So this summer I took 2 classes at UIC. My goal was to get 2 A's and my mom held me to that. But as I checked my final grades to day, I was disappointed to see 2 B's. I couldn't explain exactly what had happened that made me fall short 1 letter grade from my goal. And then my mom kept inquiring why I got too B's and blew the whole ordeal out of proportions. I tried to explain what I didn't even know. My mom then accused me of being lazy and not working hard. I went to class every day. I did pretty good on my exams. For one of the classes we also had a group project at the end. I guess my group mates must have written me shitty reviews. Had it been a personal assignment, I would have gotten an A. My mom didn't believe me at all and kept inquiring and prodding me with so many questions it became like flies on a piece of shit.
I absolutely detest people inquiring me about certian things like my grades. She just kept nagging and my patience was wearing thin. I said "you must be stupid" cuz my patience wore out. And then she yelled at me and knowing how my mom can be petty or start crying if I yelled back (past experiences), I chose to back off and run down to my room in the basement. But on the way to my room I kicked a laundry basket out of anger and it broke. And here I am writing about this petty argument. Okay sounds like another dumb story right? Lets go back further and explore why this issue demonstrates another reason why I feel like my worth is highly correlated to my GPA.
Coming from a family where my mom and dad are both teachers, they always emphasized academics and grades. When I was little it was always "do your homework!," "do more homework!", "don'y play so much!", "have you reviewed for your exams?!" yatty yatty yatta, you know a bunch of bullshit like that. To my parents, I was always a failure, a disappointment. I was not an academic type, but my parents didn't care. They told me education was the only way out for them back in the old days in China. I can understand that. I mean most people in the world go to school for a good education so that they might have brighter future. People know that so im not going to elaborate. They kept drilling that mentality in to my head. They kept comparing me to my other friends and said I was dumb compared to them. In certian areas I have self esteem issues. As a child being compared and told you are dumb and stupid really hurts. I guess my parents didn't care enough to know how I felt. In high school, it was a struggle. I never got good grades. they were mediocre at best. I couldn't tell you the many nights I stayed up to do math homework while my parents called me stupid and retarded (in Chinese) cuz they would try to explain a math problem and I wouldn't get it. They forced me to stay awake to do my homework. When I got my math exam results back, I had to lie or delay letting them seeing the results as much as i could. I knew they would be angry and yell at me again.
I never got encouragement for doing well either. It was like they expected the A or whatever accomplishments I felt were pretty good. My hobbies weren't acceptable to them. Never got a good job for drawing (which I liked). Had my novels ripped in half when I was little cuz I read well into dinner time. No encouragement whatsoever for perusing healthy interests as a middle schooler. I brought shame to my family at gatherings. I wasn't worth anything. I swear sometimes my parents wanted other people's children to take my place and they just wanted to get rid of me. I do not over exaggerate. This was a fact.
Coming from a family where my mom and dad are both teachers, they always emphasized academics and grades. When I was little it was always "do your homework!," "do more homework!", "don'y play so much!", "have you reviewed for your exams?!" yatty yatty yatta, you know a bunch of bullshit like that. To my parents, I was always a failure, a disappointment. I was not an academic type, but my parents didn't care. They told me education was the only way out for them back in the old days in China. I can understand that. I mean most people in the world go to school for a good education so that they might have brighter future. People know that so im not going to elaborate. They kept drilling that mentality in to my head. They kept comparing me to my other friends and said I was dumb compared to them. In certian areas I have self esteem issues. As a child being compared and told you are dumb and stupid really hurts. I guess my parents didn't care enough to know how I felt. In high school, it was a struggle. I never got good grades. they were mediocre at best. I couldn't tell you the many nights I stayed up to do math homework while my parents called me stupid and retarded (in Chinese) cuz they would try to explain a math problem and I wouldn't get it. They forced me to stay awake to do my homework. When I got my math exam results back, I had to lie or delay letting them seeing the results as much as i could. I knew they would be angry and yell at me again.
I never got encouragement for doing well either. It was like they expected the A or whatever accomplishments I felt were pretty good. My hobbies weren't acceptable to them. Never got a good job for drawing (which I liked). Had my novels ripped in half when I was little cuz I read well into dinner time. No encouragement whatsoever for perusing healthy interests as a middle schooler. I brought shame to my family at gatherings. I wasn't worth anything. I swear sometimes my parents wanted other people's children to take my place and they just wanted to get rid of me. I do not over exaggerate. This was a fact.
