Stay humble.

My pride's fractured. Midterms have come, gone and left me with honors in one class but barely passing grades in the two others, an imbalance that makes me question my ability to do well in graduate school. There's a long list of things I didn't do this block that I should have - review my notes more often, spend less time reading and more time internalizing the material and working on practice problems, work on my rote memorization skills, tie concepts together rather than attempt to learn every fact as an independent piece of information. It's only now that I'm learning how to study for these classes and probably shouldn't be worried unless I fail the second block of exams - then it will be time to panic - but for now I think that I'm all right.

Except that I'm not sure of myself.

I was eager to prove something, to manufacture some sort of understanding between the faculty, my peers and I that vindicated my acceptance into this program. Somewhere along the way I placed impressing my colleagues over understanding myself and have paid a heavy price for it. In retrospect I figure this is part of growing up; figuring out your own way of doing things and not relying on the words of others or transient opinions to shape your methods. At the end of finals the only thing that really matters is the number of questions you missed and how well you remember the information; worrying about whether or not people hate me and talk about me behind my back has almost no effect on performance.

So.

I'm going to shut up, quit having such a high opinion of myself, withdraw into a solitary womb and get through this. I think. Keeping to myself will be the easy part - mastering how to ace these difficult classes will be another battle entirely.

Stay humble, everyone.