The Great Train Wreck

Train wreck. That's really the only way to describe last night's midterm. The class isn't easy, or at least not to my microeconomically-untrained mind. Thought I'd put in enough studying, but I must have missed a few spots, because it got ugly near the end. And that's the reason it can most aptly be termed a train wreck. It was sudden, unexpected, disastrous. To use a different metaphor (or simile to be precise), I was like a young pitcher cruising through the first six innings, only to have the "wheels come off" during an ugly stretch in the seventh. And suddenly, you have an ERA of 42.00, and you're getting booed by the fat guy swilling an $8.00 Miller Lite in the third row behind the dugout. I'm the Rick Ankiel of microeconomics.

I really can't overstate how jarring this test was. I don't tend to get distraught over school. Tired, stressed every now and again, but not distraught. And this is a good thing -- I'm inclined to believe that there's precious little in this world worth getting distraught over. Which is perhaps the reason, then, that my feeling so now is all the more frustrating. At any rate, this forsaken test has stolen my every waking thought since last night, and nothing -- not even this two-dollar latte -- can seem to weaken its grip.

They say adversity is a good thing, right? Unfortunately, a white, middle-class, generally successful student whiffing on a midterm doesn't really qualify as adversity. Maybe it gets filed under "tough luck", "big deal?", or "melodramatic" but not adversity.

Frustrating to feel like a failure. Frustrating to feel inadequate. Frustrating to admit such things over an in-the-long-run inconsequential event.

[this is the part where I'd mutter some obscenity under my breath].