The Storm on a Sunny Day

The weather is fine outside, but as someone cleverly mentioned yesterday- I don't like the Sun. Perhaps it is because the brightness outside juxtaposes the darkness I feel within. The sky is mockingly blue.

I never thought I'd sound this bitter. This is meant to be the happiest period of my life. School is pretty much over, I have a high enough university entrance score, I'm doing classes which require next to no effort--- and even the classes where it does require effort, I'm with all my best friends and my favorite teacher. Nothing much can go wrong--- or so I thought. Then my UMAT score came. Look, I thought it was okay. I honestly do. Unlike most people, I wasn't overly emotional. No tears, no cries--- not even a sniffle. I blinked, and thought to myself, "oh, okay". Then I went back to doing whatever. Then the reaction of my parents came into the equation, and shit went down.

Remember that girl who I keep mentioning--- the girl who goes to the same school, shares some of the same classes as me and whose mother is a complete and utter bitch someone who I do not like very much? Well, as it turns out, I scored higher than her in the UMAT. No, I'm not bragging (not my intention), but this is the girl who my parents use against me in every single conversation about school. Only because we live close to each other, and the fact that she smashes me in maths and chemistry. So last night at the dinner table, my parents were howling about my UMAT score, and about how all my friends beat me--- and then I said, "well, I beat _____". I'm terribly sorry to have said that. That was... truly... not very nice. Not that I'm generally "nice", but that... is something I wish I hadn't said. It was basically me acting like my parents--- and that is almost the last thing I wish for in the world. Of course my parents then yelled that "WE DON'T CARE ABOUT ______"--- and from thereon I was too distracted to feel bad about what I had said (though I feel bad about it now). Don't care about her? How about you guys stop mentioning how she's better than me at everything then?  Argh. But of course they don't care. I know they only care about me in the end... it's just that their efforts to give me a little bit of pressure and competition so that I try harder... I'd say it's had an adverse effect, and it's made me more edgy than I'd like to be.

Then more stuff happened that night, I'd rather not relate. Parents kept on telling me it was my gaming, that I never took anything seriously, and that they wouldn't be so angry if I'd given it my best shot and then failed. Well, though what they said is partially true, that is, I didn't do as many practise papers as I possibly could have---but they have no right to say that I didn't give it my best shot. I had improved tremendously those 2 weeks of practise I had--- there was this section of UMAT which I scored in the 40th percentile in--- then over practise it rose up to the 70th percentile. On the actual UMAT, I scored over 80th percentile in that section. Considering how I have absolutely no talent for non-verbal reasoning, I'd say it was a rather solid effort. My parents don't know how I got up at 5.30am to do practise papers, so I could avoid the server crash on the site. As for my other sections--- one section remained a steady 85-95, the other one ranged from 60 to 100, depending on how pissed I felt when I sat the exam. The only section I "failed" was the section which appeared solely dependent on my mood--- I do remember being upset on the actual day of the UMAT, because of my Dad being a douchebag in the car (as usual). God knows I hate travelling with him to school in the mornings, and how much I hate driving with him.

Look, I could technically blame my UMAT "failure" on Dad. The one section I wasn't good at, I worked to improve. I could argue that it was Dad who trashed my mood (like he always does) and thus caused me to fail the mood-dependent section of the UMAT. But I'm not going to blame him, because unlike my parents, I don't blame others for my own failure and I don't take stuff like this out on other people. I know I'm responsible for my own actions. Like, he made me feel bad on the day, but he wasn't the one who took the test. I was the one who read the paper, thought about it, and chose an answer. I'm willing to accept the consequences of my own actions.

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I'm going over to a friend's house to get a breather. Hopefully I don't have to come back until late night. This house is suffocating me.