In high school, my grades remained consistent, but there were others there who of course were much more intelligent than I was. And that was ok. We would turn to each other for help sometimes. I was still somewhat of an uber student: Italian Club pres, National Honor Society, Italian National Honor Society, volunteer work. My ACT scores were good. I think it all started to go downhill with my SAT's I cried when I got those scores. No more Duke University for me. I couldn't get into McDonald's Hamburger U with my SAT scores. So I chose my second choice school, got my scholarships and away I went.

So here I am in college. Things are NOT going as planned. First year was ok. I somehow through the grace of God managed to keep a tenuous hold on a B+ average, just enough to keep my scholarship. Then summer school happened. I was always a slow learner in Math and I needed to catch up. So I took College Algebra. I failed the course. Really failed. With an F. That means FAILED!!!! What in the world happened to uber student? So this semester I was really going to buckle down and work hard. Yeah right. I fear that I may have failed Statistics this semester. I CANNOT fail two classes. How am I ever going to get into grad school with two big, fatty F's on my transcripts?

My stomach is churning with the thought of it. How do I explain to my parents? How do I justify it to myself? I know that in ten years no one is going to care what my grades were like. But I will. I have failed myself. I can pretend that my brain functioning has changed, but the cold hard reality is that I've just gotten lazy and don't want to do the work. The new semester starts in two weeks. Wish me luck and pray that I can get my uber student status back. Not because it's important to grad schools, but because I have worked hard to get where I am and I should work just as hard to stay here. This isn't about a stupid transcript, it's about the promise to myself to be the first one in my family to graduate college, and the promise to make the most out of every experience that comes my way.

Love,
Supersteph