Where as they think negative motivation would help me to do better, to overcome, they failed. It backfired. After years of being compared and being labeled a disappointment, I had enough. I didn't care. I refused to care. That's why during freshmen year of college, I was put on academic probation at U of I. I had 1 B, 2 D's, and 2 F's. My parents were pissed off and things were looking bad. I mean any parent paying for their child's education would be pissed. No matter what I did, in the end it came down to my GPA. As this point I felt more worthless than dirt. After being drilled that your GPA is your measure of worth as a student, you can see why I felt like shit. My parents threatened to stop paying for my education. No matter how hard I tried to break the chain, I couldn't get far at all. It was like the world was saying to me "you aint shit, nor will you ever be." Life was despair. Granted I tried and did improve a bit, but it was never enough for my parents. I will always be inferior in my parents eyes. They raised a defective product. They said since I was a communications major, I was going to be much poorer than the rest of my friends in the future. They said while my friends will contribute to society, I will be a useless person, probably scraping by life, not wealthy, no excess, just barely scraping by. They considered "communications major" to be "soft" and not worth anything. All three previous years of college, this has happened. All of high school this has happened. Sometimes I question if I really even forgave my dad for all the emotional pain he caused me as a child even though he has passed away.
If GPA was the actual measurement of someone's worth, I'd probably be a piece of shit. my current GPA is a 2.41 and many of my friends have 3.5's or above. Compared to them, I always feel inferior and less intelligent. When people ask me what my qualities are, often times my mind is blank. There is nothing for me to brag about. So I come up with bullshit answers for them. You can blame my parents for this. Where my self esteem in severely lacking, my parent's criticism did not help one bit. Every grade that was not an A was my mom or dad thinking I was lazy, too busy playing games, or partying to hard. Even an A minus was "why the minus? why not A or A plus?". Even my mom's jokes about my decent grades have turned to this. It is a pretty sad life I am living, where every moment I am awake, it is a reminder that I suck as a human. That no companies will hire me. That I will probably end up on welfare or dying in the streets.
I mean what the fuck is this world that we live in? People with 3.0 or below GPA are shunned and not consider for internship opportunities. Students with higher grades get more attention. Students who get stellar scores on standardized tests get more attention. They are labeled smarter than the rest and they get a clear edge over life than those who don't. People like me are left outside of the limelight. No one really cares what other skills you might have, if your GPA aren't at a certian standard, no one cares about you. Unless you were a prodigy at something. What else do I have left? After college how will I find a job? I have no internship experience cuz my GPA was such shit, I couldn't even imagine trying to apply. Where as all my other friends and classmates were interning and making bank, I was sulking at home, thinking of how fucking useless I am. When they were networking, I'd be taking summer classes to help me graduate on time and still getting chewed out for getting 2 B's.
This whole emphasis on my grades and GPA was so important that my parents ignored my other qualities( which I doubt I even have). Overlooked. Ignored. Deemed worthless. Deep inside, I harbor this hate, this dark burning inextinguishable irrational hate for everyone and everything better than me. I hated my friends. I hated my parents. I hated the world one point in my life. I thought to myself why did God create me to be such a piece of shit? Why did the world invent GPA as a measure of intelligence? Of worth? I mean most of the stuff I'm writing doesn't reflect reality. The world is much more complicated than my petty feelings and views of the world, but to me, this is reality. This is the nightmare that I am living in. A nightmare with no escape, where I am inferior in all aspects of life. A nightmare induced by my parents that have consumed and is sill consuming my sanity. A nightmare where the monster chases me around and keeps saying "You ain't shit".
And I am paranoid all the time when it comes to academics. I tell people my story and I always think in the back of their minds they are laughing at how stupid I am. When other people's parents tell me its okay, I think they are lying and putting up an appearance. They are probably thinking "this kid is retarded and if my child got half the bad grades Kesan got, I would whoop their ass." I even became suspicious of the parents at church who told me things were okay. I think they are all liars. I think my friends are liars too for telling me its okay. Nothing is okay. When you are in my nightmare, you will know the true meaning of despair. Granted some of these things are my fault but to deny the mistakes my parents made in me turning out like this is just unfair.
