Halcyon

You see, one day, I woke and realized that none of this mattered.

21st January 12

That instead of trying to get good grades, what I really wanted was to get back on my feet and try to find the passion to learn again.

And when I say learn, it’s not just the “memory-this-for-an-exam-and-forget-it-after” kind of thing. I mean, falling in love with the mere idea of knowing something new, being interested in the mundane. You see, my four years in high school with all the bulk of a top-notch scientific education made me forget that.

When I was younger, I used to read books, hard bound text books, cover to cover. It was for no real purpose, besides that I liked it when things started to add up. But for a long time, all I’ve been doing it memorizing and applying. Never understanding. Never knowing what all this stuff about Galvanic Cells, or Electromagnectic fields is for. I think that was a big problem. I couldn’t learn anything if none of it made sense.

I refuse to be a product of a failed system, where students are more concerned with beating the system rather than really absorbing what it’s supposed to teach us. And I have brilliant teachers who have so many things to teach me, more than just the flowcharts, economics or polarization, who have to keep up with the same system where we memorize formulas and equations and theories, but don’t know how to relate it to things, what they’re for or how we’re ever going to use them in life. I know there is so much more I can learn from them, and I know this because there are many instances in class, especially in Econ when I find myself at awe with the lectures no matter how difficult the exams are.

Now, I’m trying. Slowly, and maybe I won’t get much of it at all. Maybe, I can’t make my grades catch up, and maybe, some of them will slip further down the failing mark than before. But before I leave high school, I want to remember what it’s like to pursue a knowledge bigger than myself. I want to remember what it’s like to know.

And maybe, with this kind of thinking, I wont graduate. It would take me longer to get things, long after the exams for it are over. With all the subjects thrown at us all at once, you can’t expect us to absorb all this right away, even if we’re said to be some of the brightest minds of our country. I want to take time for myself. I want to decide to make these last few weeks count.

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