Me and Cinderella, Put it all Together

I've had a few interesting revelations since yesterday. Both of them revolve around a phonecall I made to my university concerning IB credit and my Liberal Arts requirements in college. First of all, I learned that I only have 6 more credits out of 36 to go before I'm finished. I also learned that apparently IB Theatre Arts would not make me exempt from the Humanities Lit requirement in college no matter what score I got on the IB exam. But since I'm signed up for Intro to New Testament this fall, that covers Hum Lit, so the whole Theatre business is not a problem. So this was the first revelation. Basically, after receiving a 4 out of 7 (barely passing) in Theatre Arts, I was contemplating challenging my scores to raise the grade to at least a 5, which would have gotten me 6 Humanities credits instead of 3, which is all that a 4/7 in Theatre will get me in college. I was fairly set on challenging this, and then my mother suggested I challenge my IB English score, since I got a 5 on that, and I was expecting a 7, since I always thought that English was my best subject. Actually I only got one perfect 7 out of all my exams, and that was in IB French. I was also expecting a 7 in History, but I got a 6. Overall, my grades were initially a letdown because I was expecting to do so much better, since I had one of the highest GPA's in my class and basically all of my teachers, even my Calculus teacher, predicted me for 7's. I got a 5 in Calculus, just for your information. So I don't know, on some level, I feel slighted, since this is a big shocker. But ironically, it's not so much that I feel awkward getting the grades. I don't know, but personally, it's just a test to me, it bothers me a little, sure, but the main problem is my teachers. Yeah. I'm sitting here wondering, "What can they all be thinking, seeing these disappointing grades?" The only person dancing right now is my French teacher, because not only did I get my only 7 in her subject, I also got a 5 in AP French, and that was her first student to ever get a 5, so she's on the moon. ;) I guess I sort of wonder especially what my English teacher is thinking. I had so much trouble in English this year because even though I enjoy reading and studying good literature, for some reason, I found IB's methodology of lit analysis to be too cryptic for me to swallow. I just could never really hit the mark. I know my teacher gave me a lot of praise for the essays I wrote in his class, but I never really felt passionate when I put pen to paper. Sure I felt good if I came up with a particularly good analysis, but I never felt a deep sense of joy. Sometimes, I'd write an essay and think it was total crap, and he'd come back saying it was Shakespeare, and I'd have absolutely no idea how he came to that conclusion because I remember being spaced out and miserable when I wrote the essay. That's actually how I wrote most of my English essays: spaced out and less than enthusiastic. I don't know why, but I just was never truly happy. I always felt like I was fighting some kind of battle, trying to uncover some hidden IB Necronomicon that explained what the hell they wanted out of my essay. And for the life of me, if I ever found it, I didn't really pay it much mind. I just kept struggling, trying to understand why in the world my so-called favorite subject for so many years had become so sour to the taste now. Perhaps it's because we never really got to enjoy anything we read, it was all about analyzing this word or that phrase or this metaphor or that character. We spent all kinds of time on the books and plays that were chock full of literary nuts and bolts, and then we skimmed through the works that went light on the technical side but drove heavy on passion and feeling and emotion. Those were the good books, and we raced right past them at lightning speed. It was kind of disappointing. I think this is why I dropped my Creative Writing major. I just couldn't bear the thought of sitting in another literature class playing "Where's Waldo" with Jane Austen. I love books, but I have my own low-brow, unscholarly way of sucking the juice out of a good book that has nothing to do with literary OCD. And so after lots of thought, I settled on a Religion major instead, because come to think of it, the only books I enjoyed last year in English had powerful spiritual themes that I strongly connected with, and of course, we never discussed that in class because it wasn't going to be on the exam. When I enjoy a good book, it's because I sense a sincerity and an honesty that comes off the page, and more often than not, there is also a spiritual beauty that comes with it. So when I fall for a book, I go to a place where words don't have the stamina to follow. You know that place where only music and paintings and love can catch you? I go there when I read a book that touches me, so basically my reaction to literature makes me absolutely useless in the conventional classroom setting. Sorry. But it does make me perk up in a religion class, because spirituality is one of those things that goes to places where only music and paintings and love can catch me. So that's how I came to the realization that if I stick with Creative Writing, I would be signing my own death certificate.

