Ironing out the kinks

Let’s be honest, I’m not the best person to handle stress. I need my sleep, I need to relax, and I need to have breathing space. In contrast, I am a ridiculous overachiever, I’m way too ambitious and passionate, so my need for relaxation is pretty much ignored. I also take things to heart.

So when I’m told I’ve been rejected by a university on the basis of not having sent in all the materials they need, it stings, because I know it’s not my fault, but I know I could have done something about it had I not been so otherwise busy.

Here’s the deal – my school’s pretty bad with prioritizing. They treat their senior-most students like children and barely trust them and practically invite disobedience, which pretty much starts off this whole cycle of resentment that can be pretty suffocating for a person who just wants to get through her last year in a not-very-good school.

AKA everyone. 

Furthermore, our guidance counselor is not only that – she is a biology teacher as well as manager of the events committee. As a direct result of this, she is never in her office when anyone needs her. And I’ve been needing her pretty desperately over the past, oh, 4 months or so.

I’ve had to figure out absolutely everything on my own that pertains to applying to universities. Things that were set aside for the counselor to fill out were filled out by me. I had to sit by and practically dictate my own letter of recommendation which was suitably self-gratifying, I can wholly assure you and seethe with anger as she made announcements in our Sixth Form Center about the merits of being on time. 

And the one thing I’ve needed from her, as well as the heads of the Sixth Form, was not taken as a priority because of Inspection Week, also known as Let’s Fake How Awesome This School Is!

It’s not even like it’s something I can write by myself. I ran through the entire school, tracking down teachers and retrieving my predicted grade from them, then rushed back to hand the form to the head teachers so they could type them up and put them under a school letterhead and give it to me to be faxed to universities. No, really. It’s that easy.

But being from a school like mine, nah, it really isn’t. A week in and I go to the teacher who was meant to handle it and she sheepishly tells me they have other priorities, what with the Inspection Week coming up.

Other priorities rather than, say, helping one of their students get into universities. And myself being such an idiot, reply that it’s okay.

A day in, and I come home to an email from a university I dearly loved saying that my applicant file has been closed due to them not receiving all the materials they needed.

I don’t often use the word anguish. My general emotions are limited to ecstatic, content, angry, and exhausted. But I was in actual anguish and misery and I let myself wallow in the pain of being short one university. Then my father did the best thing that could’ve happened right then and yelled at me, and called out my “loser attitude” and told me to stop wallowing. So I straightened up and decided to get myself organized and got hit by the realization that I’m my father’s daughter. That reaction is the same way I would react to someone in my situation. I would get angry and yell and order them to stop their wallowing and do something.

Cuddling with my dad later and remarking as such, he was sympathetic and said, “Often, you don’t do the things you prescribe for others.” It’s true. That’s why you need company, even if you’re the best advice-giver in the world, because no one will ever take their own advice.

It was a good reminder. It was even better seeing my friends in solidarity with me, raging in comments in my facebook status pertaining to the whole scenario, and plotting the downfall of the school with glee. Normally, I try to stay away from causing trouble but this is too much. I can take many things, but I cannot bear the jeopardizing  of my future. I’m far too ambitious to allow that.

I feel good, today. I feel ready to tackle any other obstacle with affirmative action, starting with a project that refuses to be done and over with.

Besides, I feel pretty. That helps a lot.