Les miracles qu’a été peint | 17 May 2015 19:46 PDT ALL OF US WANT to be the best and number one. But there’s only one number one, and when it’s not us, life isn’t perfect anymore.
The Nobel Prize project was the biggest event of the eighth grade year on a science topic of choice. In seventh grade I absolutely hated science. At the start of eighth grade I began to grow a new interest because of the wonderful teacher. Nobel Prize wasn’t assigned until December, but I went in at the start of school in August to ask for advice on a topic I’d already selected. My teacher told me it was way too early and that it wouldn’t be assigned until December. Nevertheless I carried out my plans and finished most of my research by the time it was assigned in December. Before winter break I’d already asked a friend to be my partner for the presentation. She agreed and I continued working on the project, which she was fine with my idea. However, when I was beginning to build the actual project, she told me she preferred to work alone, and I felt betrayed in a way I’d never had before. Though I was a slight bit angry at her, I continued to finish the project. In the middle I was so frustrated I wanted to give up and switch to an easier topic, as my mother had warned me what I chose was far too challenging. She told me to give up and that made me keep going. Weeks later by April I had it all complete and successful. I was overjoyed and was glad my friend ditched me, because working alone, I found was far easier to deal with. Who wanted to deal with my temper tantrums? At the end of April were the actual presentations, and I was first. I was anxious before I began, but then I felt much better actually presenting and felt I did well. My friends all congratulated me on my success and I was glad I didn’t have to stress over it anymore. The rest of my friends were going on the next few days, some of them a week later. I was tired of watching all the other presentations and was looking forward for the grades to come out. I thought I did well. By the third day the presentations were boring me to death, and I felt I would definitely make the top ten out of two hundred presentations. You had to score ninety-eight or higher to be in the top ten, and I was certain I would. But that day one of my best friends who just presented told me that he had gotten ninety-eight and that our teacher said he might make top ten. I was happy for him but instantly felt a little pang of jealousy. The entire time I sat through science class watching more boring presentations, I was bitter. I was bitter with a kind of envy I’d never felt before. It wasn’t the kind of envy when your best friend had the more expensive clothes, or had the newest phone, or had the best makeup or eyebrows. It wasn’t the envy when the smart kid aced the hard test again and you nearly flunked. It was something different, because I had never felt real jealousy in my life before. I thought I never got jealous of others because I was already really close to perfect, and though it was a narcissist thought, I felt it had its ounce of truth to it. After all, so many of my former friends who were girls ditched me because they were jealous of me. I made people jealous, I wasn’t jealous of them. But this was different. I had become too competitive, too trapped within my own hopes, too caught up with the whole “top ten” thing. That envy gnawed at the back of my heart and made me bitterer than I had ever been before. I wanted to cry and scream and punch someone and jump off a bridge all at the same time – it was the most horrific and horrible feeling I’d ever had in such a long time. I thought I would explode with all those horrifying emotions all jumping out at me. After science class I asked the teacher if I could see my score. She told me not today. I was devastated, pretty sure I either flunked it completely or didn’t get to the top ten. As we walked down to our next period from science class, I felt as bitter as ever. But nevertheless, before we parted, I told my friend, “Good job,” and I meant it sincerely because I didn’t want to ruin such a good friendship I’d spent nearly a year solidifying. I could tell he was genuinely grateful and proud too. That still couldn’t end my growing and multiply envy, which began to grow like out-of-control weeds. The more I thought, the more my wrath grew, until I realised I thought at least find out what I got before I began breaking down and flipping out at the same time. After school I went to find out my score. I was too freaked out to even freak out. It was an eighty-eight, which I didn’t even see, but heard the teacher say, “I know that’s not good enough for you” first. I wasn’t doing it for my parents anymore. I was doing it to satisfy myself, which was millions of times harder than satisfying both parents combined. We discussed what I missed and she awarded me another two points for understanding what I was supposed to include in the presentation. It was a ninety now. Yet still I felt the tears stinging at the back of my heart. She told me it wasn’t about letter grades anymore; she said I would probably never see that grade ever again and it would never affect me in the rest of my life again. I tried to tell myself I would never have to look at that grade again. But it didn’t work. She told me I presented well and my project was well done as she knew didn’t spent more than half a year on it while everyone else took sixteen weeks. She knew I worked hard and when I told her my mother said she was proud of me for carrying it through and finishing when she thought I was going to give up, the teacher told me that was right. She said I had learned a lot, far more than just the project itself. That persistence that allowed me to drive right through and complete successfully already made me a step ahead of everyone else, even the top ten. I asked her if I would make top ten. It had become more than an obsession and competition: I wanted to be the only number one. She assured me I definitely did not make top ten, and somehow it sounded like I did. It was because I learned far more than everyone else: I had learned the art and science of life – which always consisted of failure and what we all are afraid to face: defeat.
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