A New Year

Obviously, it's not New Year's yet. That's all the way in January and we're not even done with August yet. I'm talking about a different new year. The one that marks a student's life with dread. The new school year!

*cue horror music*

Let's face it. As students, the majority of us measure our years by school year instead of actual calendar years. In addition, every new school year we tell ourselves the same thing. I'm going to get good grades this year. I'll work harder.

Does it ever actually happen? Um, no.

This year it'll be different. I whine and gripe all the time about how hard math is and how I hate math and how I'm stupid. Frankly, negativity is my thing. But I've been taking an SAT prep class during the summer and I'm horrible at it. I get the most wrong answers in the class and whenever the math teacher calls on me, I have no idea how to answer his question. This class is helping me, though, and hopefully after this ordeal I'll be able to get the SAT score I want.

I'm learning from this, and not just how to "attack" the SAT. Whenever I start to feel hopeless and stupid and frustrated, I stop myself and think I'm good at math. I'm learning. It sounds ridiculous, but it helps. It clears my perfectionism because it reminds me that it's okay not to understand because I'm learning.

Everyone's been raving over positive affirmations for a long time, but I was always too much of a downer to join them. This school year, I'll use them.

This school year, I'm going to ace my courses (including math and AP Bio). It's a new year, it's a new start.