Memoirs of an Outstanding* Teen

Chapter 7: Crush It At Something

Throughout the rest of that first term of grade 8, my location was always behind a book. Every single waking minute, all I thought about was my schoolwork. As I went to school in mornings, I thought about how I did on last week's tests. I did a mental check on whether I had done all the homework. I recited all the information for upcoming tests. I thought about what we had learned the previous day and whether I remembered it all.

During school, I thought of nothing else but what the teacher was teaching to us. I took notes on everything, even seemingly unimportant remarks about how the previous grade-8 class did. As I went home after school, I thought about which homework I would do first, and whether I should start studying for that test coming up in three weeks' time. I spent my afternoons doing and re-checking homework. And when we didn't have any homework, I wouldn't join my sisters to watch the popular soap operas, but I would spend that time studying all my notes, reading through future chapters, and doing all the unassigned exercises in the books.

I loved every minute of it. Whenever something stressed me out at school or at home, I looked forward to being lost in the math exercises or the accounting cash books so I could forget it all. When Ms Annoyed Face and her friends laughed at my cornrows, I pulled out my computer book and started reading on types of hardware devices. Whenever I was blamed for something I didn't do at home, I went over to my desk and started on finite verbs and independent clauses. My schoolwork was my sanctuary.

My hard work paid off at the end of the term. When we were handed our reports, I had topped my class. My name was first on the Top Ten list for Grade 8s.

In the beginning of the following term, there was a former student of our school who gave a speech at the assembly meeting. During the Grade 12 national exams of the previous year, he had graduated first in the whole country. From that moment onwards, I had a dream.