My Psyche is a Fraud

I have just failed my exam. This means that I will have to study bacteria, viruses and immunology all over again. Plus the lab exam. I cannot stand immunology. Can NOT stand it.

Why did I fail my exam? I am so very glad you asked. Please read this first, it will help you understand. Seriously, it will. Then come back and I’ll tell you all abt the fraud.

Done? Good. See, that was not really my template. That was my psyche.

*Enter fluffy bunnies and frolicking sheep*

Once upon a time there was a girl, let’s call her Our Heroine (OH) who was really intelligent. REALLY intelligent. In fact, she was so intelligent that school had always been easy, too easy.

[Other than exact sciences, that is, Maths, Chemistry, Physics, Geometry - all very awful, her brain truly was not wired in a way that allowed her to fully grasp them. But she wasn’t worried, she wasn’t going to ever need them, right? [Ha.] And the way the educational system in her country was organised, she’d only study them till grade 9 anyway. Nothing but sweet humanistic subjects from then on: Psychology, Philosophy, Languages, History. In short, bliss of the highest degree. This was the sort of OH who till this day finds that doing grammar exercises in English is very much relaxing and GREAT FUN!]

OH went on to university and surprise!, it was all so very easy. An Anthropology degree? Please, daß ich nicht lache. She even got a 20 out of 20 in Maths bcs of her grade improvement paper on Alice in Wonderland and The Other Side of The Mirror (for Logic). Granted, studying the Omaha Indians kinship system was a bloody pain – and forever to be reminded as such - and it took her three whole hours to memorise it, can you imagine?? THREE WHOLE HOURS. All the rest was easy, even those subjects she couldn’t stand. For those she would read the absolute minimum and then make up the rest with general culture and personal inventiveness. It was perfectly all right to have 12 out of 20, gah, horrid subjects, she never wanted to see them again. The subjects she did like were something else entirely, it was a pleasure to read the course material, and well, it was all RATHER EASY. She’d more often than not NOT attend classes (unless she REALLY liked them, of course) and could also be found clubbing the night before the exams, much to her father’s dismay. Her mother never worried much bcs OH kept herself in the top 5% so the method, albeit puzzling, seemed most effective. And if she happened to have a grade she found UNWORTHY in the subjects she liked (e.g., Human Geography or Ethology) she’d retake the exam so she could improve it bcs quite frankly, 16 or 17 out of 20 were a bit shameful and why stop there when one can EASILY end up with a 19 or even a 20? Unsurprisingly, OH finished her degree with a 17 average and a 19 in her thesis.

*Exit fluffy bunnies and frolicking sheep*

Yes.

See, OH was luckier than she knew bcs it so happened that her brand of intellect was absolutely perfect for what this degree demanded of her. More understanding than memorisation. Emphasis on articulating related and sometimes unrelated bits and producing a coherent, innovative text. She loved reading and had read a million of books by then, many of them at a very inappropriate age, so her general culture was quite all right and she could, say, start answering each exam question by relevantly mentioning her mother’s sprout rice and Taran and the Magic Cauldron, respectively, thereby unwillingly but welcomingly impressing the pants off the professor. (Her antennae being what they are, OH knew exactly which teachers would value such things and which would not.) She loved writing, writing had always been her medium of choice, and she took full advantage of it. She was also quick to grasp everything and her intuitive mind, her greatest strength, allowed for leaps of thought that were convenient. And whenever she had to present something orally she’d find a way to have fun - much more bearable for all involved if, for her Tuareg presentation, she turned off the lights, turned on the desert music and entered the classroom donned in the garbs she’d brought from Morocco, carrying a tray with sweet mint tea for the front row. (Again, antennae, again, teacher’s pants.)

She was careful not to show that she thought it all REALLY, REALLY EASY, she’d found very early on that her little colleagues were not so fond of people like her. So she moaned and pulled her hair for all to see – and then went clubbing. Summers were always vast and worry-free. Life was good. OH was brain-spoilt, as it were.

Then tragedy struck. Shock, revulsion and horror, OH finds herself in vet school. VET SCHOOL! And pray tell, what the fuck is an algorithm? What the hell is the inverse of 107? Carboxyl what? What do you mean she simply must memorise 400 pp of rubbish? What do you mean, she must STUDY? As in what, sit down on a chair for hours on end, actually working at it? You must be mad, you must be deranged, this is OH you’re talking abt remember, OH does not DO studying! Go away you demented person, GO AWAY!

It is a fact that OH cannot memorise things in bulk very well. It is also a fact that Oh is very tired from 4 years of non-stop studying, no holydays, no rest. Furthermore, it is a fact that OH has an appallingly poor visualisation capability and is spatially at a permanent loss, as we know. But the deeper truth is, OH RESENTS all this… this… this effort, for fuck’s sake, it shouldn't happen to HER, and so she still hasn’t learnt how to study properly. She will focus on the bits she likes/understand better and more often than not hope for the best. The best in vet school doesn’t often come along and she is therefore often confronted with *shudder* her ignorance. OH should know better but she, pretty much like that template, is still stomping her foot [OH is nothing if not mature] and repeating But it’s not fair! in a most unbecoming manner, refusing to accept that yes, sometimes in life things - unlike birds, yes? - do NOT come easy, and sometimes in life we are expected to work very hard at things we find most unpleasant, and self-boycotting for whatever reasons should have long lost its appeal, and please stop this life is not fair idiocy, it really ISN’T, what part of it could have missed PH’s psyche really, and kindly BUCK UP AND DO IT.

So see, it’s all rather sad really. People keep telling OH that she is so strong and she therefore politely enquires What the fuck? Does this sound remotely like strength to you, this It’s too bloody hard I’ll just pretend it will be all right if I close my eyes and skip a few chapters, shhh, no one will ever know. So when she sees the exam and it turns out that the questions are not quite as expected BUT SHE STILL KNOWS ENOUGH ANSWERS TO PASS never mind that, her psyche quickly translates it into I knew it, I knew I could never make it, it’s too bloody hard, I knew it, quickly, here’s a MIND BLANK so you can escape. And poof, gone is the knowledge. In its stead we can find a scene worthy of the Petunia Vase and the Sperm Whale, i.e., What is a Baccilus, help?? There was that unforgettable moment a few years ago when the exam blank included the unforgettable OhmyGod, whatdoesapiglooklikeagain??

OH did go and get a book after the exam, as planned, alas for comfort and not celebration, as hoped. OH was tempted to buy another one but then thought Why yes, why not reward an imbecilic psyche with TWO books, there’s a punishment. And, as always, OH ended up agitatedly gesticulating and berating herself aloud, much to the surprise of at least 4 different people, as the answers to the questions slowly slowly trickled back to her, as always much too late.

So yes, strength. Gallons of. Oh and courage, loads of that as well. OH has vowed something WILL change, if it kills her. OH finds the whole thing disgraceful and cannot stand herself today. So she'll smoke ANOTHER fag and sod it all for now, bcs a strong will is another of her endearing characteristics.