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	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. sandglass 2011-04-17 01:05 am UTC (link)
	Reading is hard! I've heard people theorize that it's better to be a B student (for averages, obviously) because B students are better at having a good balance of work, social lives, relaxing, etc and aren't going to burn out or be badly obsessive or anything. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. franzen 2011-04-17 01:21 am UTC (link)
	I heard something similar about students with high, but not 99th percentile, standardized test scores -- smart, yes, but also prepared to work and they understand that good grades and performance don't come easily. It's the kids who coast who get smacked with the reality stick when Shit Gets Real. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

chibikaijuu
2011-04-17 08:01 am UTC (link)

Yeah, that's basically what happened to me (I also had/have pretty severe inattentive ADD comorbid with anxiety and chronic moderate depression, which, uh, didn't and doesn't help). I never, ever learned how to study or properly outline and revise an essay because if I actually did my work, whatever I turned out on the first try would garner an A or B (in fact, I regularly got higher marks on papers written at 2 am the night before than on the ones I actually started a few days ahead of time). Anything that actually required running through exercises to learn (math, chemistry, foreign languages) I generally did well in because my brain likes that sort of thing overall, so doing it was often kind of relaxing (I took a symbolic logic course in college basically for kicks - four credits of A for work that made my brain shut the fuck up because it was busy instead of ragequitting? Hell yes.).
Then I got to college, did well for about a year, and then shit got hard. What do you mean, I can't just read three chapters of organic chemistry the night before and ace the test? I'm doing better, with therapy and medication, but I'm still working on my undergraduate degree six years in. God, do I know a lot of unrelated crap, though.

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

napalmnacey
2011-04-17 11:53 am UTC (link)

One psychologist thought I might have ADD cause I have the same problem you have. I'm painting some paintings for an exhibition that's next week. I had a year to do it. I had some mental stress and personal life stuff blow up in my face, but I got to doing it. But it's ending up that it's all being crammed withing a month of the show.

I always fail my courses because I can't concentrate long enough to do the homework. Shit, even when I paint, something I'm obsessively in love with, I have music playing and my laptop nearby if my brain needs a break.

For years I just thought I was dumb. :(

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

chibikaijuu
2011-04-17 06:55 pm UTC (link)

Sometimes I kind of wish people had just thought I was stupid, because I didn't get diagnosed with ADD until I was 20, so I spent all twelve years of ordinary schooling basically being constantly berated (in a nice, "helpful" way) for not getting straight As. Not that I was literally yelled at for not getting good grades, or that my parents ever indicated that they specifically wanted As, but every year I got to have at least one conference with a teacher/counselor/administrator about how well I would do if I just applied myself, and why was such a bright girl who knew so much not doing her work? My responses started out as tearful "I just forget about it" but eventually turned into "because fuck you", because I was just so utterly sick of hearing the same thing over and over, and trying to understand why no one understood that it was really hard for me to remember, and to just sit down and do an assignment (plus I eventually had myself convinced that homework was stupid, and why should I do it if I could learn the material without it?)

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

napalmnacey
2011-04-17 07:29 pm UTC (link)

Dude. That was me. At school. EXACTLY. I got so fuckin' tired of people trying to tell me how to remember things. Especially the daily homework diary thing. I had one in high school. It didn't work, because I'd forget to check the frickin' diary, or I'd forgotten to write the homework down because I was late for my next class or I had to get to the canteen to get food before I fainted, or because I just plain, plum forgot.

I used to have huge problems with maths, though, and I still do. I suspect I may have dyscalculia.

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

squeakytoy
2011-04-18 02:00 am UTC (link)

every year I got to have at least one conference with a teacher/counselor/administrator about how well I would do if I just applied myself, and why was such a bright girl who knew so much not doing her work?

Oh man, does this ever sound familiar! Every year on my report card: "Squeaky is a very bright student who would do exceptionally well if she only applied herself to her studies..."

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

arachnejericho
2011-04-18 04:09 am UTC (link)

Every year on my report card: "Squeaky is a very bright student who would do exceptionally well if she only applied herself to her studies..."

Oh my gods, is that what they write?! I bet they write that so that they have some way to look like they're being critical.

My parents took everything my teachers said literally, and this would explain why my father beat me even after good report cards unless it was straight As. I always wondered why A-'s got the B+ beatings. Oh hell.

For the record, Scott Adams and my father seem to think very much alike.

