12th grade

I guess that I failed to live up to the opportunity cost expectations, as Cheri broke up with me the day before I took the October SAT (I got a 1430). It would be safe to say that getting dumped ruined the year for me. The problem with completely devoting your life to someone is that if they leave you, all you have left is memories. I was utterly disappointed with myself, because I figured that since she was unhappy with me, there must be something wrong with me. Many hours of therapy later, I came to the realization that it wasn’t my fault; I gave it my best and it just didn’t work out. If everyone fit perfectly well together, there wouldn’t be any singles.

Beating myself up about getting dumped certainly reflected badly on my grades during the first semester of 12th grade. But that was nothing compared to second semester. There were a few factors in play. First, my dad decided to take a semester long sabbatical in Boston and my step-mom had come with him. Second, I had gotten auto-accepted into the University of Minnesota so I didn’t feel nervous about college. Finally, what the therapy couldn’t fix was the fact that when I went to school, I still spent unbearable hours in class with Cheri. So I stopped going. I missed homework assignments and tests; I didn’t even write one of the three major papers in my Theory of Knowledge class (although I got an A in the class and the teacher later praised the paper that I never wrote). When my parents came home and saw that I was failing most of my classes, they were shocked. My dad took me to a doctor because he thought that there must be something wrong with me. I wasn’t sick – I just didn’t care about school and knew that I wouldn’t end up failing any classes because I could make up the work that I had missed. My teachers were pushovers. For example, I missed a test in history class and my teacher gave me an oral exam where she just read test questions at me and expected me to answer them. I probably missed half of the questions, after which the teacher gave me a 90/100 since, in her words, “You usually do so well!” What was I doing with all of the time from skipping massive amounts of school? Playing computer games. I had nothing else to do.