March 12th, 2013
Over the years, I've realized a pattern: your saddest day always comes right after your best day. To me, I think that it must be because during your best day, you feel like you can do anything, you actually feel smart or likeable for once, or you feel some of the stress lift off your shoulders. It could be a day of vacation, where you spend all your time swimming at an awesome beach, or a day where you just spend some time with family and friends having fun. Then, the worst day comes right after--the day where something really bad does happen, but it's made all the worse by the fact that you're still sitting on your silver-lined cloud. It hurts to be dragged down so quickly and suddenly. If life was a swing-- if you fall and crash on a normal kick up, you might get bruises. If you find the energy to swing higher and higher, when you crash you might have broken bones and a concussion, to put it bluntly.
I first realized this after I read Looking for Alaska, by John Green. For example, Alaska says that her best day was when her mother was alive. She and her mother went to the zoo, where they looked at giraffes and monkeys, and basically had an awesome mother-daughter bonding experience. Her worst day came right after--her mother was killed in a car crash, and Alaska was left wishing for the times when she had looked at the monkeys with her mother.
When I came to High Tech, I was elated. To be frank, I never thought I would have been smart enough to get in. However, I had a fairly sad day right after (not the worst) where I realized that the competition level at High Tech is insanely high. I even spent a couple of days asking myself if it would have been a better choice to go to Science and Engineering. After all, my friends over there said that there was basically no competition other than those who went to my school.
I had another one of my worst days today. It feels terrible to finally, finally, be on the biology science league team--and then be told that after all, you didn't make it. I'm not saying it was anyones fault. It was no one's fault except mine. The teacher just made a mistake putting my name on the team list, and Kathryn really deserved that spot. If I really were to make it, I should have scored higher. In the meantime though, I gave up my alternate position to someone else. Hopefully they'll be happy ;D
As you know, I'm just reading "Looking for Alaska" now and just got to the part about Alaska's best/worst days and it really made me think about how something wonderful can so easily turn sour. Your swing example really describes that well - one minute you're on top of the world, soaring above the clouds, and the next you've crashed in the grass, face pressed against dirt.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I understand how you feel about bio science league - that's how I was for National History Day. For a few moments, you're elated because you think that yes, you've made it, but then the world comes crashing down on you. But the world will also always give you another chance, so don't worry :)