The bell for third period shrieked like panic.
Just like I would have, if anyone saw me.
Duck into the bathroom, slide into a stall,
And open up a Google doc hidden in a maze of folders.
This document was the result of a habit that infected my grade nine year.
Like an obnoxious tapeworm infects one’s gut.
It contained every single grade and mark I got,
And the precise number of missing assignments I accumulated every week.
One math class, I was sitting anxiously behind an apprehensive group of kids,
Staring a test that loomed the end of our dirge.
From the test, the group of kids before me received the numbers 97, 95, 100.
Alright, cool, I thought.
Until I got the number 60.
I must have been the most annoying ninth grader
Because I constantly asked my friends if I were smart enough.
I mean, usually, we’d have the exact same report cards.
And I’d still loathe the marks I received.
“Your scores are fine,” promised my parents.
For some reason, I just decided they couldn’t be.
Every upbringing story about Bezos and biography of Zuckerburg
Were made in the image of humble beginnings and disastrous hardships they overcame, weren’t they?
They were pretty smart, and yet I refuse to believe we began at the same starting line.
If you think I was the one being ridiculous,
Take a look at how humanity ditched futures created through fun ideal
For ones we had to deprive ourselves to achieve.
If I could take back the hours of throwing internet searches down the drain,
(OK, Google, what’s the average grade I need to go to university?)
I’d tell myself something else.
I really would.
I’d look myself in the mirror, and remind myself
That I could have been doing something so much more worthwhile with my time.
Like studying, gosh darn it.
“Be confident, be you” rich and famous people in TedTalks cooed.
Were they telling us to love or hate ourselves?
The privileged nepotists smirked and threw me a fist with their thumbs sticking up,
But I felt nowhere close to being loved.
I felt like studying never made more sense.
I listened to this speech by a millionaire who said that
Grades and money are built through hard work, good test scores can’t buy happiness, etc.
Let me ask:
How many more chronically test score counting ninth graders is it going to take
Until happy millionaires like him fail a freaking test?
By: Leon Zhang