I got my mark back for my most recent prose submission. 66/100. Another 2:1 but not a distinction. I have two more opportunities to get a distinction and I don't know if I can pull that off.
After the whole debacle that was last Sunday's class, I don't know how I feel. There is still rage somewhere, and underneath it all, I do believe it is the ugly face of competitiveness rearing itself. I put my competitive streak to sleep after losing a race in secondary school. I used to be a member of the athletics team, and I was one of the fastest runners on the girls' team. But when I lost a race, something in me lost interest. Something broke away and I think it has affected my life from that point.
I lost interest in being part of anything, if I knew that eventually I would be outed for someone better, faster, more talented. I hated people asking me if I was going to win a race, when ultimately it wasn't really up to me, or my talent. It was up to the Powers that Be and they seemed to have decided what I would accomplish and wouldn't accomplish from thereon.
Something about the girl from last Sunday's class, her rudeness and I take it genuine glee at having me removed from the course reaffirmed something I always knew but no longer cared about: she viewed me as a threat. I had genuinely assumed that because I didn't care about winning or being seen as better or greater than anyone else, others would follow suit and take on my 'whatever attitude'.
I see my grade as a small victory, because I wrote the assignment in 2 hours. I also see it as the first thing to spur me into action and unleash my real competitive streak. I assume this is what the PTB want, me to lower myself into the self same ugly human mentality of I am the greatest, all shall see me and love me.
I see that as usual university is no place for real friendships just backstabbing situations and barely concealed jealousy. I am fed up of the jealousy; it sounds like arrogance on my part, but what else would you call it when someone openly turns everything positive you offer to them in friendship into negative derision?
Maybe, the PTB punished me because life is not something we are allowed to treat lightly, with a que sera attitude. Maybe we are all meant to be competitive, merciless and jealous. At the age of 15 I learnt to walk away and bury my insecurities so deep I don't even think about them. But maybe, I am supposed to get angry and push, and fight and demand the best. Demand greater. Expect greater.
It's just that I never really thought I'd want something so banal, as to be ordinary.
