Sometimes I wonder if ignorance is bliss.
I am ignorant of much, but there is one thing I know. I know my greatest flaw.
I am lazy. Cripplingly, stiflingly, nauseatingly lazy.
I was going to call it procrastination, but why give it the dignity?
Would I be better off if I didn't realize? The result is ultimately the same, I get next to nothing done. The only difference is in the pounding guilt in my head and the growing weight of uselessness in my stomach.
It's so hard to fight laziness. In essence, you are battling your own comfort, your own satisfaction, everything that contents you. You are wrapped in a cocoon of safe, warm, cloying happiness, but inside you squirm with a nervous energy you can't control. And then of course, you begin the arguments, the endless circular bouts of logic and lassitude that go around and around... "I have work to do." "So nu, go do it." "But I don't want to." "Fine, don't do it." "But I have to." "Be quiet maideleh, you've already filled your guilt quotient for today."
And so it goes.
I bring this up today, because today I received an 84 on an English test.
There. I've said it.
I am dazed. I just don't get 84's in English. History? Maybe. Science? Probably. Math? If I'm lucky. But English? No, never in English.
It's entirely my fault, of course. I've been sliding through my teacher's fingers avoiding every stitch of work I possibly could manage. I handed in something like two essays out of seven last semester, and still pulled a 98. Unfair? Very. A brutal mind trap for someone with as little work ethic as I? Unbelievably.
The test was on The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. I didn't read the entire book (wonder why?) but I had a good grasp of the themes and plotlines.
I missed the test day. My teacher was not happy.
So I took it home over the weekend to finish, and to my utter astonishment and delight, I actually did. I put it off for a few hours, but at eight o'clock I sat down and answered the questions. It wasn't difficult. Themes, check. Symbolism, check. Characters, check...
So imagine my surprise when my teacher handed back my paper with a decidedly guilty aura and the news that on two questions I had failed to elaborate satisfactorily on the emotional aspects of Gregor's transformation and it's ramifications.
Missing emotional subcontext? Me?
So that is the tale of my English eighty-four, a grade that will live, if not infamy than certainly in bemusement.
I am almost happy I that I received that grade, though. It's a release. The worst has happened, and I am still here, and writing to boot.
Gam zeh ya'avor?
No.
Gam zu l'tovah.
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4 comments:
Wow, can I relate. Atzlus, what a horrible disease. I AM, however, impressed that you have the zitzfleish to sit, at least, and write all these things. At least in that sense, you're not lazy.
As for Kafka's Metamorphosis--incidentally, you didn't miss anything. *Weird* book.
Hm, as I said, I can relate. But now that I think about it...Nobody ever gave me that 84. They kept slipping me those As, never forcing me to fight my laziness. Which makes it all the harder now...
I find it funny that you've managed to put your "english" expirience into words that describe my entire academic career. (As you can probably tell by my spelling.) For varius reasons i've somehow managed to slip the system and pass forever, with not-such-flying colors, but not too bad either. Now I live my life and try to get by day after day, and each day gets harder and harder. At the end of those days, who can I blame but myself?
I'll at least have enough pride to take the blame thaat I'm deserving of.
And I think I just wrote my first Blog on your "Comments", M.
Thanks for the opportunity and awesome work.
Keep writing like I feel, cuz I cant seem to start myself.
A test doesn't simbilize anything. Obviously you can write. I got higher on my last english test, and i can assure you that you can right better than me.You make writing into an art, instead of a plain combo of letters; Your not just a writer, but an crafter of stories.
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