Saturday 10th November 2012: Things That Anger Me: I suppose the reason I'm writing this is because I don't know as much as I want to, and my therapist told me that I need to let everything out in whatever way I can if I want to understand why I'm the way I am.
To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less, but she thinks I do and so does my mother. Personally (and don't take this offensively Suzanna), I think my therapist is a complete waste of money, but if it pleases my mother, so be it. Nobody actually asked me if I need therapy, or if I actually want to talk to Suzanna, but I don't think they really care about what I think, as long as they can sit down in the evenings and believe that they spent a day doing the right thing. Whatever.
So anyway, Suzanna, you asked me to write about something that makes me angry and my school grades came to mind. I am sure that Suzanna is already fully aware that I'm getting very good grades at school, because all therapists look at their patient's school grades, I assume, but what my therapist probably doesn't know is that I have not, or at least cannot remember doing so, given in a single piece of homework in the past academic year. I'm not sure my teachers have mentioned that in my file, because my mother certainly hasn't commented on that fact.
I also will admit to procrastinating in all of my duties, ranging from my appearance (yes, I am aware that I look like crap) to my social life (as you probably know, I'm not the most friendly person.) And yet, despite my lack of consideration for all of these aspects of teenage life, especially school work, I'm somehow obtaining higher than average grades in both exams and classwork.
Most girls my age would be pleased by this fact, or claim that they would, at any rate, and yet it bothers me slightly because it has given my mother an unrealistic expectation of what my GCSE grades will be like and how many colleges will accept me. She appears to think, due to the supposed standard of my work, that I am getting smarter.
It's true that my grades are always getting higher, although I don't think my knowledge has improved very much in the past year or so.
And that is the thing that angers me today.
(Oh, how I wish that I could finish this piece right there, but I don't think you'd approve of such idolitry, Suzanna, and my laziness is likely to upset my mother sooner or later. So, here we go, for the sake of my mother.)
I assume, perhaps incorrectly, that you are unlikely to learn very much about me from this, so I will continue to explain why my grades anger me so much. When I ask myself this question, the first thing that comes to mind is that it genuinely is not fair; the other students don't deserve to get lower grades than me when they put in more effort.
But then, when I really think about it, I don't actually care about the grades everybody else gets. If they don't get high grades, then they don't get high grades and that's all there is to it, really. No, what really agitates me is when my mother receives my termly report and sees Exceptional printed in red ink next to most of my subject.
The way that her eyes light up when she sees I've gotten amazing grades annoy me. The way that she grins and congratulates me when I receive brilliant marks, merits, and certificates of achievement infuriates me. For example, when my last report came, along with fairytales of brilliant classwork, incredible effort, and exceptional progress, we went out for dinner in a pizza parlour with my cousins Clara and Daniel and their parents, Aunt Rose and Uncle Harry.
My mother's brother looked incredulous at the news of my achievement, and my family told me that it was fantastic that I was doing so well academically, and my father told me that he was very, very proud of me afterwards.
The last and only other time my father said those words to me was after my first cello recital, when I was nine. I'd cried and cried after the show, convinced I'd done terribly, and he said, "No, you were amazing and I'm very, very proud of you." Since that day, I've subconsiously been trying to gain his praise and approval in everything I've ever done, and when my last report came, I finally got what I thought would make me so happy, what I thought I needed to be happy.
And the sadistic, cruel part of it is that I didn't earn his approval. My teachers' lies did it for me.
And that horrible story is what angers me about my grades the most, I think. I hope that was good enough for you, Suzanna, because writing this is exhausting.
A happy childhood memory
Really, Suzanna? I had expected much, much more from you. Well, you've given me an easy enough subject. My happy childhood memory is when I was with Ben at Golder's Hill, and we pretended to get married.
