The bubble

Took that stressful histology quiz today...got a 20/20. I missed two questions (confused "ground substance" for "matrix" and completely forgot what collagen fibers were) but answered the 2 point bonus question (transitional epithelium) so I evened out.

Let me tell you about the bubble. The A bubble. Lots of people know about this, probably, but I'm just finding out about it now, since I used to be a B/C student. The A bubble is a delicate balloon of perfection that starts out innocently enough but snowballs into a tightrope of pressure and stress.

In the A bubble, I have all As. The number of points I've lost in all three of my classes can be counted on one hand. I love that. I kind of wish I'd done it sometime before my thirties. But, here's the thing: the harder and longer I work to keep my A, the more stressful it becomes. If I keep an A until now and then blow it on one test, what then? The chances of my getting it back are slim to none, because the trick to the bubble is: once it pops, there's no repairing it. Whereas if I was a perfectly happy B student, all the pressure is off.

Is this making sense? I'm delirious I think.

Anyway, I love being smart. I've always been smart, but I've never been that big of a fan of utilizing my brains. It's kind of a cool thing and, whether or not I actually end up in funeral directing (more on that later), it's been totally worth going back to school just to do it right the second time around.