Academic Over-Achievers: the Under-Achievers of Life
By: Bob-0

Well the school year is almost over, to the delight of many, many children across the US. Yet, there are some, hopefully a small percentage, that really like school. They live for it, and so their life is over when school is, this makes me livid to say the least. When something that's similar in many ways to prison becomes your life's passion, there's a deep, dark problem.

Sure I'm just jealous because these people are "smarter" than me, but personally I'm not offended or angry about it. If these people want to waste an hour of their day studying just to make their GPA's go up by .1, I'll let them. Yet what does offend me is when they keep telling me how poorly they do on tests after they finish, the next week when they get them back, and to my surprise their scores are nearly 20% higher than mine. If that's doing badly on a test, how the hell did I do?

I suppose I can't blame them though, it's not their fault they were smart as children, hence making a ridiculous standard up to which they have to live. Their parents push them further, putting them in NHS and scolding them for "bad grades." Yet, I'm in all of the honors classes in which these kids dwell, and I'm bottom of the class. Doesn't bother me, I know I shouldn't be there anyway, it's just how badly they make me feel about myself with their behavior that they don't even realize.

I knew a girl, very "smart," she got a 96 on a math test, and she cried. On the same test, your's truly got an 86, and nearly dropped a lung in his pants due to his great, boundless joy. Nonetheless, it was a hollow, angry victory over my math teacher, this girl ruined my joy, and I had to stop to comfort her on her "crushing defeat." I ask myself, "Is working for 2 hours more, just to go from a 95 to a 97 worth it?" After years of study I have come to the conclusion...NO! Don't waste your time, life's too precious to be sitting around memorizing all the damn tribes of American Indians, it's just pointless. I'm not going to be cool and say that being stupid is hip and fresh ;), I'm going to tell you that life outside of school is a lot longer than inside school. In fact, I try the hardest that I can do, but not as hard as someone else does. I reccomend everyone else out there to do the same.

Now this doesn't exactly apply to everyone, maybe you want to make something out of your life, personally I'm going to IUP. If you know ANYTHING about local colleges then you would know that IUP has about as much prestige as an elementary school. But for all you Ivy League people out there, go right ahead and attempt to carve Theorems and Postulates into your cells for all I care.

Lastly, I'll make this statement: 90% of what you learn in school is beyond useless and trivial. That's right, study common sense and philosophy instead of the area of a triangle and what date the Lousiana Purchase occured. Enjoy life, don't become a waste product of it.