I can foresee the immediate future. My mom will once again yell at me for breaking t he laundry basket. Had she not inquired my about my grades and said how much of a disappointment I am, this would have never happened. But it'd be my fault cuz im the piss of shit son with the horrible B's and a anger issue who just wanted to break things to break things.
I can already feel the bullshit in the air. My mom will deny any accusations of what I have documented here. But she has long since forgotten about my childhood terrors. But I remember clearly. I am the type of person to bear grudges well after the fact. I do not forget. 1 more year of college. 1 more year to prove myself or fail. 2 more semesters of GPA calculations and that dreaded A-F scale of measure. So please, take your GPA comparison else where. Never mention what your GPA is in front of me. Next time it might just be more than a laundry basket I break.
If GPA was the actual measurement of someone's worth, I'd probably be a piece of shit. my current GPA is a 2.41 and many of my friends have 3.5's or above. Compared to them, I always feel inferior and less intelligent. When people ask me what my qualities are, often times my mind is blank. There is nothing for me to brag about. So I come up with bullshit answers for them. You can blame my parents for this. Where my self esteem in severely lacking, my parent's criticism did not help one bit. Every grade that was not an A was my mom or dad thinking I was lazy, too busy playing games, or partying to hard. Even an A minus was "why the minus? why not A or A plus?". Even my mom's jokes about my decent grades have turned to this. It is a pretty sad life I am living, where every moment I am awake, it is a reminder that I suck as a human. That no companies will hire me. That I will probably end up on welfare or dying in the streets.
I mean what the fuck is this world that we live in? People with 3.0 or below GPA are shunned and not consider for internship opportunities. Students with higher grades get more attention. Students who get stellar scores on standardized tests get more attention. They are labeled smarter than the rest and they get a clear edge over life than those who don't. People like me are left outside of the limelight. No one really cares what other skills you might have, if your GPA aren't at a certian standard, no one cares about you. Unless you were a prodigy at something. What else do I have left? After college how will I find a job? I have no internship experience cuz my GPA was such shit, I couldn't even imagine trying to apply. Where as all my other friends and classmates were interning and making bank, I was sulking at home, thinking of how fucking useless I am. When they were networking, I'd be taking summer classes to help me graduate on time and still getting chewed out for getting 2 B's.
This whole emphasis on my grades and GPA was so important that my parents ignored my other qualities( which I doubt I even have). Overlooked. Ignored. Deemed worthless. Deep inside, I harbor this hate, this dark burning inextinguishable irrational hate for everyone and everything better than me. I hated my friends. I hated my parents. I hated the world one point in my life. I thought to myself why did God create me to be such a piece of shit? Why did the world invent GPA as a measure of intelligence? Of worth? I mean most of the stuff I'm writing doesn't reflect reality. The world is much more complicated than my petty feelings and views of the world, but to me, this is reality. This is the nightmare that I am living in. A nightmare with no escape, where I am inferior in all aspects of life. A nightmare induced by my parents that have consumed and is sill consuming my sanity. A nightmare where the monster chases me around and keeps saying "You ain't shit".
And I am paranoid all the time when it comes to academics. I tell people my story and I always think in the back of their minds they are laughing at how stupid I am. When other people's parents tell me its okay, I think they are lying and putting up an appearance. They are probably thinking "this kid is retarded and if my child got half the bad grades Kesan got, I would whoop their ass." I even became suspicious of the parents at church who told me things were okay. I think they are all liars. I think my friends are liars too for telling me its okay. Nothing is okay. When you are in my nightmare, you will know the true meaning of despair. Granted some of these things are my fault but to deny the mistakes my parents made in me turning out like this is just unfair.
I can foresee the immediate future. My mom will once again yell at me for breaking t he laundry basket. Had she not inquired my about my grades and said how much of a disappointment I am, this would have never happened. But it'd be my fault cuz im the piss of shit son with the horrible B's and a anger issue who just wanted to break things to break things.
I can already feel the bullshit in the air. My mom will deny any accusations of what I have documented here. But she has long since forgotten about my childhood terrors. But I remember clearly. I am the type of person to bear grudges well after the fact. I do not forget. 1 more year of college. 1 more year to prove myself or fail. 2 more semesters of GPA calculations and that dreaded A-F scale of measure. So please, take your GPA comparison else where. Never mention what your GPA is in front of me. Next time it might just be more than a laundry basket I break.
