Sigh

I know I'm not the only one with a miserable B- (69% - a full 5 marks below average) grade for a course in law school. I am also quite sure that this would not be the only one to adorn my final transcript. I wouldn't call myself a victim of the curve, or bitch about how arbitrary the grading system is. No, law school isn't stupid, BS, a waste of time etc. Neither is the grade uncalled for.

I haven't received the final essay yet, but I can't say that I could have done it any better (although, doing the entire piece during a 16 hour plane ride can't be the best of all ideas). I have no idea what went wrong and by my calculations, I must have gotten something around the low - mid sixties to end up with such a bad grade.

Judging by the trend, I am starting to wonder if I belong in law school. I have had no interest or passion in doing any of my assignments, neither do I care very much. The only spark of life encountered here yet was during a presentation on the Brao people in Southern Laos. The guy wasn't even a lawyer. What am I doing here?? Writing essays used to be my forte. I could always count on an A/A+ paper to compensate for whatever needed compensating for. Here, I find myself grasping at straws.

Thing is, do I really want to continue with something that I would, at best, only be mediocre at? I remember telling someone that I had an intense fear of being either ordinary or mediocre. Mediocrity is dead scary. The ironic thing is, the fear of doing badly was never in the equation. It was never considered because it was never a possibility. Now I have a new fear to tackle I guess.

So that's that. I've done terribly and I'm upset about it. I will assume that the mark was fair and just hope to do better for the rest of the year. Hopefully I will learn something out of it. Fortunately for me, this is only a 3 credit course and ends here. I guess somethings got to give at some point. I shouldn't be allowed to sustain my constant string of As since the A Levels. I have got to learn somewhere. It just doesn't help that the bi-polaric in me can't quite settle on my opinion on the situation. At times its devastating in tsunamic proportions. Other times, it's a wonderful learning opportunity. Hey! Better learn now then later! And better now then before! After all, it's the Asian syndrome isn't it? We do everything impeccably well, except, we do not know how to fail gracefully (and for God's sake, it's only a B-!), so learn! I guess life requires some measure of uncertainty, fear and failure.

But you know what I think it is? I'm not letting myself go. I'm not giving this a chance. I'm still standing on the sidelines looking skeptically at all this. I find myself disdaining what I see and really repelling the idea of becoming consumed by all this. In short - I don't want to be a part of what I perceive. This cannot be what God has in store for me. Where will my fulfillment come from?

There's no personal investment in this. Unlike the past, where I allowed academia to inform my world-view, I don't want it like this. I am afraid of being transformed by what I study, because I don't like what I see. I think that's how I did well in my undergrad, I was what I did and because it was me, I did it well.

Now I'm just tolerating it's intrusion into my life. Like how I feel it simply tolerates me.

Maybe I should see a professional about this.