Brains, Exams, and a Broken Laptop

Everything’s going fine—well, mostly. The printer’s down, but nothing a quick re-calibration won’t fix. School’s been school, meaning there were a couple of tests this week to keep things interesting. Algebra and physics. My best subjects outside of school, but somehow the second I sit down in a formal exam setting, my brain decides to clock out early. It’s almost impressive how quickly I can forget things I use daily.

I walked out of that test completely annoyed with myself. Not because I didn’t know the material, but because my brain chose the absolute worst time to play a game of "let’s see how many silly mistakes we can make in one sitting." At this point, I’m just hoping for a Merit. Excellence? Yeah, nah. But then, right after, I turned around and fixed someone’s laptop in under an hour. Because apparently, when it comes to solving actual problems, I can do just fine—just not when the answers are supposed to go in little boxes on a test paper.

And speaking of being actually smart… I know she’ll roll her eyes reading this, but from my perspective, I think she’s a lot smarter than me in a lot of ways. It’s not even just school stuff (though she’s definitely got me beat there especially when it comes to biology). It’s how she thinks, the way she sees things differently from me, and how somehow she always manages to be one step ahead in ways I don’t expect. Maybe I overthink things too much. Or maybe it’s just like those exam questions—I get caught up in the wrong details, while she’s already figured out the answer. Either way, she makes me rethink a lot, even without meaning to.

At least there’s no test for fixing laptops or understanding people. If there were, I might actually be in trouble.

73,
Daniel