The scores of Monday’s test came back today, and I got such a surprise seeing mine that I still haven’t gotten over it, and the greater part of me is still suspicious of this. I got the 42nd position among the 400+ people in the 11th grade, and my knees became weak as soon as I saw this, and I double-checked to make sure I hadn’t checked someone else’s scores by accident, or misread my own. I returned to class, still brimming with suspicion about the veracity of those scores, which might have been the result of a grievous typographical error on the part of whoever it was who was typing out all that stuff: they might have missed out the number ‘1’ before the ‘42’. I spent close to two hours debating this within myself, and tried not to get too happy, in case it turned out that there actually was an error and my actual scores weren’t the ones displayed: this was way too good to be true. I mean, I’ve learned through extensive introspection and something akin to a keen eye for human psychological behavior that one inevitably incurs disappointment if they get too happy over a petty achievement or occurrence, or is too enthusiastic in their expectation of something good. I’ve learned to convince myself that no matter how great your achievement is (mine isn’t anything great; I most undoubtedly got really lucky, that’s all), regarding them as not so special enables you to forestall the disappointment that would have come as a natural consequence. And the fact that you weren’t disappointed as a result leads to contentment, which I’m cherishing at the moment, still trying not to get too complacent. But it’s true, as some guy in my class said, that scoring well in a test of this kind doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re as smart as your grades would suggest (because people are very likely to get lucky or otherwise), and that your performance in the ‘real’ tests depends on how intelligent you really are. So I guess calling these grades my own isn’t justifiable.
On the plus side, I have three days’ respite from school starting tomorrow, the first owing to a Hindu—how do I put it? It’s not exactly a festival—special day, the second being the Indian Independence Day, and the third fortuitously being a Sunday. Of course, parents and teachers in equal measure would expect us students to put in as much effort in studying as we would on normal school days—possibly even more—and I guess, after all I said in the previous paragraph, it would not only be exceedingly imprudent of me to slack off, but also potentially disastrous, the result being that my grades in the upcoming test will be thrown into jeopardy. Besides, not holding fast to my position is going to result in the worst sort of debacle imaginable. And besides, it’s a matter of prestige now.
But anyway, I’m going to pay my old school a visit on the 15th as an excuse to meet up with my old buddies, of whom I haven’t even seen a glimpse since May. Also, that afternoon our piano class might be taken to the place that houses the piano used in the exams to check the instrument out, play on it a little and get used to its pitch, touch, etc. That could take the whole afternoon.
Tonight I plan on giving myself a break, picking up one of those previously abandoned DVDs, and watching a movie.
0 comments :
Post a Comment