Every time I hear The Shins, my little heart goes pitter-patter and I get twitterpated

On Monday and Wednesday afternoons we have our discussion section for differential equations. On Monday I left right after the TA explained that we'd get our midterms back on Wednesday, and today I left immediately after mine was finally returned. It was another nice day, so I went ahead and took my sweet time as I flipped through the test. The thing is, I already knew my grade (57/60, if you care not to scroll down), and how that was the highest possible score I could get since I simply wrote "I haven't a clue" as my answer for a 3-point problem. Obviously that meant there was no reason for me to look at all of it.

Except for ego. Sometimes I hate to admit that. Not because I'm necessarily ashamed of having a rather large one, but because my love of it means I have something in common with Ayn Rand. Blegh. To this day it frightens me that Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard both have scholarships available in their names, and that I had at one point or another considered applying for them.

It was so satisfying to just stare at my work. Sometimes I do that with what I write too, but I feel like that has a more universal cathartic effect than staring at well-executed mathematics. Then again, it might just be the extension of the same feeling into another language. All I know is that once I'd finished looking through my exam, I started over. That's the power of ego.

I also sat for two examinations today, as mentioned described below. After talking with my friend David when I ran into him, my recently re-read differential equations exam in hand, I learned that one of the answers I was so confident about on my globalization test was at least partly wrong. That was deflating and demoralizing. Suddenly lots of things that I don't even remember must, by necessity be called into doubt. I'm just grateful that I have mad test-taking skills; I can't imagine how much more pronounced every miniature bout of sort-of anxiety would be if I weren't a battle-hardened veteran of the test.

The discrete math exam went splendidly, though. I am hoping for and expecting a 105. And whether or not my ego is dominant when I get it back, I'm going to read over it thrice just to keep up appearances. And then I'll blog about it and radiate in my own self-admiration.

In all honesty, though, it is a frightening thing sometimes to be good at taking tests. Not for the insufferable reason that my own talent is astounding, but because sometimes you worry about what you really know. Sometimes it's impossible to fake knowledge, and sometimes it's impossible to fake a significant amount. I don't care to consider what these things might be, but I'm sure they exist and that I've experienced them to some extent. But to BS was high school's great secret--at least that was the popular thing to say. I know that I tried my best to be genuine in tests, but I had no qualms about pulling out the old can of obfuscating shit if I thought it would help. Even when you don't need that can, though, sometimes you just learn things for the test. What do I really remember? Especially in economics. I'm retaking a microeconomics class right now because of UT's rules, and its content is very similar to the one I took at GW, but I cannot get by in that class if I just coast on old knowledge. That is an unfortunate and unpleasant and terrifying reality. I have the skill-sets to teach; skill-sets to learn economics at least intuitively; do I have what it takes to learn economics and then teach it? I didn't have much work to do at HCC when I tutored there this fall, and I spent much more time than I wanted to referring back to the book and being unsure.

Even for a man with such an overwhelming ego, this knowledge is humbling. Sometimes I have to remind myself of these things to stop my confidence from turning too much into arrogance. Truth be told, though, that terrifying reality deflates my ego a great deal more than anything can ever inflate it. I love my ego, and I love your ego. I would sooner let him run wild than destroy him, and I will always err toward the former if I can. As unbearable as that may sometimes make me, it always means I am me. Being secure in that reality helps me deal with the terrifying ones.