I have a trial exam tomorrow at 10.30. I'm supposed to talk about how Denmark is connected to the USA. I have four texts, one about what the danish politicians did when the financial crisis hit us hard in the 30's, one that's a statistic about which parties wanted to join the Atlantic Agreement (the early NATO), one that is supposed to be the speech made by the danish prime minister at the time, that made the politicians agree to that, and one that is a different speech, by a different prime minister in a more present time, about why Denmark sent soldiers to aid USA in Iraq. I don't have a clue how to connect these texts. It's all about politics? It's.. showing a tendency to democracy? I'm supposed to set a question, that I then answer by explaining the texts, and then conclude something. And I have 7 minutes with my teacher to do that. I'm supposed to prepare for it now. No. Idea. What. To. Do.
The closest thing I have is this thought that, Denmark keeps proclaiming they're a part of the western world, but in reality we stand down everytime a decision is to be made that might put us in a bad light. We want to be neutral, we want to be friends with everyone, we want to mediate, but we also want a big badass country to protect us, should it come to war. Make up your freaking mind, bullshit country.
I want to run the hell away and not face the fact that I'm going to fail History. Fail. It's a word that tastes like crap in my mouth. Fail. And honestly, I'm probably failing math as well. I can't explain what I'm doing it or how, I just do it. It's what was always my problem with math, I couldn't explain why I was supposed to do what I did, I just did it. The formula says?
Fail. Why am I so scared of that? Because I used to do so well with schoolstuff, maybe.. I don't know. Maybe I just don't like to feel like there's things I can't do. I don't want to be another one in the family who ended up as nobody. Let's face it.. My grandparents did okay, everything considered. They're not rich, and they probably have to find a smaller, cheaper place sometime soon, but they get by. my grandmother used to bind books, then took cleaning jobs for a long while till she retired. My granddad was in the army, and then worked at the airport for like 40 years. My mom was in bookbinding, too, then her back and her knees demanded she stopped. she went back to school, took two more educations, and now she works at the bar. All that school for nothing. My sister has started who knows how many educations and never finished. My cousin had kids so early, everything else had to stop.
I don't want that. I don't want to have to struggle for the rest of my life. I want a stabil financial situation, I want to have a job that allows me to do all the things I never could afford. Like go on a vacation somewhere. I want to have a job I'm proud of, a job I like. And I want security in knowing, that if I get fired, I have an education that puts me a bit in front of the ones who doesn't, to get a new one.
"You're so smart, you can do it!" "You've always been the smart one." "I got the looks, you got the brain." "You've always been so reasonable, you'll figure everything out." "I know you can do better then this, so I can only give you a 9." - I've listened to this stuff all my life. From everywhere. Everyone, everywhere, telling me I can do whatever I set my mind to do. They don't know how cocky that makes a person, and how much it hurts when you're suddenly NOT that smart or that reasonable. Because it becomes part of who you are, part of what you identify yourself with. "It doesn't matter what they think, I know better." "I can do this, I know I can. I have to." "A 9? I know I can make 11. It's not good enough unless it's at least 10. Double digits or I slacked." You know what? 9 was a perfectly good grade, on that old scale. People used to be proud when they got a 9. I got disappointed. I still would. Cause after all, they tell me I'm too smart to get less then 10. So how do you think it feels when you realise you're not smart enough to get that 10? To realise you might fail, even. What do you do when you realise you're not going to figure everything out?
That's a lot of pressure to put on yourself, over one shitty little trial exam. But there's only 3 weeks till the real deal. And yeah, sure, I can redo it if I fail. But failure means I didn't do well enough. It means I slacked. It means I misunderstood something. It means I did it wrong. It means I'm not smart enough. It means I failed.
I lose.
There's a lot of things I can do. Maybe I should be focusing on that.
I spell incredibly well.
My english is good.
I'm doing decently at spanish.
I'm good at keeping house.
I'm good at cleaning.
I'm good at tidying up.
I'm good at remembering when to feed what snake.
I'm good at remembering where I put things.
I'm good at keeping track of what groceries we need.
I'm good at writing down if we're running low on something.
I'm good at making lists.
Right now, I have a list of needed and potentially needed furniture for when we take over the apartment for ourselves.
I have a list of what we need for the kitchen.
We even have a grocerylist on our iPhones so we can write things down and both of us can see it. I'm good at updating those.
I'm good at being practical.
I'm good at doing the things that needs to be done, even when I have no energy for it.
I'm good at baking.
I'm good at doing laundry.
I'm good at sewing.
I'm good at being optimistic on behalf of others.
I'm good at socializing with my boyfriend's friends.
I'm good at helping people.
I'm good at taking charge when someone has to and noone wants to.
I'm good at a lot of things.. I conclude I should be a housewife, who bosses people around and corrects their grammar while cursing at them in spanish under my breath. I miss working.