All right, so I went through that long-winded story just to get to this point: that after all this hooplah about wanting to protest my Theatre and English grades because I thought I deserved better scores, I have decided that I am in fact going to leave sleeping dogs lie. I am not going to protest my scores. They are my scores, and at this point, there would be no other reason for me to protest them except for sheer pride. And I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars getting my tests rescored because of pride. That's not who I am. Getting better scores will not make an ounce of practical difference in my life. I already have my IB diploma. I did not receive a failing score in any of my exams. It will not get me any more college credit. There is no purpose for challenging my scores. I don't need the extra drama. I'm just going to leave it. It stays. Come to think of it, my scores actually do rank the level of passion I had for each subject. Apparently foreign languages are my thing. And that's a good thing, since I'm going to have to know four of them if I want a PhD in Religion. I'm headed in the right direction in college, and IB is so far behind me now. I got what I needed from it. I got my credits. And now I have to move forward, none of this ego-trip shit. I've got to let go.

So that's lesson 1.

Lesson 2 (if you're still breathing after reading all of that. Feel free to pause for a snack/bathroom break/nap.) The second lesson I learned from yesterday's phonecall was that I still have problems with guilt. This is strange to explain, but basically, whenever people are extra nice to me, especially if I don't really know them, I feel guilty inside, like I didn't deserve their kindness and now I have to pay them back somehow, but I can't because I'm this horrible sinner and they are so pure. I know it doesn't really make sense to someone who doesn't have this problem, so I'm sorry if it sounds obscure. But I was talking with my mom about it last night, and I think I finally found out where these feelings of worthlessness and awkwardness come from. When I was younger, I went to a Christian school for eight years, from kindergarten to seventh grade. I can remember being very small and going to the chapel services once a week. Sometimes the lady who told us a story would read from the New Testament, which basically guaranteed that we would be hearing about how much Jesus loves us. On the other hand, if we we were getting a lecture from the Old Testament, that basically guaranteed that we would be hearing about how much God hates us. Essentially, the New Testament told us we were good, and the Old Testament told us we were bad. Really bad. I mean, the Old Testament is basically a really long list of who beget whom and how bad they were. It's a book of every sin imaginable, and then on top of that, whoever was reading from it at chapel would stop to tell us about how we as human beings are an abomination to God because we are all so sinful and evil and full of darkness. I distinctly remember hearing the image of the "dirty rags" repeated over and over again. We were all dirty rags that were born into sin from sin and would die in sin, and none of us deserved to go to Heaven because of how bad we all were, and even God was disgusted with us, but because he has this mercy, then he will forgive us and let us into Heaven, but only if we accept the Christian teachings as the only teachings. I remember being a kid and never really being sure if I was "saved." I would pray and ask to be saved, but how was I supposed to really know? I didn't get a receipt. I didn't know what was going on. All I knew was that I was a really horrible person and I didn't want to go to hell, but I still didn't know if I wasn't going to hell because every time I asked to be saved, it never really felt like anything changed. And eighteen years later, I finally figured out that the reason why nothing ever felt like it changed was because all the crap I had to put up with in Christian school had nothing to do with spirituality and everything to do with appearances. But the main thing is, even after I left the church, the guilt stayed with me. And it's only now that I'm starting to unravel the knotted ball of yarn that is the crap I got fed as a little kid. So basically my problems with guilt probably stem largely from being repeatedly told what a horrible sinner I was and how I didn't deserve any of the grace that God gives me. Eventually this concept would translate into me thinking I was a horrible person who didn't deserve any of the kindness that anyone else (earthly or otherwise) gave me. The funny thing is, I've been doing nice things for people since I was small, and I never expected anything in return. I've known the concept of unconditional love forever, even if I didn't identify it as such until recently, but for some reason, no matter how good I tried to be to others, I always saw myself as bad, because according to the church, good works mean nothing if you're not a Christian. According to the church, apparently Gandhi and Buddha and Mother Teresa are probably going to hell because they were not Protestant Christian. I'm sorry but that is just absolutely the most ridiculous bullshit I have ever heard in my entire life. I always thought so, even when I was small, but I was so scared to think so that I ignored it. But I wasn't crazy. That was bullshit. I always wanted to ask someone at my Christian school: if God made everyone and loves everyone, then why did he make all of these people who aren't Christian and who might never hear about Christianity? Why would he make all of these people just to send them to hell if he is supposed to love them? Only about 30% of the population is Christian, so 70% of Earth is going to hell? Those numbers simply don't make sense. Well, it would make sense to the sadistic god of the Old Testament who is apparently one straw away from obliterating the population for the second time, but this wouldn't make sense to Jesus. And I like Jesus. I'm not a Christian, but I don't think Jesus came here to start a religion. I think he came here to teach people how to be kind to each other. So I honestly don't think Jesus would care what religion I was. So I like him.

So I've talked a heck of a lot today. I probably could have summarized what I had to say in two paragraphs or less, but I guess I'm not in a concise mood today. Ah well.