harder every day

yesterday was probably the worst day of the semester. in fact it was probably one of the worst days i've had in a while. i cried. i don't cry. if you know me, i don't cry. oh i tear over orphans in romania or i get a little foggy eyed over the national anthem, but to genuinely lose control of my emotions to a point at which i'm sitting in my chair at my desk, curled up in a ball, with my face in my hands, weeping? that doesn't happen to me. i just don't.

but yesterday, i found myself stressed to such a point that all sense of rationality was gone and crying seemed like the only thing that might actually keep my head from exploding, so cry i did.

my professor's, dr mavinga's, linear algebra final was today, and in a vain attempt at passing the worst class i think i've been subjected to take since high school health class - *cough* sex ed *cough* - a small remnant of our class formed a mass study session at my friend meg's house. and study we, surprisingly, did. but for lack of good teaching, we came across many questions. so, we did what we thought was the intelligent correct decision: we went to see dr m and ask him our questions. now, in looking at this situation, i'm sure you as well are thinking good. responsible students, willing to strive for better grades by doing all they can to learn the subject in question. ah, but if you are astute, you will by now have read between the lines and will be able to prophesy where this is leading. in theory, the decision to drive back to the school was brilliant. but in reality, much like communism, not all brilliant theories pan out the way one would have hoped. but i'm getting ahead of myself. we were at the school and began to present our legitimate quandaries to rafaeki. he waved his hand at us saying that we were too stressed; our questions were dumb. -- at this point, i would like to interject that since elementary school i'm sure we've all heard the cliche every teacher repeats when the class laughs at the question of the poor, dorky, insecure student in the back of the room, (a question no doubt the rest of the class had been thinking, but too proud to ask) "there is no such thing as a stupid question." clearly, they don't teach this in india. clearly. -- oh, but it gets worse. he proceeded to tell us that the test would be plenty short for us to finish in the time allotted, and that, and i quote, we were "just being dumb and lazy about this." no joke. but this isn't over; we haven't made it out of the building yet. he later, after brushing aside more of our questions and being very vague about the actual content of the test, he proceeds to accuse us of cheating, simply because, for most of us, our hw grades are generally higher than our quiz or test grades. because that automatically implies we are cheating. so we leave, downtrodden. back at meg's we study madly for the next three hours or so, madly, but unenthusiastically and without much hope of any real success. somewhere around four that afternoon, my ride, becky, and i decide to leave. she's had about 10 hours of sleep over the last week, and i have a migraine. so exhausted and rather depressed, we leave.

back in my room, i take some meds, make some coffee, and take down my tree as a nice break. but i was too upset to enjoy the thoughts of home on thursday. see, this whole situation brought back these memories from high school and some of my not so fine moments. my freshman year of hs, i had biology with mrs wolfe. i don't think i'll ever forget her or this memory. it's not that i haven't forgiven her or anything like that. it's just that some moments so define your thinking or emotional state that despite your forgiving the person and "moving on," you can't forget what happened. not all wounds that heal, don't leave scars. and this moment is one of those burned into my mind. mrs wolfe was a very disorganized woman. she was usually nice and kinda funny, but her "achilles heal" was her messiness. thus, it was not shocking that she lost a bunch of the class' papers. the problem however was that six weeks grades were going in the next morning at 8am and i had a jrotc rifle team competition the following week, which meant i had to be passing all my classes on the outcoming report card. and with the missing grades, i, as well as the rest of the class, was not. so, with about five minutes left in the class, i was getting nervous. i went up to mrs wolfe, who was at her computer, situated in front of the classroom, and explained, what i thought was politely my situation. clearly, she was stressed. and she snapped. she typed something into the computer, and then screamed at me - in front of the classroom, remember - "there! you have a sixty! that's all i'm doing right now! i'll fix it later! i can't take this god**** **** anymore..." and she got up and left the classroom. and as the tears streamed uncontrollably from my eyes and i felt them burn against my red hot face, the bell rang.

i couldn't look her in the eye for the rest of the semester.

my junior year of high school, wasn't quite as dramatic, though just as vividly burned in my mind after the encounter with mavinga. i was called to the board one afternoon in my precal/trig class to solve a simple polynomial. but i was sick, on drugs of some form (dayquil, i think), and i added something wrong. before i even saw my mistake to correct it, mr dickey (no lie, that was his name) was in my face. his exact words, and i remember them to this day, were, "if you can't even do simple algebra, you're too stupid to be in this class!" the difference in this situation however was my reaction. rather than cry, i realized how dumb and lame his insult had been and merely wanted to punch his nose into his face, as did several of my friends in that class. and i proceeded to make a 99 in that class and am now a math major.

but back in my dorm room, similar feelings of hate, inadequacy, dread, and humiliation had wrapped themselves around my thoughts and continued to control me for most the rest of the evening. so at five, in a fit of distress, i pulled out my study materials and set my nose back to the grindstone, headache not quite gone. a little after eight i broke for a starbucks run i'd promised some friends from last year, and while i watched a fuzzy house, i cleaned and packed. then at ten, when house went off, i went back to the papers strewn across my bed and desk. but i didn't get far. within about five minutes, i lost it. the stress of the day and the feelings and emotions took over and i cried.

because i don't cry often and it takes something to get me to that state, it was a few minutes before i had regained control of the situation, and i didn't actually stop the tears, but a remembrance of a passage i'd highlighted well over a month ago, had come to my mind and something inside kept poking me to read it. so i found it and read...

have you not known?
have you not heard?
the everlasting God, the Lord,
the Creator of the ends of the earth,
neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak,
and to those who have no might He increases strength.
even the youths shall faint and be weary,
and the young men shall utterly fall,
but those who wait on the Lord
shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
-- isaiah 40:28-31

and this time, when i began to cry, it had nothing to do with any form of stress or outrage. an overwhelming sense of relief flooded my heart, and i cried. but tears of joy. and after another fifteen minutes or so, i began to study again. i studied some also for my computer test. around one i went to bed. and i slept completely peacefully. and i got up this morning and took my test and then went to take my computer test. and i made it. i'm at the light at the end of the tunnel. i managed to get my room clean and check out tonight. and now the overwhelming thought in my mind is: this time tomorrow, i'll be home...