say, you’re JUST NOT GETTING THE POINTS!! And what makes me even more mad, what is even more unfair, is how they will have in the rubric (that you only see after the exam) to have at least two or three reasons? WELL THEN WHY DON’T YOU PUT THAT IN THE QUESTION STATEMENT/DIRECTIONS? HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU WANTED TWO OR THREE REASONS? WAS I SUPPOSED TO READ YOUR MIND? YOU SAID BRIEFLY, THAT’S ALL YOU SAID. So stupid, smh. It’s like they want us to fail. They’ve created their stupid little beloved system.

Clearly, I have a lot to say about this subject lol. Exams are the bane of my existence. They might be what ruin my life, once and for all.