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	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. white_tean 2011-04-18 11:26 am UTC (link)
	Mine too! I mean, especially during primary school. Who needs to apply themselves in primary school? It's practically impossible to fail! So saying, going to university has basically transformed me into the teacher's pet, because now I'm studying things which I am interested in so applying myself is really not a hardship. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

derryderrydown
2011-04-18 05:32 pm UTC (link)

Hell, yes. I eventually stopped going to school because lessons went so slowly that I actually started yanking my hair out from boredom. And it didn't help that my teachers all decided I wasn't doing homework because I found it too hard, so tried to slow things down even more for me.

I still have the same problem, when I have to go on training courses for work. Give me the book and a lab, and I will whizz through it and I will understand it. Make me sit through a training course and my brain will switch off and I'll be back to yanking my hair out.

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

schrodingerscat
2011-04-17 09:31 pm UTC (link)

This is pretty much me exactly. ADD combined with chronic depression combined with discalculia? shit got hard once I got to college. The classes I cared most about were the ones I got the worst grades in because of homework that I couldn't concentrate on, and got worked up about when it built on something I should have learned in high school but didn't. I'm doing much better on the ADD front now that I'm at a school that follows the block plan, but it's taking me a while to get through.

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

ekaterinv
2011-04-17 11:13 pm UTC (link)

That sounds a lot like me, except I cannot stand exercises because they bore me silly. I need stuff I can think about from different angles, and I need to be made to write about it. I coasted through all of school getting top grades the whole time, and did the same in the first couple years of undergrad, then classes started to take work at the same time life blew up in my face.

I also have a really hard time remembering stuff. I keep meaning to get screened for ADD, for instance, and forgetting :P.

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Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

braidedmane
2011-04-18 03:05 am UTC (link)

Anecdata says: yes.

I didn't have to work at all up through high school. I didn't do homework, I didn't study, because I could just show up and ace the tests. Unsurprisingly, I crashed and burned when I hit college. While I think I've done okay getting my life back on the rails (after all, it was always expected that I'd get a degree! It never occurred to anyone, least of all me, that I'd fail out/drop out.) I do wish that I had needed to work harder throughout school, because I would have been prepared to buckle down for college without losing my shit.

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	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. derryderrydown 2011-04-18 05:36 pm UTC (link)
	This seems to be such a common problem - it's one I had, too. I never had to work, so I never learned how to work, and when I hit A-levels, it all exploded in my face. What do you mean, I have to know stuff for exams, rather than just understanding it? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

beccastareyes
2011-04-18 09:47 pm UTC (link)

Adding my name to the list, though competing in math and science in middle/high school clued me in to this problem before I crashed hard trying to get a math degree (and again in grad school -- I picked myself up both times, with a lot of help, and recovered, but man, that hurt). And the lack of study skills made it hard to correlate when I got good grades since I didn't have an organized approach to anything.

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	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. vzg 2011-04-19 01:10 am UTC (link)
	That's me! 99th percentile and I'm working for minimum wage at a fast food place. Yay. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button.

sqbr
2011-04-19 10:58 pm UTC (link)

I don't think it's just that naturally academic kids can coast, there's a psychological trap of defining yourself as Someone Who Gets Good Marks, and the older you are when you have to question that identity the harder it is to figure out how to motivate yourself once you either stop getting good marks (or stop getting them as easily) or are no longer in a context where you get "marks" at all. My anxiety about failure meant I worked moderately hard at school despite naturally testing well, and this just meant I didn't have to confront the spectre of mediocrity until my Phd. And then that stick hit me hard.

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	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. tofuknight 2011-04-22 02:09 pm UTC (link)
	OMG, you described some of my issues perfectly! Except I hit the stick at terminal velocity very early in the PhD process and am just now finishing the (mostly) unrelated degree to do something I've now found I love after years of therapy. This thread makes me feel so much better about myself; I hope it's helping others, too. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. sqbr 2011-05-02 09:24 am UTC (link)
	Yes, there's nothing like realising that other people share your seemingly weird issues :) (Sorry I took a while to reply, life got in the way, as it so often does) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. tofuknight 2011-05-02 09:36 pm UTC (link)
	No problemo! Hope life is going well! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: Thank god this is UFB because something about this hits my rage button. sepiamagpie 2011-04-17 03:53 am UTC (link)
	Say that to my mom. Whenever she gets a B, the drang and sturm starts up like whoa. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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